New or old life?

As we wandered around the golf course, talking about life, one of my friends started talking about coping with life after the death of a spouse.  Most of my friends have been in long term relationships (over 40 plus years) with their partners and as we age the loss of a life partner is a serious issue for us.  My friends realized that I had to consider this possibility when my wife was    sick few years ago, and were thus interested in my views on the topic.

One friend said," I don't know what I would do." 

"After the mourning you would have a new life", one of my other friends suggested

 "I don't, know if I would because I would still have my old life"  he replied. As we continued to  play golf, we talked about the issue of trying to reconnect to our old selves.

Our golf course wisdom after about 9 holes,  was that after 40 plus years in a relationship a person really were not sure who they really are or want to be because for most of their life, they have been in a partnership and as such the person did not look at life as an individual might. That sense of unease of being uncoupled and the sense of loss would unsettle the journey to find one's self. 

One of my friends went on, "I would still have the same people who depend on me, I would still have the same issues at work, My own personal demons would still be there, but now I would have to fight them on my own. How would I know it is time to move on, sell my home and move on and start a new relationship." 

We were not able to answer that question but as friends we just listened, pretended to think and tried to look wise, and soon the conversation drifted back to the latest shot and how beautiful the day was--(my friends and I look at life's serious issues, but only for very short periods of time,as I think do most men of my age :-). 

The conversation got me thinking about change and renewal after the loss of a spouse. Change is hard and coping with life after the loss of a loved one of many years is not easy. After 30 to 40 years in a relationship, how does one start the process of reconnecting with yourself as a single?  For those of us  in long term relationships we have for 30 years or more have not considered ourselves as a separate entity, our life has been intertwined with another.

Joan P. Hubbard, is the author of The Grieving Self and she believes that those who can reconnect and reconstruct their independent self after severe loss will experience emotional healing more quickly and begin a new path toward a viable life. In her forward Hubbard writes, “Grief is a journey most of us are destined to take. We will experience grief at a loss of our physical parts or the abilities of our bodies to perform, the loss of important relationships (family and friends) through death or attrition, loss of jobs and opportunities…loss of some aspect of what we know to be our self.”

The Grieving Process consists of five steps:
1) Denial
This first step is when we try to deny the death of our loved one, or in this case, our spouse.
2) Anger
You'll probably be angry at your spouse for dying and leaving you. Or, you'll be mad at "the world" because it happened.
3) Bargaining
Bargaining usually is tried with God, or another spiritual being. You may ask what you can do to reverse the loss of your husband or wife.
4) Depression or Sadness
This step of the Grieving Process is self-explanatory. Besides feeling depressed or sad, you may still feel angry.
5) Acceptance
When you've reached this level, you will have accepted the fact that your spouse has died. The feelings of anger and sadness that you've had have begun to ease up.

Here's a tip to help you decide when you are ready to move on, after your spouse dies: if you don't complete these five steps first, you won't be ready. Easy to say, tough to remember if you are in mourning.

You can't start reconnecting to yourself and begin a new life while you're still grieving for your late spouse. Mourning will interfere with beginning any healthy, happy relationships. Mourning is not measured in time, nor is it a sequential journey. Once the mourning has finished then the work or reconnecting can begin. Part of the process of finding a new life, is the discarding of the old, very hard to let go for most. 

Friends are important in the process and true friends will allow for the trial and error that happens as we try to see where we now fit. As we move toward finding out who we now are, we may go through some interesting and (to our friends) strange journeys. I believe that in this journey we will make mistakes, but the journey, the mistakes, are needed to find our balance.