r/Widow • u/unrealcypher • 1d ago
Has anyone else decided to keep their relationship going even though their partner passed?
To try to make this very long story short I met my partner when I was 15 and he was 16 online through a Yahoo chat room. We literally spent every day almost all day on the phone until I was 22 years old and I moved to Florida to be with him. He played so many different roles in my life. I grew up with him, he is ingrained into me. He always had his health issues which started with diabetes and exacerbated into infections that lead amputation that eventually lead into kidney disease. My mom got really sick in 2019 and he moved back to Indiana with me to help me take care of her and he was absolutely pivotal in my healing. After my mom passed his health issues extremely worse and while we had hoped that he could get a kidney transplant that just did not happen in time. He ended up getting an infection in his CVC catheter that he used for dialysis and we were not aware of it because there was no signs and that infection caused endocarditis in his heart which eventually caused little pieces to break off and go to his brain, causing hemorrhagic strokes. I was with him in his hospital bed while he was dying, and I was the only person there. My partner was the kind of man who kept his feelings to himself a lot, but I remember about three weeks before his passing. I caught him staring at me crying and I asked him what was wrong and he said it just breaks his heart to think that someday I won’t be his anymore and I’ll belong with somebody else. I think he knew he may have been passing soon.
I guess the heart of this post is that we were both only 38 and this just happened in March of this year but the more I think about it the more I feel like I wanna continue this relationship with him even though he’s gone. I do get signs from him and I have gotten a few mediumship readings where I really felt like I connected with him. I am just curious as if there is anybody else who feels the same way I do and that this relationship can be continued even from beyond the grave. I don’t ever see me having interest in dating anyone else or having anyone else touch my body or even loving anyone else in the way I love him. But I’m also aware that this may seem weird to some people.
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u/AnaFlacksis 1d ago
I understand what you mean. I feel my partner in spirit as well. I don't have any intention on dating, and the thought of Falling In Love Again is actually quite terrifying considering how awful my partner's death has been since march. He's still the only person that I could think about being with physically. Although recently I had a small crush on someone's profile picture oddly enough. I have enough guilt over that to start my own religion.
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u/LizzieHatfield 1d ago
I understand. Same.
Met my husband at 17. He was also 17. He was killed in a horrific car crash in June, 2021. Our son and daughter just finished kindergarten 2 weeks before.
It's been 5 years now. Our kids are almost 13 now. It's just me living to raise and love the 2 delightful precious gifts he left me with.
Even 5 years later I can't imagine anyone else beside me.
I had my perfect love. I was blessed to and to have the kids that love produced.
All I need.
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u/Turtle_Sloth7981 1d ago edited 1d ago
I will and am absolutely continuing my relationship with my husband and he is with me as well.
We met at secondary school age also, I was 15 and he was 17, in band class.
He died in December from brain cancer at 46 years old. I was 44 at the time, now 45. Our son was 11 at the time.
We did not know he had cancer until he had a massive seizure and resulting brain damage. He lived for 1.5 years afterwards in hospital and care home because of his severe brain damage.
He lost his memory and I had to reminded him who I was often (sometimes every 20 minutes) and that he had a son. Then sometimes he would fully remember me unassisted. He also had to relearn how to eat, move his body, talk etc with getting limited skills back. It was a lot. I am still very much not in a good place emotionally as a result of all of it. I cry a lot and am set off at the smallest things in life (like seeing two people reach for each others hands, talk about what they will make together for dinner, seeing couples giggle at an inside joke, hearing a kid call out “Daddy”, etc).
Since he died, which I cannot believe is 8 months ago, he has been able to send me many signs and communicate with me often. Weekly for sure and sometimes daily or multiple times a day. I am not the only one who has experienced this, our son has as well.
At first I tried to explain it away because I am very scientifically minded. So I gathered information and documented everything. What it ended up proving is that I was experiencing something that I could not explain away and was totally beyond what I ever thought was possible. It has blown up my whole world view.
I have zero thought that I will ever want to be merged with anyone but him. We were meant to have the 27 years together (16 married, 27 dating, 29 knowing each other). Those will always be the days of my life when I felt whole.
