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My husband died today

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I am glad that your sister is there with you. I understand about dreading the silence.

You have lost your soulmate and have been together for many years so it is only natural that it will take you a very long time to get used to being alone, especially if you have never had that.

Very understandable.:hug:
 
My sister decided to stay because she's not feeling well. It's been a busy couple of days despite that. I don't mind the company but there are the times I actually wish for silence; she's constantly "doing", if it's not talking she's making some kind of "noise" or other or moving about. My hubby never moved that much in this house!

The dog has taken to spending his evenings whining demanding my undivided attention; I think he's trying to tell me when he's overwhelmed too, lol. The hard part is that evenings are usually him and me time, playing seek or snuggling but now I'm usually talking with my sister, so if he's not whining he's attempting to eat his own feet. (Eye roll).

I find myself looking at hubby's empty seat at the table each night and when he's not there I automatically look to the couch half expecting to see him sitting there.

I tell myself now when I wake up in the middle of the night and it's super cold in my bedroom that it's just a sign that he's here in bed with me like he always was. The heat in this house is up higher than normal, there's no way it could be cold in here.

I'm in one of those "I miss him" moods where I can't think of anything about him except small images and flashes that make me miss him so much. And then there are the sobering memories, the ones that seem to make people think there was something wrong about him or our relationship.

Our first Christmas together. I essentially spent it alone. He was working midnight shift. He came home late, gave me my gift (not wrapped), kissed me and went to bed. He slept in, wolfed down some turkey, kissed me and left for work. Merry first Christmas together.

After I lost my job because of the PTSD, I was already used to Early Christmas or Late Christmas, we shift workers don't have normal lives like everyone else. I always made sure to make the day special in some way, special breakfast, packed turkey dinner for work; I always made sure he still had his Christmas.

Last year he was off, I think...yes, he was. My sister was here. We opened gifts and had pancake breakfast then early turkey dinner because my sister had to leave that day.

I was annoyed with him. I wished every year for just one special Christmas, just one where he'd surprise me with a thoughtful gift and not something I'd written on my list. I always prayed that one day he'd know me well enough to get me something spontaneous rather than expected. I also wished he would put a little effort into it too, like actually wrapping the gift. Last Christmas I woke up like many Christmases before, with no present under the tree for me. I was upset and seriously annoyed that he didn't give much thought to my Christmas. 20years of it and I don't know why it was bothering me so much last year.

He got up from the couch and said, "Oh yeah, I should go wrap yours." And I had snapped, "Why bother now?" He seemed sad after that, then he felt bad after he opened his gift from me. I ruined his last Christmas on earth. :(

I want to do it over. I want to apologize for every time I got angry or frustrated with him. I want him to know that despite my mood, I still loved him. I never once didn't love him.

I miss him so much.
 
I did my daily post to my hubby on fb today and then promptly burst into tears looking at the picture of us together.

I laid on the floor with the dog today and thought of that final night with him, how we lay there; I got him an air mattress to lie on so he'd be more comfortable. I was behind him rubbing his back and hugging him.

How could he still die after that!? How could he just walk away from our life together!? How could he leave me alone!!??

I hate Christmas. I hate wishing people Merry Christmas - there's nothing merry about it without him here.

I want my husband back!!!

Uggh, it hurts so much sometimes I feel like my heart is going to explode.

I just want him back. Why did he have to own a shotgun!? Why!!?
 
I want to do it over. I want to apologize for every time I got angry or frustrated with him. I want him to know that despite my mood, I still loved him. I never once didn't love him.

I still do that and I am going on four years this coming May. It hurts so much sometimes. I hate death. But I think that I need to be kinder to me now so I am trying not to beat myself up anymore or torture myself this way, it really accomplishes only heartache for me anyways.:hug:
 
:hug: You are SO right...being kind to yourself is TOTALLY what your heart needs. I have a gut feeling that your husband would tell you to do EXACTLY that.:hug:

I have dealt with major depression my whole life. I remember, not long ago, my distorted thinking caused me to doubt that my life had value and meaning. I thought that the people who love me, and the people that I love, would be better off without me. The feelings passed, but there were some really dark days.

The way you describe your husband, it sounds like he was probably depressed, but didn't want to admit it. Guys are good at putting on the "brave" face, and marching forward, ignoring their feelings. Maybe he knew that he needed to reach out of his comfort zone, but couldn't imagine how that would feel? It sounds like he wasn't one to express deep emotion, so it may have been frightening to imagine actually doing it.

