Expert advice on coping with the death of your spouse or partner.
The death of your partner can leave a big hole in your heart.
Whether you’ve known your partner a few months or been married for 50 years, when your significant other dies, it may feel like part of you is gone too. For someone who has been married for a long time, the death of their husband or wife is “the single event that is most liable to affect the health and well-being of the survivor,” according to Russell Friedman and John W. James of The Grief Recovery Institute.
So, how do you get through the enormous grief you feel when your partner dies? It’s not easy but you can begin to feel better. To help, Legacy offers advice from grief and loss experts on how to cope with the death of your spouse or partner.
The Love of My Life Is Gone
The death of a partner or spouse is devastating, whether you’ve been together five months or five decades. The question isn’t when do you stop grieving, it’s when do you start taking the actions of grief recovery that will help you become emotionally complete.
The Death of a Spouse Can Feel Like Losing a Part of Your Body
The death of your spouse can have a huge impact on your health and well-being. For the vast majority of grieving widows and widowers (of long-term marriages) we’ve ever talked to, the sense of the death of their mate is “like losing a piece of their body.”
How to Make It Through the Night
What about those long hours in the middle of the night when I wake and can’t get back to sleep? Here are 9 tips for surviving long, sleepless nights after the death of your partner.
The Impact of the Death of a Former Spouse
A great many people are affected by the death of their former spouses, and are often confused by the tremendous depth of feeling caused by that event. Many people are surprised and confused by the grief they feel when a former spouse dies.
When Will I Feel Like a Complete Person Again?
The image of only being partially here is powerful, but is dangerous for setting up the idea that life is not valuable without your loved one. After losing your spouse, it’s important to remember that you are still you—even without your partner.
We Were Supposed to Grow Old Together
Becoming emotionally complete in the aftermath of the death of someone tremendously important to you is achieved by taking a series of small and correct actions that lead to recovery. It takes more than time to heal after the death of a partner or spouse.
The Five Stages of Grief
If you’ve ever been through a loss, or observed a friend who was grieving, you probably recognize the overwhelming emotions described in these stages. But you might also be thinking that the grief you’ve experienced wasn’t quite that tidy.