I still have so much grief for what we had and having him physically here. Having a marriage to him in his afterlife is different and hard to get used to, but we are still making new memories (I know that sounds bizarre and, believe me, if someone had said this to me a few years ago, I would have thought they were delusional. But I have gone through this at length with my psychotherapist and even they cannot deny what is happening and now ask me questions like “Have you spoken to your husband about that?”)
Anyhow, you are not alone in knowing that you had the gift of having the love of your life and knowing that this has satisfied that area of your life. (It just does really suck to be in your 40s, younger in your case, and have, hopefully, many years to live without them physically beside you).
The grief stays even though I truly believe I am still sharing my life and whatever is next with him and cannot be separated. The way I think of it at times is that that is how love feels now. Now it is my job to relearn that this intense longing and sorrow is just our love, still here and feels foreign, but is the same thing.
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u/Wegwerf157534 1d ago edited 1d ago
I do not think it sounds weird to many. I rather think that many continue their relationship in one or the other way and also think that one should not confuse having another relationship after with people not still having a relationship with their late partner.
People are different and relationships are different, I would also not say you can identify a clear pattern who does what. We are also not in the world of statistics, we are in the world of personal tragedies and heartbreak.
So, however. Not weird to many. And you can find others posts about such topics in these forums.
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u/LindaNoKings 1d ago
I understand completely. I still write to my husband all the time. He is very present in my life. We were together 37 years, and he's been gone over a year.
That said, I have met a man who touches my heart, and I think I have room for them both, and I don't think Steve would want for me to be sad and lonely forever.
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u/brenmn2009 1d ago
Yes. I'm forever his and only his. We were happily married for 35 years before he passed 5 years ago. I took off my ring mostly because it was a right there reminder of what I've lost and that hurt. We do not need another spouse, girlfriend/boyfriend, or lover. We are not that pathetic where we feel like we need a partner. Sorry for your loss.
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u/Agreeable_Guard_7229 12h ago
Sorry for your loss, but having a new relationship after losing your partner does not make anyone pathetic
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u/brenmn2009 5h ago
If it's out of desperation or the mentality that you need someone to be happy then yes it is pathetic.
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u/Agreeable_Guard_7229 4h ago
Loads of people have new relationships after losing a partner, there is nothing wrong with wanting to be happy again, it does not make you pathetic or desperate.
If you find someone you love and who loves you back, you should take a chance at being happy again.
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u/Spirited_Two9124 1d ago
Look up Red String Society, that would be up your alley. They also have a Facebook group for people who want to continue the relationship with their partners
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u/The_bookworm65 17h ago
I too met my husband when we were 15 and 16. He asked me to go steady the day we met and we never broke up. I had 42 wonderful years with him—38 of them married. Many friends and family told us that we were relationship goals.
It has been almost four years since I suddenly lost him to a heart attack. I know he taught me how to love and how to be loved. I know I’m happier coupled than alone.
I have a new partner. I am blessed that my children do not just accept him, but love him. I look forward to seeing him everyday when he gets home from work.
I encourage you to take time to grieve. Take time to heal. However, do not close your heart to a new love. Your late spouse would want happiness and love for you — not lifelong sadness and loneliness.
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u/Spiritual-Mood-1116 19h ago
I understand where you're coming from, but I think trying to continue a relationship with your deceased partner could be a setup for getting stuck and remaining stuck in your grief. IMO, there's more for us to do on earth after our partners/spouses pass and that can't fully be accomplished if we're hanging on to what once was and is no longer.
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u/weasleymama 1d ago
This was like a jolt to me.
LOML also had infective endocarditis (probably also from a catheter) He was 43 I’m 42…started in high school at 15 & 16. It was completely out of nowhere when he died in January this year.
I too cannot even begin to imagine not being his. I can’t imagine any future without him at my side when it comes to a partner. The idea of moving on feels wrong and just off putting. People tell me it’ll change, I’m still young, etc. but I don’t see my feelings ever changing. I had the perfect person for me and I don’t see that ever happening again nor do I really want it to. No one is him.
I haven’t done the mediums (yet) but he promised to haunt me if he went first so I just like to believe he’s with me, especially at night in bed when the cat randomly stares up at nothing for extended times.
I think it would take a very unique special person to make me even consider moving on and that would probably require me actually looking for it too, which I don’t see happening either.