Taking GOOD care of yourself, is surely what he would want for you. As EMT's, treating people well, was a huge part of what you and he did, and did WELL.

What would he have told a patient who was feeling deep depression? I think he would have told them that they WOULD be able to feel better, with time and work.

Maybe he had tried to "will" his emotions to be what he WANTED them to be, and not what they were. You've mentioned that he seemed to have "left" at some point, and wasn't "himself". In a way...he WASN'T himself when he chose to go. He possibly felt that he had lost himself, and didn't have any idea what to do about it.

Just some thoughts about the distorted feelings that come with depression. Possibly, he was angry at himself for not being stronger? Didn't know where or how to begin?

Those who LOVE deeply, GRIEVE deeply. It STINKS, but loving deeply, and loving WELL, is living fully. You loved, and still love him DEEPLY, and you still LOVE him WELL!:hug:

I think you are doing some really hard emotional work, and deserve to be treated kindly, tenderly, and with compassion and understanding. You have COURAGE, and the will to keep moving forward, even when it is beyond difficult to see very far ahead.

((( :hug: )))
 
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My sister went back to work today. I'm glad but I'm also very lonely right now. It's quiet again in here and even the dog notices because he keep coming over and whining at me. I've fed him, walked him, played with him, petted him, did a training session and STILL he is whining and acting bored! Last night all he was doing was sitting on the floor listening to us talking - well, mostly her talking about her work people and their lives like I know those people but still, it was another voice in this house.

I just wrote a letter to my hubby in my private journal. I was angry at him. I asked him if he even loved me anymore when he decided to shoot himself. I asked him how stupid he could have been shooting himself over some stupid physiotherapist who didn't even know what they were talking about. I told him I was still confused and angry and sad because I'm alone now. He didn't know how hard it was for me just to meet him. Since I met him we isolated ourselves from other people, it was always just us. I have no clue where or even how to meet another person, so I will be alone and sad for the rest of my life. I can't see it any other way. I can't see me, with PTSD now, being able to suddenly be this friendly, outgoing person when I was never that to begin with - that was my "work persona", it wasn't me, it was something I put on. I get afraid now when people want to know more about me, I get suspicious and paranoid. I shut down. I push them away. I stop doing the activity I was engaging in that drew their attention. I was never a social person to begin with.

I told my hubby that I was angry that he would leave me when, once when we were fighting, in our early days together, he screamed at me to just "get out then" but when he found me packing my bags later, he went screaming into the spare room crying and carrying on about how I didn't love him, how he knew I was eventually going to just leave him! He threw himself on the floor and started smashing his head on the garbage can and screaming that he couldn't live without me. I stayed. I'd never felt so sick in my entire life for making someone feel that badly...and I was just doing what I thought he wanted me to do! If he thought my packing my things was easy on me, he was so wrong, I didn't want to leave, I had nowhere to go and my heart was shattered because I thought he didn't love me at all. Then he did that and I felt confused and upset and extremely guilty.

I wrote to him and asked him why when, on one of our anniversaries, I admitted that I was really drawn to him right from the first time I saw him and I loved him so deeply from early on ( even before we slept together!), why he chose to tell me that he didn't love me from the start, that his love for me took "some time" to develop. Those words broke my heart that night. I was angry with him for saying it. Why wouldn't you just lie and let your wife believe you were in love with her from the start!? Why would you say that to someone? Did he really ever truly love me or was I just a convenience item? Is that why it was so easy to just blow himself away? Because he had no real attachment to me?

I asked him how f'ing easy it was to shoot himself and leave me forever. FOREVER. I'm not social. I'll never find a "replacement husband". I don't want one. No one else will ever be him. Where would I find someone that challenges my intelligence like he did? Where will I ever find another person who supports me and stands by me like he did? Where would I find someone that could take my shit and still be so damned positive and optimistic? I can't even leave my f'ing house for any length of time on my own for crying out loud!!

How could he have made me waste my time for the past 20 years? He just threw away OUR life together. Not just his, mine too. All of it, everything I did for the past 20 years was a complete waste of time, just tossed to the wind like yesterday's garbage. All of the investment I made in him, all of my emotions, all of my love, all of my effort to keep him happy and content - blown away.

That was my life too!! He was the only bit of life I had left to hang onto, he was the only reason to keep moving forward, the only reason to try to heal. Now I just don't even care anymore. I wake up with no goals save for a list of tasks to do that day. I live from minute to minute with no real future and I don't even care. This is my life now. Breath by breath with no point. Tasks. Tasks. Tasks. Distract and just keep breathing for reasons unknown. I mean, some days I don't even get my tasks done - how ridiculous is that? I had five things to accomplish today and I managed one then spent the rest of the day sitting on my ass "resting" and wasting time.

