In such a situation, you still never willingly ended your relationship with your deceased spouse. They might not know whether the death is recent or if it occurred a long time ago. You can use it in writing, as well as in formal situations, as well. If you had children together with your spouse before they passed away, you can refer to them as the parent of your children. That way, you can express your emotions more easily, without worrying about choosing your words in the moment. The above are the most common ways people refer to their deceased spouses, but you might come up with your own phrase or version of one of the phrases provided.
Change any of your or your family members' emergency contact information that had your spouse's name or number listed as someone else's primary point of contact. When you lose a loved one, your world is turned upside down. On top of all the grief there are the financial issues that land in your lap. While I would not recommend rushing any major money decisions, some issues just cannot wait. A checklist is a good way to help with the immediate tasks. However, I recommend a financial plan to help with the larger issues, like planning for retirement or evaluating Social Security claiming strategies.
If you are uncomfortable handling the financial responsibilities or need a second opinion, an experienced fee-only financial adviser can help. For more financial planning insights for Widows and Widowers, please visit my website at www. With 17 years of experience, Michael specializes in working with executives, professionals and retirees.
Since he joined Summit Financial, LLC, Michael has built a process that emphasizes the integration of various facets of financial planning. Supported by a team of in-house estate and income tax specialists, Michael offers his clients coordinated solutions to scattered problems.
This material is for your information and guidance and is not intended as legal or tax advice. Clients should make all decisions regarding the tax and legal implications of their investments and plans after consulting with their independent tax or legal advisers.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and should not be attributed to Summit Financial LLC. Neither they nor Summit provide tax or legal advice to clients. Any tax statements contained herein were not intended or written to be used, and cannot be used, for the purpose of avoiding U. Norma felt her conversations with these friends, whether fruitful or not, returned some sense of control.
She realized she could do more than look at the phone and wonder why her friends failed to support her. You may need to take stock. What has changed in your life? Which of these changes is causing the most difficulties? What can you do about them? These questions allow you to assess the situations, times and events that are most difficult for you. Only then can you decide how to adapt to these changes in the way that is best for you. Marge, for example, found that Sunday evenings were a difficult time for her.
Both Marge and her husband worked. Often on Saturdays, they did their own thing—she played golf and he participated in his own leisure activities. Sundays were for church, family and chores. Sunday night was their time—a quiet time to sit, share supper, watch TV and converse. It was Sundays, Marge realized, that were the most difficult. Recognizing that Marge decided to make plans so she would remain active on Sunday nights.
Assess your own strengths and weaknesses. How have you adapted to change and loss in the past? What did you do well? What are some of the problematic ways you have coped in the past that you might now want to avoid?
Who can you count on to help? One of your strengths is the people who offer support to you as you grieve. One of the exercises I do with my clients is that I ask them to make a list of their support system. These are the people that you can go out with or enjoy a movie together but who never will ask about grief. I remind my clients that grief is hard work and like any hard work, we need time off. I often find that when clients complete this, they begin to value their respite friends as well as realize they might not be using their support systems well—asking their doers to listen and their listeners to do!
Finally, recognize that these changes add stress to your life. Taking good care of yourself, getting enough nutritious food, adequate sleep and sufficient exercise, as well as doing whatever you can to manage stress, prepares you to cope more effectively with a now-changed world. Since you are under a great deal of stress when your spouse dies, manage these changes.
The first thing is to be cautious of changing too much too quickly. In the time immediately after a major loss, you might not be thinking clearly. In addition, too rapid a change can add more stress at an already stressful time.
Moreover, a radical change such as leaving work or relocating can remove you from significant sources of support when you need that support most. Some may give you well-meaning advice to simply clear them all away. They may even offer to help. This is part of the individuality of grief. Some may find such possessions too painful to have around. Others may find them comforting. Some may wish to keep items that have particular significance.
Others carefully will choose who should get these very personal legacies. The point is to decide what to do with these items when you are ready and in your own way. It is little wonder that many counselors advise that when possible, try to avoid significant changes for six months to a year after a major loss. However, some changes are after all, unavoidable. Other times the advantages of a change may outweigh the disadvantages.
Mira had relocated with her husband to Florida. However, she decided to return to her former community when her husband died as this put her closer to family and friends. In her case, a change led to, more rather than less, support. Sometimes there are interim or partial solutions that can offer time for more serious consideration. James experienced that when his wife died. Work no longer seemed to offer the same challenge and satisfaction so he considered retirement. Instead he decided to take a leave.
At the end of that leave, he found himself anxious to return to the routine, structure and stimulation of work. The end of grief is not the end of memory. Even in death you continue a bond with your spouse. That bond continues in many ways—in the memories, in the legacies that are left, and the spiritual connections and experiences you have.
Memories are natural, even unavoidable. Think how often a sight or a place, even a taste or a smell, will evoke a remembrance long forgotten. You can no more control what you remember than what you feel.
In fact, as the pain of your loss eases, your memories become more vivid. One of the first signs that you are doing well is that now you can recollect and laugh at stories once too painful to recall. Memories, too, are often comforting.
They remind us of the person who died, bringing the individual closer, even if fleetingly. Memories connect you with others who are living. Sharing memories of your spouse with your children may allow them to see other sides of the person and encourage your children to share their own stories. Even funny and amusing stories have their role. They provide a respite to your grief and remind you of the joys evident in relationships. They are the home fires that warm the chill of loss. Memories can also be a double-edged sword.
