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Getting on With Life After a Partner Dies

By Jane E. Brody. Published by the New York Times.

Link to the original newspaper article.

Mickey Martinez was the kind of husband many women dream about. He loved grocery shopping and did it weekly at a nearby supermarket, took care of household repairs, washed dishes, and was always ready with a broom or vacuum when needed.

But after he died, Mary Alice, his wife of 37 years, found herself paralyzed in the supermarket the first time she tried to go shopping. Six months later, when preparing her traditional Christmas Eve dinner for 12, she cried out in frustration as she tried to cook, clean and set up for company on her own, "Mickey, where are you when I need you?"

But Mary Alice soon learned to shop; guests now contribute to the annual dinner, and hired workers do needed repairs in her century-old Brooklyn home. And without a husband who had told her "no more pets," she now enjoys the company of a cat and a dog.

Every year millions of Americans - women and men, straight and gay, old and young - are thrust into the role of widow and widower, forced to learn how to cope on their own after many years of sharing life's chores with another. Some have the help of grown children or friends who live nearby, but even they are often faced with tackling tasks their late spouses had done.

When asked how I'm doing since my husband died in March, I often respond that I need a 48-hour day. It's a challenge to be Richard and Jane and still do my work and enjoy my life. I have yet to balance the checkbook, there are piles upon piles of unprocessed paperwork everywhere, and, if not for the help of my sons, I would be clueless about managing my finances.

But I do keep my walk swept, and I've cleaned up two large yards, tasks we had always done together. When the man who came to replace my gas meter found a hole leading to the chimney and said he would have to turn off my furnace, I said "No you don't." I ran to the hardware store, bought a can of "instant" plaster, climbed to the top of a ladder and, straddling it and the adjacent furniture, this 4-foot-10-inch, 69-year-old woman plastered a rather large hole near the ceiling while the meter man waited and didn't even offer to hold the ladder.

Although friends have told me that nonurgent jobs can wait, I have undertaken several sorely needed home repairs. Using some of the money set aside for my heirs, I've ordered new windows and a door to replace leaky ones that fit poorly, and I hired workers to paint and caulk flaking window frames and rusting iron gates and repair cupboards that don't open or close properly.

A recent widower I spoke with understood my compulsion to get things done. In adjusting to the loss of a spouse, "it helps to be a positive, directed person," the widower, Dr. Stephen A. Goodman, a retired periodontist from Scarsdale, N.Y., told me.

Each accomplishment is empowering. Lyn Hill of Brooklyn, widowed last year after 37 years of marriage, felt that surge of strength when she figured out how to fix her broken printer.

"Joyce used to write the monthly checks," Dr. Goodman said. But when she died, he put them all on automatic pay and learned how to do laundry and run the dishwasher. And I've learned how to hang and fold the sheets for the bed I shared for 43 years with the man who had always helped. When I go to the movies alone, I now ask strangers to explain plot twists that baffle me.

People like Dr. Goodman, Ms. Martinez, Ms. Hill and (I believe) me have what experts call "psychological resilience" - the ability to take life's blows in stride and get on with it rather than dwell on the pain of loss, no matter how challenging it may seem at first.

The Value of Staying Busy

After the death of Joyce, Dr. Goodman's wife of 44 years, Dr. Goodman recognized the value of keeping busy and pursuing his many interests: photography, theater, concerts, museums and art galleries. He also dines regularly with a group of interesting men who call themselves Romeos, an acronym for retired older men eating out.

Of course, having money and time to pursue such activities does help, as does the realization that life's pleasures should not end with the death of a spouse. But when a surviving spouse is left to raise young children alone or is forced to find a new or better job to make ends meet, the challenge of adjustment is that much greater.

Widows outnumber widowers by nearly five to one - about half of all marriages end with the death of the husband - but the remarriage rate among widowers is more than eight times as high.

And while managing financially is usually more difficult for widows, widowhood tends to be more harmful to the health of men. One man who for family reasons wished to remain anonymous told me that a month after his wife of 42 years died, he became short of breath and needed a triple coronary bypass, aortic valve replacement and mitral valve repair.

Emotional Turning Point

Of course, most challenging of all, at least at the outset, is the emotional adjustment. As Joan Didion so eloquently portrayed in her book "The Year of Magical Thinking" (Knopf, 2005), adapting to the loss of a spouse is particularly difficult when the two lives were closely entwined, professionally and socially. There is no world of one's own to enjoy, just constant reminders of the absence of the other.

When John Goodman met his partner Michael Shernoff, they were both widowers in New York, each having lost a partner to AIDS. "It was a particularly rich and welcome relationship," Mr. Goodman said. "He became my whole life. We had seven wonderful years together. Then Michael developed pancreatic cancer, and when he died my world collapsed."

Mr. Goodman, then 55, spent the first year without Michael "reliving every mark on the calendar." Then he reached an emotional turning point and took a trip abroad to the same places he and Michael had last traveled together. When he returned home, he said, "the clouds had lifted."

Barbara Colwell of New York was also twice widowed. Her first husband died after 20 years of marriage, when she was 42, leaving her to raise two teenage boys alone while working full time.

Her second husband died after 18 of marriage, and, she said, "his death brought back a lot of the mourning I should have done when my first husband died."

A common concern among widows and widowers, as well as those who never married, is who will care for them if they become ill or infirm. Relatively few Americans have insurance for long-term care or the ability or desire to move in with adult children or live in a nursing home - none of which are adequate substitutes for a caring spouse.

 

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Disclaimer: As a Health Coach, I will never attempt to diagnose, treat, make claims, prevent or cure any disease or condition. I advise my clients that Health Coaching is not intended to substitute for the advice, treatment and/or diagnosis of a qualified licensed health care professional.