I hate that my days don't seem different from when he was alive. I lived for his days off of work when he was with me. I "worked" doing my tasks every day, celebrating the little things and being proud of me so that I could get my reward - spending time with him. He was my reward for working on my healing. Now what is the point? He's not coming home anymore! Why do I HAVE TO wash the floor, he's not going to be here to see it. Why do I bother to dust or keep this place up - he's not here to enjoy it anymore.

Maybe I'm triggered right now. I'm angry at him for leaving me. I'm sad and torn up inside. I want to scream and beg the universe to bring him back, give him a "proper" death, like an accident or a heart attack or something "normal". I was shoveling the driveway and repeatedly thinking about how I'm no longer doing it for him - I'm doing it for the sake of doing it. I'm doing it because I hear him in my head saying, "You can't schedule emergencies, gotta keep the driveway clear." I go outside and it's -15C and the air is super crisp and the snow groans under my boots and I think about how those things remind me of hiking with him in the park, how he was always prepared for any emergency, how the wind chill made it so cold your jacket could just shred and the only thing we had exposed were our eyes as we trudged through the snow. together.

I'm thinking about how I go out to the park now and it feels no different and that in itself is really sad because it means we were walking together but not really because I was walking alone in my own head. I was experiencing it on my own, like I still do. Was he even ever there with me?

I'm sitting on my butt typing on the computer, waiting for the text to tell me he's coming home early from work. The house is silent. Like it already was when he was working and he worked a lot. The house is silent like it was for that last year he was alive, even when he was here, he was on his computer or his handheld and all that I heard was the tv. I talked to break the silence, half the time he didn't answer anymore. I felt ignored and heart broken and alone. So, no different that I am right now, except there's no one here to ignore me.

You think I wouldn't miss him because of that. You think I'd be angry at him because of that but I'd give anything in this universe to have him silently filling the space on the other side of this couch right now. I never hated him. I regret resenting his moods. I regret the one day I was in the bathroom silently screaming that I just wish he would go back to work and leave me alone instead of sitting there, acting annoyed at my talking and shut down to me. i'm guilty because I was waiting it out and I was waiting for the "storm" to clear and I wasn't helping him. I knew he needed help but I also knew he didn't want it. He hated therapists, he hated that they were so dense and didn't understand our job and what we had to go through. He hated that they lived in their little boxes and didn't have a grasp on the reality of the world for the most part. He hated that they didn't KNOW. I knew. That's why he always used to turn to me. That's why we always debriefed each other's work stuff. I couldn't do that for him anymore. And it only took 8 years of that to kill him.

Why did he let it kill him? I wasn't a good enough example for holding on? What else was he dealing with? What sh*t was eating at him that made him believe he had to die? Whose fault is this!? I want someone to pay for this.

I want my husband home for Christmas where he belongs!!!! :(
 
Today I woke up and found my driveway cleared of all snow. There were snowblower tracks in the driveway and I knew it had to be my neighbor, the same one whose been cutting my grass and watering my front lawn all year. I was just struck by how kind it was, I've never had anyone be that kind to me ever and as I was in my hubby's room looking out at the driveway, I burst into tears. I just kept thinking that I don't deserve to be treated so kindly, I just lost my husband, it's almost been a year, the driveway was always my responsibility anyway.

Of course, the plow then went by and blocked up the end, so I had to go out anyway. I kept crying while I was shoveling thinking about how I used to shovel for hubby. I cleared that driveway so that he could come home and rest. I did it for him, hours, late nights trying to stay ahead of the snowfall so he didn't have to do it when he got home. I waited up for his text that told me he was on his way. I'd toss on some pants and cold weather gear and hit the driveway - sometimes I'd see my neighbor out there around midnight having just gotten home from work. I didn't bother with it last night. It was really coming down out there but I just left the driveway because there is no one to clear it for anymore, he's not coming home anymore.

It doesn't matter how much I wish, he will never come home again.

I was sitting on the couch listening to Christmas carols today and his favorite came on, Tony Bennett. I burst into tears. I remember him buying that CD one Christmas season when we were out shopping. He said he loved the sound of Tony Bennett's voice. This is why I took him to see Tony Bennett in concert just a few years ago. Tony was 88 then but his voice was still as perfect as it was when he was younger. Incomparable, that's how he described him. It was truly a once in a lifetime thing for hubby.