Some memories may be painful, reminding us of tough and troubling times or difficult relationships. We can be obsessed over certain memories, reviewing time and again, actions or words that we regretted or other actions or words we wished we had done or said. Yet these painful memories also need to be confronted because only when we fully explore them, can we truly understand them and find ways to release these problematic recollections.
There are other ways you continue that bond with your deceased spouse. There may be legacies. For Josephine, her husband carefully monitored the medications she needed to take to control her chronic conditions. Josephine appreciated that assistance as she often became preoccupied with her household chores. Yet when her husband died she kept the list.
She did so not only for her health but also because she knew her husband cared about it so much. It was a way to stay connected. There may be special ways that you wish to evoke memories. Visiting the cemetery, engaging in private family rituals and remembrances, or offering a contribution in memory of the person are all ways that you help maintain that bond.
Every year she attends an awards assembly in the school where he was once both a teacher and later a principal and awards a prize to a deserving student. This annual event offers Dorothy a time to celebrate the legacy of her husband. Janet offers a contribution each year in memory of Sheila. Sometimes a loss will shatter your assumptions about the world or your beliefs, however deeply held.
Not every loss will do that. Don deeply mourned the death of his wife, but her death did not shake his faith. She died after a fullness of many years, physically frail but mentally intact. She died surrounded by family of many generations. Some deaths though will shatter our beliefs. You may find it hard to believe that there is any meaning to the universe or any point in life. The circumstances of the death or the extent of suffering may make it hard to believe in a benevolent God.
You may feel lonely and abandoned and your faith may seem to offer little comfort. One of the tasks of grief is to rebuild faith or philosophies that have been challenged by our loss.
One of the biggest mistakes you can make during this period is to isolate yourself from your beliefs. You need, instead, to share your struggles within your faith community. This is a time to identify those within your faith communities who can journey with you, who are comfortable in hearing your conflicts and sharing their own.
Sometimes you may have to look hard to search and find those people. For those in same-sex relationships, it may be, depending on the area, more difficult to find welcoming spiritual homes, but it is well worth the trouble to find places that can spiritually nurture you if faith is an important value. Instead, he seemed to offer platitudes and empty reassurances.
Together they studied and conversed. Tom credits those conversations with deepening his own faith over time. Maintain your own spiritual discipline, whatever that is.
Prayer, meditation, ritual and readings are all ways to connect with your faith traditions. Each spiritual tradition and every philosophy has encountered death and loss.
Each has writings that speak to that encounter. Finally, you may find value in reading the spiritual struggles of others. Lewis, for example, writes of his faith struggles when his wife died in A Grief Observed.
Lewis himself was a deeply religious man. Much of his writing reflects his abiding faith. Yet when his beloved wife was dying, even Lewis felt abandoned. His writing not only reminds us that such moments are natural and normal valleys in the journeys of both faith and grief, they also offer insight and suggestions on how to best cope. And they offer hope. After time, C.
Lewis, with his spirit now restored, was able to admit that his own frantic need had shut the door. Sometimes you may wonder if you are doing too well after a loss. Some people are very resilient after a death—even the death of a spouse. Such people have relatively few manifestations of grief and an ability to function well even after a loss. Often these resilient grievers share certain characteristics. These resilient individuals reported few earlier psychological problems or stressors and had good social support.
They had a strong intrinsic spirituality that offered comfort and support. Resilient grievers also tended to have an optimistic mindset—a belief that something good could come from even the worst events. The conclusion to draw here is that you do not need to worry if you are doing better than you think you should be doing. You can be comforted by the positive ways in which you are coping with your losses. Your conduct simply reaffirms that loss touches each person differently.
As you deal with your own grief, keep in mind that others around you such as your children, also are grieving. Remember that as you care for them, it is critical to take care of yourself. In fact, how well you function in your grief will play a major role in how well your children, especially younger children, adapt to the loss. Remember that everyone grieves in his or her own individual way. In time, you may be open to developing new relationships.
In the immediate aftermath of a loss, you may be especially needy and vulnerable, so it is critical to be cautious. Remember, your children may be at different places in their own grief, so gradually and reassuringly introduce any new relationships.
Whenever your spouse dies, it alters a host of relationships. Your relationships with your children will now be different, as you may have to take on new roles in their lives—in effect, being both mother and father. Relationships with other relatives such as in-laws and even friends, may change as a result of the death. But for most people, the intense pain will lessen. There will be good and bad days. You will know you are feeling better when there are more good days than bad.
You may feel guilty for laughing at a joke or enjoying a visit with a friend. It is important to understand that can be a common feeling. There are many ways to grieve and to learn to accept loss.
Try not to ignore your grief. Support may be available until you can manage your grief on your own. It is especially important to get help with your loss if you feel overwhelmed or very depressed by it. Family and compassionate friends can be a great support. They are grieving, too, and some people find that sharing memories is one way to help each other. Feel free to share stories about the one who is gone.
Sometimes, people hesitate to bring up the loss or mention the dead person's name because they worry this can be hurtful. But people may find it helpful to talk directly about their loss. You are all coping with the death of someone you cared for. For some people, mourning can go on so long that it becomes unhealthy. This can be a sign of serious depression and anxiety. Talk with your doctor if sadness keeps you from carrying on with your day-to-day life. Support may be available until you can manage the grief on your own.
Sometimes people find grief counseling makes it easier to work through their sorrow. Regular talk therapy with a grief counselor or therapist can help people learn to accept a death and, in time, start a new life.
There are also support groups where grieving people help each other. These groups can be specialized—parents who have lost children or people who have lost spouses , for example—or they can be for anyone learning to manage grief.
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