Any and Everything

June 25, 2025

It’s funny. I never really think about actually having a conversation about loss. It isn’t that I avoid it, but I guess maybe I do. I tend to gloss over it in a way. I was raised in a way that if there was a tricky topic, we just typically avoided it. That is a complex concept to shake. Tonight on Spaces, we aim to talk about “Life Beyond Love.”

In short, it has been traumatizing. I have to say that is probably due to being widowed at almost 19. Well, that was the first time. I was far too young even to have been married, to be honest. I wish I had listened and waited. I was so very stubborn back then. I still am in a way. Robert and I got along fantastically, but at the same time, we didn’t know who we were. I had no clue who I was back then. What teen does? I will say teens tend to think they know everything. That lasts until we realize we don’t, and our parents were right about some things. For me, that was my mid-thirties. And by that time, I realized I didn’t know anything about anything.

Life after a loss like that is chaotic. Looking back now. I was in shock from the day he killed himself. I could not process the information that I was forced to process because I had no tools… no references on how to feel. So, I went into a sort of shock. I never stepped foot in that house ever again. I was numb emotionally, I still am at times, and I shut down. At the same time, I did my best to portray that I was normal. I was not. I was going through the motions of living but not living. I don’t even recall when the funeral was, I just glided through all of that numb. I don’t even remember picking out the coffin or much of the service. I do know I stayed at the gravesite till they finished burying him. I couldn’t believe he was gone and unprepared to accept that. I may have stayed a bit after it was a foggy time for me. I tried to throw myself into my friends. I put on a good show because I looked like I was ok from the outside, but I was far from okay.

My mother could tell I wasn’t right, but growing up in a very unemotional household, I don’t think she knew how to help me. She tried her best, but I retreated within myself, and I guess I thought if I pretended to be fine, I would be one day. I thought about him probably every day for the next decade or more. I met Josh when I was 20. And I quickly trauma-bonded to him. Looking back, I think it is because I had actual emotions around him. I felt. That is hard to admit, but I do believe that is why the trauma bond was so deep. You go from feeling nothing but pretending you do to feeling. It is torture. Then, welcome to the fact that I had a newly developed fear of loss… I pretty much accepted any treatment because of that. What an astronomical mistake on my part.

I remember the day I decided to let Robert go. My youngest was less than a year old. So, this was a little over 10 years ago. I was at the beach that Robert had taken me to initially. Everyone was asleep in the beach house. There was a full moon, and it was amazing out that night. I took a bottle of red wine and a blanket to the beach at about 1am. Then, proceeded to have my last come apart. I just decided it was time to let it go. The peace and sadness that I felt that night were different for me. Come to think of it, that is when my marriage started to fall apart as well. I think it is because that is also the night I began reclaiming myself. I decided that I needed to get to know myself. It didn’t happen all of a sudden; it was prolonged.

Now, I don’t think that could have occurred at any point of my choosing because if I had a choice, it wouldn’t have taken me so long. I had to be ready, and I just wasn’t until then. I wasn’t prepared to let anything go. I tend to hold on to things far longer than needed. But, I suppose that is a common human affliction. Josh never could understand why it was hard for me to move on. There was so much unfinished business. When Robert killed himself, we were not in a bad place; it had nothing to do with us. He was going through something with his family. So the things I learned that night, the things I overheard, like when the police were telling my mother he had two bullets loaded in the gun… paired with his insistance that night that I come home and not have dinner with my mom… that was hard for me to process becuase I knew what they were implying. My mom was very, very adamant that I stay for dinner. She was not letting me go home. She had no clue that Robert was being a bit erratic. I didn’t tell her until I got a barrage of crazy messages. She suggested I call in a welfare check because the last one he sent was ominous. I did just that. I was called back by an officer who asked if he could enter the premises because no one came to the door. I gave permission. Not 5 minutes later, I was called again. I was asked to go to the residence. I knew at that point something was wrong. I wondered why, of course, and he wouldn’t tell me over the phone. My mom drove me there, and I was greeted at the door with what had happened. That was the only time I recall losing my mind in front of people. I lost it. The denial was so strong for weeks after that, I had a recurring dream that it didn’t happen. I slept in my sister’s bed for at least 2 months… probably more honestly. I would go from my sister’s bed to her bathroom, and there was a spot right by her tub that I would sit and cry for hours every day. I guess I thought it would all just go away. It didn’t. I had to learn how to reassimilate myself, how to hide the pain to appear normal again. I did try to go out, but that is how I experienced my first of many panic attacks. I would be forced to go somewhere with my family, and I would feel okay. Then, all of a sudden, it would be like a mountain of emotions flooding me all at once. I was unable to breathe because the anxiety that pressed upon my chest was so heavy. My first thought was, “I need to get out of here,” but I couldn’t move. That happened a lot for a long time.

