I'm so, so sorry to hear about what you've had to go through. Your resilience and fortitude are inspiring. I like CBT as an approach. I'm really glad to hear that it helped you and hope that it will serve you well again now. Thank you for sharing your experience. Like you, I don't have a family of my own. I think this makes it harder.

[@Dexter123]‍ 

All I can say is that you're absolutely an incredible human being. I read this and was just so inspired by your positivity  thank you ️ ️ ️

The kids certainly help to drag you out of that sinking feeling..they live very much in the present. But i am becoming more and more aware that they will not be around forever ,  they have their own lives to live (and my eldest makes it clear she can't wait!). We were looking forward to 'our' time again when the kids were grown...i am sad that will never happen. I am sad about so many things, our whole future life has had to be rewritten. And it's all cancers fault ,  i hate it! The people i am most comfortable around now are those who have also lost someone close (doesn't seem to matter who, they 'get it' when so many of my friends don't. Counselors have their place to get thoughts in order, but i don't really feel they 'get it', have they lost? I don't know, they don't talk about themselves but i suspect most haven't,  i need to be around others that have, whether its online like this or in person,  we are each others best support thru these dark days i think

I lost my wife three months ago, not cancer related but I've been reading this forum and it's all I've really found  that's relative to my situation.

I hope you don't mind me being here, it's getting no easier for me at the moment, in fact it's gotten harder.

I do have great people around me for which I'm really grateful and without them I'd be a lot worse but the pain and the loneliness is sometimes so unbearable that I don't know what to do.

Everything has totally changed and I don't know how to live anymore.

All the normal things that you have to do in everyday life feels so different without my wife doing it with me.

That's without not having her near and being able to talk to her and hold her and feel her.

No more hearing her voice and her laugh or seeing her eyes and her beautiful face and smile, the reassurance of her just being there.

Sorry for intruding on here but I'm really lost at the minute.

I understand what yous are going through and I hope you can find some peace and happiness through all this.

Take care. 

I really feel for you. It must feel as if you've been robbed - robbed of your life partner, robbed of the next stage of your life (or at least the one that you were looking forward to), robbed of the future you were planning for. I'm so sorry. 

I also understand (or at least I think I do) why you feel most comfortable around people wo have also lost someone close. Sadly, I find that even people who have lost their own family members don't always get it, simply because either (a) they assume that I must be feeling exactly the way they feel/felt, or (b) they weren't that close to the person they lost. Part of the reason I post on here is that I'm looking for people who feel, as I do, that they've lost their entire world. These people - people wo are as utterly devastated as I am - can identify with what I'm feeling and that helps a little bit.

Anyway, I'm glad your kids help to lift you up, even if it's only a little. Anything is better than nothing.

Hi, there are lots of us on here who sadly feel your pain, and we are often lost among our usual friends,  most of mine i just don't see anymore,  our lives are too different now...when he was first diagnosed I remember thinking "i wonder how long it will take me to get over this", now I've realized i never will....just learn to live with it and eventually i guess try and make a different life for myself.  For now i take one day at a time, focus on what the kids need mainly, and hope by the time they are grown i will be ready to live a new life for my own sake, but i can't imagine it, and don't want to, alot of things just seem so pointless now... if you're on Facebook there are some good private groups you can join for widows and widowers,  I've found then good support and great place to vent! They are people who definitely get us and how we feel unlike most people out there!

Hi there,

I hope you don't mind my replying to your message - I know you were replying to plebbs (not me), but I couldn't help responding to you because I (believe I) can understand what you're going through. At least I feel I can put myself in your shoes.

I know the feeling of things getting worse not better. That's how I feel too, at times. Not being to see my dad, hear my dad, and feel my dad (I used to cuddle him a lot) is utterly devastating. So I can imagine how it feels for you not to have your wife - such a shock to the system, such a loss, such an enormous void in your life. When you say, "I'm really lost at the minute" that resonates with me because I've felt totally lost for the last 18 months too (since my dad died).

I'm so sorry that the loneliness (sometimes) feels so unbearable you don't know what to do. If i had a solution, I would give it to you. But I don't because I often feel that the loss of my father is utterly unbearable as well.

I'm glad you feel you've got some great people around you who at least help a tiny bit. I'm wishing you strength to get through this horrendous period. It sounds like you had a wonderful relationship with your wife (one that I hope I can have one day).

I know what you mean about some people not feeling it as much, it's almost a bit of an intensity thing in a way, my sister in law is a prime example,  muscled her way in during his last weeks taking over (after hardly seeing him for ages before), now he's gone the kids and i never hear from her, she's busy out and about living her life, got engaged straight after, I'm sure she misses her brother on some level but her life is pretty much carrying on as it was before, ours is not! Our whole world has come crashing down! It's not the same life for us anymore and never will be anything like it again ....and very few people do get that....lucky for them i guess,  wish i still didn't 'get it' either! It really depends i guess on how close you were and how involved with the person you've lost, if you've only seen the person who's gone once or twice a year it's easy to move on isn't it....i do find it's good to hang out with people who knew him well and can talk and reminisce comfortably about him with us. My mother-in-law has become close, she went thru the whole journey with us, attending every appt, bad news after bad news, i know she feels it intensely like me...she also moved in with us to help me in his last weeks (he died at home), I'm more comfortable around her now then my own mother because we've been through so much together  i guess,  my mum really doesn't get it which is nice for her,  but sadly has meant i've received very little support there. One thing that has been really interesting is the people i thought were good friends who've completely vanished. particularly bad are often the ones my husband did stuff for...like the family who's kid my husband took out mountain biking regularly with our daughter....now he obviously can't do that anymore silly me thought they might return the favour! But no, instead they've vanished off the face of the earth! Apart from coming round a couple of weeks after he went to buy cheap his concrete mixer that they were exceedingly quick to point out he no longer needed! hmm.....! Still, we're better off without those 'friends' anyway! It's hurtful though how some people seem to take advantage when you're at your most vulnerable, certainly been a big learning curve for me

Yes - I've often thought that this would be so much easier if I didn't feel as intensely, if I didn't love my father as much as I did. I love(d) him more than life itself. But all that's done is cause tremendous pain. I know people who love lost their parents or loved ones who are sad, of course, but not utterely devastated. They say "It is better to have loved and to have lost than never to have loved at all" - I guess that's true. But it seems to me that love that is so intense (too intense?) just causes too much pain.

It sounds as if you've at least got a few people who "get it." I'm starting to realise that a few is all one can hope for. I think you have to expect most people NOT to get it. Maybe even virtually everyone. Part of it may be self-protection. For somebody to truly "get it," they have to step into your shoes. But stepping into your shoes (when you're experiencing soul-destroying pain, as I am) isn't exactly fun for anyone. I think that I myself avoid it in a way. I could, for example, put myself in my mother's shoes more than I do. She has lost her life partner of 45 years. I have the ability to empathise with her and it doesn't take much for me to feel her pain - all I have to do is think about what she has lost: the man she's spend her entire adult life with, the man she's woken up next to almost every day for 45 years, the person she would do the crossword with in the mornings, probably the only man she's truly loved. It's absolutely heart-breaking even thinking about it. And that's not MY pain. That's hers! But I have so much of my own pain that I don't think I can start taking on her pain as well. So to some extent I don't put myself in her shoes as much as I could. I think there's a natural limit to how much one can, or how much one wants, to empathise with others because we can only take on so much grief (before we're utterly overwhelmed). So perhaps some people in your life are doing that - protecting themselves from the pain they'd feel if they truly put themselves in your shoes.

The only "solution" that I want is the childish, impossible one - to have my dad back.