Pennies from Heaven came on and I cried harder missing him and remembering how last year he was dancing around in our living room, shaking his saggy-assed pants at me while we were watching the movie Elf. How can that have been a year ago already!? He was just here! He was just here!!

I've just spent the past half hour bawling my eyes out, begging the universe to bring him back home to me. We were just sitting here drinking egg nog and listening to Christmas music. He was just singing to me. It can't be a year already, it just can't. He was still silly. He was still himself most of the time. He wasn't so far gone that he wasn't himself most of the time. He wasn't angry ALL the time, he was his happy, silly self. He still laughed. He still danced. He still came up behind me to grab me to dance. He still came up and spun me around to kiss me under the mistletoe - I didn't even bother hanging it this year. He still hugged me and kissed me and told me several times a day that he loved me.

I loved him so much. It hurts so bad. It just hurts so bad.

How could it have been suicide!? How in hell did that happen to HIM!? He was alone when he was dying. He was alone. I couldn't protect him. I couldn't save him. I couldn't make it all better. I couldn't fix this. I felt so damned helpless there. I didn't know what to do other than hang onto that damn truck and not let go. I was literally holding on for my life. I had my face pressed against the cold window trying desperately to feel something other than confused and unable to grasp what his being dead meant. I wanted them to come to me and say, "Oops, it was a mistake, we're taking him to the hospital now." It was -2C that morning and I was out there in only a light jacket, jeans with no long underwear and shoes. I think it snowed at some point too. I know it was windy. I was holding on for dear life because all I wanted to do was let go and run out into traffic and kill myself too. I couldn't fathom him not being with me anymore. We were joined at the hip. We were always together. 20 years. We were inseparable....and he left. He left the house alone. He didn't tell me he was leaving. He didn't tell me he was saying goodbye. He didn't tell me!! He left the house upset and intent on killing himself.

He didn't say goodbye. He didn't say he loved me. He didn't say he was sorry. He died alone. I let him die alone.

It's killing me inside. He was probably cold and afraid and alone and I never wanted that for him. Please tell me he was sorry. I would never have wished that for him.

God, it hurts so much tonight.
 
(((Medic)))
I DO think he was sorry! My gut tells me that he regretted it, when he realized he didn't really want to go. I KNOW you are absolutely sick about his going, and if he had been in his right mind, he would have stayed, and told you that he was beyond sad.

I don't think he could see or feel at all, and that he was overcome with the feeling of being worn out from his physical pain. Constant pain keeps one from ever really resting, and waking feeling restored. It's easy to feel hopeless, and only see pain ahead. I don't know if they were giving him enough relief from his pain...I know Dr's are hesitant these days to prescribe narcotics. If he WAS taking narcotics, he may have gotten more depressed from using them. There is no real answer...and I am sorry. So sorry. You do NOT deserve this pain. NOT AT ALL!

From what you describe, he REALLY loved you! You brought the best out in each other. You loved him BIG and profoundly. I just don't think he could FEEL that, and it scared him. It's got to be SO hard to not to be able to talk to him, and ask him why he did this.

It is NOT your fault! You could NOT have saved him! He didn't give you the chance...maybe he wanted to spare you his pain...not realizing that he was creating a pain much deeper than any other pain in the world. I kind of imagine him being more "zombie-like"...not feeling sad, mad, or anything else. Maybe he felt dead inside, and that was worse than feeling bad? In his distorted thinking, he thought you would be better off. That's why a lot of people suicide. They REALLY think that their loved ones would be better off.

You have mentioned that he had changed. Wasn't responding like he used to. He probably felt that, and didn't know how to get back to his "normal".

You are NOT alone...keep coming here to vent and share. You are in my thoughts and prayers! Hang in there. Remember his love, the way it was last Christmas. You have GREAT memories of a love that was real and deep!

I care!
 
@Medic72 I know how hard it is to reconcile things in our minds when something like that happens, often we try to blame ourselves for what happened. If there was anything you could have done that was in your ability to do to prevent this, you would have done it. You can drive yourself crazy trying to figure all this out, and cope at the same time. There are somethings we may never figure out. The reality is it does not matter if we figure things out, because it won't change anything, and you are like to feel the same way even if you did figure things out.

There are somethings you can do for him even now.

Honor him by being able to move on with your life.
Remember the good times you had with him
Remember and cherish those special moments
Maintain that special place for him in your heart
 
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