If your partner passes away first — Avoid these 5 mistakes to live peacefully and strongly after 60
Here are five decisions to avoid making while grieving
1. Learning to sit with discomfort instead of escaping it
Most of the decisions people regret after a loss are because of one thing: the need to escape from the pain.
Grief is uncomfortable in a ways few things are. It doesn’t stay neatly contained in a specific time and place but seeps into daily life. When pain invades all aspects of life, it creates a sense of urgency. A sense that something must be done immediately, even if we have no idea what that something might be.
Selling a home, moving to a new place, passing on responsibilities, or withdrawing from others may feel like relief in the short term. Pain says, “Do something. Change something. Anything.” And in the short term, it may feel like we’re making progress.
Sadly, the thing about grief is that is won’t simply go away if we suddenly change environment, our routines, give up control, or step back from all the things that remind us of the person we lost. No, grief follows us into that new apartment, and even that new country, and into the simpler life we hoped would be less painful.
Sometimes, the discomfort we try to get away from comes back, but this time, it’s mixed with regret over the things we gave up too soon, regret over the choices we made when we couldn’t think clearly because of the pain in our hearts.
This isn’t an encouragement to continue to suffer, to continue to be uncomfortable, or to continue to be miserable, and it’s certainly not an invitation to act on our emotions, to do anything with them, or to try to change them.
This ability to do nothing, to wait out the emotions, to let them come and go without immediately reacting to them, is one of the most difficult things grief asks of us, and one of the best protections we have against it.
Grief isn’t something you solve, it’s something you learn to live with until it eventually fades away.
2. Redefining independence after loss
One thing that changes with the loss of the person we’ve shared our life with is how we see independence. In the past, independence could be related to the shared commitments, the teamwork, and knowing that someone had you back. Now, independence may feel like it requires more assistance than before, and that’s perfectly fine.
One one should have in mind that independence has nothing to do with the ability to do everything by yourself. It has to do more with staying engaged and involved in the decisions you make even when someone’s helping you with things along the way.
Whether it’s about finances, your current living situation, or certain medical decision, when someone’s assisting you with all this following a loved one’s dead, you need to make sure your opinion still counts. And it’s okay to say things like, “I appreciate your help, but I still want to choose.”
In most cases, people help you “too much” simply because they are worried about you and because they think you are overwhelmed by the loss. It’s not that their help doesn’t come from a good place, but to you, it may feel like someone else is suddenly deciding for you.
When your answer to someone’s help comes in the form of “Let me decide myself,” or “I’m not ready yet,” doesn’t make you difficult. You are just stepping for yourself.
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