bereaved husbands

For fiftysomething ‘me’ with two kids, visions of living life without wife would always give me shudders. A living example of the nightmarish kind of situation, for my eightysomething father the loss of spouse has been one of the hardest things that he has ever been dealing with. Regardless of what phase it is in your life the sorrow and feeling of loss is the same. It is something that is there naturally, something you will have to deal with; alright for you to feel sadness and grief. You just lost your lifetime partner….someone you’ve shared countless memories with. For widow and widower both, the days ahead are different from what you were used to. The absence of your partner makes a hell of difference. Death of a spouse is more common for women than for men (approximately 3% men compared to 12% women). Among those 65 years of age and older it’s 14% men versus 45% women as compared to 43%  men versus women among those aged 85 and older. "Widowerhood" is unique. The process of adaptation to the loss of wives is rarely linear and is more aptly described oscillating between good and bad days or even moments within a single day. Some cope more successfully than others. However, many would ultimately demonstrate a high degree of resilience as time passes. Widowers' experiences are affected by age, relationship with children, ability to assume new responsibilities and the quantum of emotional and material support available from others. Loss of wife can have adverse consequences on physical health depending on his prior health, lifestyle, and the extent to which his skills possession helps him to take care of himself. Women who lose husbands often speak of feeling abandoned or deserted. Widowers tend to express the loss as "dismemberment"…. something that kept them earlier organized and whole. Widowers often equate the death of their wives with "being lost without a compass," usually due to their profound loneliness & dependence on their wives for managing household, caring for children and being their only true confidant. This sense of being lost is more profound when widowers need help but have difficulty obtaining or even asking for it. Bereaved husbands experience an array of emotions, like anger, shock (especially if the death is unexpected), numbness, denial, and profound sadness. Unlike widows, however, grieving men tend to control their emotions (with the possible exception of anger) for instance, by holding back and crying less openly. Widowers, more often than not, will channel their energy into active coping and problem-solving strategies. At other times they may prefer to be alone with their thoughts, whether thinking about the circumstances surrounding their wife's death or reflecting on ways to cope with their new situation. Widowers, who experience the same emotions as widows but were raised with the belief that emotional control is a sign of strength, often find themselves confronting an inner conflict about how to respond to a loss. The situation may instinctively call for a response that is emotional but the widower may not be socialized to express himself in that way. Adding to this confusion is an assumption that the only one way to grieve is to express his feelings solitarily, though not to be construed less intense than a widow's grief. To a varying degree, some widowers express their emotions openly, suggesting that any one widower's experience can be somewhat unique as well. On average, married men are less likely to be depressed than married women. Marriage tends to be protective for men largely because a supportive marital relationship buffers them from the negative impact of the stress and strains of everyday life. In bereavement widowers quite simply have more to lose than widows. This is based on the assumption that a man's spouse is often his primary source of social support. Consequently, although a widower may have been more apt to express his thoughts and feelings when she was alive, he may be equally unlikely to be so open to others now. Widows more frequently use alternative sources of support to protect themselves from potentially adverse effects of the loss and other stressors. Married couples expect to spend retirement years together. Those expectations can be shattered as newly bereaved widowers suddenly find themselves facing retirement alone. Men in their preretirement years are typically still employed, socially connected due to ties in the workplace, and might still have children in the home. These life circumstances could represent a sense of feeling useful, involved, and being engaged in meaningful activity—all potential constructive coping mechanisms for the widowers. Those unable to benefit from such supportive relationships can respond to stress by engaging in smoking and poor nutrition practices. Tasks like cooking, shopping food, housekeeping, doing laundry etc., essential to health and well-being, could go unattended if any of them were primarily the responsibility of the deceased wife and lead to adverse health consequences of the widowers. This need to reorganize sometimes predisposes widowers to remarry. Many use remarriage as a way to fulfill their need for companionship. Some, especially the younger, also believe remarriage provides a partner to help them meet the multiple responsibilities of being worker, father, and head of household. Widowers that do not remarry may be equally capable of maintaining meaningful relationships and adapting successfully to their new life. For this is not consistent with their preferred way to grieve, they are however typically uncomfortable with environments where the open expression of emotion is encouraged. By the age of 60 or so, man usually achieves whatever material success he has striven a lifetime for. Economically, he is secure in the society. Yet he has probably not developed an intimate relationship with anyone other than his wife. His friends may have been buddies to hobnob with, but then it is unlikely that he has had the comfort of real intimacy with them. When his wife dies, he feels lost and disoriented and may also suffer a growing fear of his ability to be a virile partner to anyone. Man is not "naturally chatty" and does not ask for help easily. He is also aware that people have lives of their own and cannot always be as supportive as he wishes because of their own time and financial and emotional commitments.  He not only experiences great loneliness but begins to ask himself, "Who will take care of me if I become ill? Who will care deeply about my well-being? With whom can I open up my heart's longings?" When the older widower that is “stuck” in his ways, loses wife, he tends to cling to his old routines and stays huddled in his home rather than reach out into the world to wrestle for new challenges. As he lacks the will power to live, he gives up the ghost & dies soon after his wife's demise.