I did go to therapy. It took me a while to open up, though; by a while, I mean years. I tried for a very long time to come out of the shock. It is strange living in your body and not being there simultaneously. That is the best way I can describe it. It was a daily struggle to act normal because I didn’t feel normal at all. I felt so numb, like a shell of a person.

With Josh, the loss was different. I hate to say that I was “seasoned” at that point because there is truth in that, but simultaneously, the circumstances were different. We had been together 18 years. I was prepared for his death because it was not sudden, but I have to also pair that with the fact that we had been living in a separated state for almost a year when he came home on hospice. I had been gaining a semblance of emotional independence at that point. I think I accepted that loss before he died. I did what I could for the girls in preparation for his death. I put them in therapy a while before he passed because I knew loss at that point, and this was to be their first. It has still been rocky, but I believe that helped a bit. Plus, their therapist is a fantastic woman. I can’t thank her enough for being their “other adult.” They need that.

I will say the abuse that I went through facilitated my ability to process that loss, too. Our whole marriage wasn’t bad, but a lot of it wasn’t good. Looking back, it was a horrible cycle. The more he drank, the worse it got. I was not perfect in any of that. I did a lot, too. I also realize that my part was very reactive. Towards the end, I was very resistant and didn’t comply often. That usually made the abuse worse, but he and I both knew that what we had was coming to an end. I was determined to break the trauma bond. I didn’t know that was what I was doing; I was just emotionally and physically tired at that point. He was a heavy alcoholic, and no matter how many times he was hospitalized or went to rehab, he wasn’t quitting. I couldn’t live that way anymore. I just couldn’t. It was unbearable. Had there not been a trauma bond, I would have left that situation a lot sooner than I did.

I still remember the first time it got physical. We had argued about something I can’t remember, and I bent down to pick one of the twins up from her swing. He pushed me into a table. It was one of those tables with a fine edge, and I hit it. I had to go to the hospital that day. They were able to glue my forehead shut, and I didn’t have to get stitches that time, but I told myself he didn’t mean to. I don’t believe he meant for that to happen, but he meant to push me. Not two months later, he would do it again, but this time, I would need stitches. It progressed from there. He was just an irate person, the alcohol abuse was slowly getting worse, but wasn’t nearly as bad as the later years. I recall grabbing biscuits on a trip, but not long after, I handed him the biscuits “wrong,” and he threw them at me in the car. Looking back on instances like that, I have to ask myself how long the emotional abuse was going on without me noticing. That was the first time I saw it. And then I became accustomed to it.

If I were to get into all the nitty gritty of Josh and me, I would be here all day. I could write a book on it, honestly. I don’t feel like delving into all those because it got so much worse. That added up to why I knew it was time to get out. I hate that it took me so long to realize it, but my children were my backbone because there was an incident, and I saw that it would start to bleed over to them. I guess I was okay in some sick way with me being treated like that, but I was not OK with them being mistreated. I won’t get into it right now, but a pivotal incident made me put my foot down, and I was done. I took one of the worst beatings that night, but it was worth it because that was the day it was over and for good. It wasn’t the last physical assault I endured by any means, but it was the one that I let him know I was not staying in this over. And he knew I meant it. Once I healed, I went without his knowing and started getting papers drawn up. I was moving in silence but with intent.

So, the second time I experienced being a widow was very different from the first. My ability to process that loss has been different in so many ways. I had to process that loss long before he died. It wasn’t easier, but it was at the same time. I guess maybe I had adjusted to the notion that it was over. I didn’t know he was going to pass away, nor did I want that. His cirrhosis was coming, but he suddenly got sick. He had been told for years he needed to quit drinking, but at the same time, I wasn’t aware that it was the end till it was the end. I had not exactly prepared for that part. At the same time, I will always love him as a person because he was the father of my children. My trauma bond was gone, and I was not “in love” with him. I didn’t file the papers only because he was sick. I remember towards the end, when he was in the hospital before he came home on hospice, he had said, “So we aren’t getting a divorce,” and I affirmed to him that we were not. I don’t know how he took that, but it gave him peace. I tried to make that as easy on him as possible. I knew what the end held, but I am not sure he did then.

Loss is such a topic for me. I think I am sort of spent on talking about it right now. It has just been on my mind. Well, how I personally have coped with and processed it has been on my mind. Obviously, this is due to the topic tonight. I am sure we will get deeper into that later. It will be interesting to hear other people’s experiences, not just with death-type losses but with all losses in that realm.

It is almost 6 a.m. I have to get life moving today. I hope you all have an amazing day! This is kind of a rushed rendition. I will get deeper into it over time. There is just a lot, and I don’t always feel like delving into it deeply.