I lost my dear Philippa 16 months ago to Bowel Cancer and I just cant cope. She was, and is, the love of my life. She and I had a relationship almost 20 years ago which didnt work out for various reasons. She had a daughter already when we met but we couldnt agree on the parenting which led to rows. We split but I never stopped loving her. It was a few years til we spoke again, but speak we did, and not just that we became very close friends. In the summer before she passed we ran the Edinburgh 10k together and she was thriving I thought. We had a trip to the Isle of Harris in my campervan with her young son and we had a ball. I really genuinely believed she had it smoked and was very much winning her war with the disease. We talked a lot about our feelings and that wed never felt a love like it since, and that we still loved each other like no other. I was in another casual relationship at the time but it felt nothing like I felt with my Pip. In no way shape or form did I ever think she was going to die. We never got the chance to discuss it any further as she went downhill rapidly not long after that, and sadly she passed in August 23. She was only 40 years old. I feel that our chance of true love and happiness has been stolen. I feel enormous guilt about all the things we didnt say, all the things we didnt do we were going to do, but most acutely I feel eternally that I let her down. Like I say, I was in another casual relationship at the time which I am no longer in. She was obviously aware of this, but I feel I should have dropped that immediately and did everything I could to be with my one true love and do all I could to make it easier for her. Simply to lie beside her and hold her and help her through her pain. I know she felt lonely. Id give my life to turn back the clock, drop everything and tell her exactly how I REALLY felt. She is the one, was the one, forever shall be the one. She had given me a gift of a book of motivational quotes a couple years before she passed and it had nothing written in it when I recieved it. A few weeks after shed passed I opened the book, and the sneaky wee love had written a note inside the cover on one of her visits and I hadnt noticed, " my soulmate, love you always, Pip". Ive discovered two other notes since. I listen to Kate Bush This Womans Work on repeat sometimes and im just lost. Im wandering through life in a daze, just lost a lot of the time. I go numb for a period of time, then I just seem to dissolve into emotional mayhem. My heart is eternally broken and I dont know how ill cope without her. I am not coping without her. Like the song says, Oh darling make it go away. Ive tried reaching out to "friends" but get nothing supportive back. Same old. Oh youll be fine in time, or, heres hoping you feel better soon. Ill record a voice note for a friend about how im struggling, send it, then delete it a day later when ive had no response. I realise some of these friends are grieving hard too and in turn I feel guilt for laying my feelings at their door when they are struggling hard too. I just do not know how on earth to go on like this. I just want to lie with my girl. I go visit where she lies and i lie down next to her grave and hold her, and in that moment id give anything for the courage to release myself from this pain and eternally lie with my love. What to do? Ive really no idea where to go from here