"He was my best friend," "We shared everything," "I knew him better than anyone." Most of us have uttered a couple of these cliches since our husbands died. And we believed every word of it.
Wait just a minute. Many women have told me that after becoming a widow they quickly found out that they didn't know the dearly departed as well as they thought. Some widows discovered that their late husbands were terrible money managers. Credit card debt, missing college fund money, overdue bills and a mortgage that widows could not afford were scary realizations.
Then there was the "Oh my God" moment when you were going through his things and found love letters from another woman. Or man. You never suspected he cheated. This reality can devastate the most secure woman who enjoyed a great marriage.
Widows have found secret stashes of cigarettes, alcohol, Viagra, ladies underwear, X rated photos and much more.
When I heard this stuff I went on a fact finding mission of my own. After an extensive search of his desk, computer and personal files I did find something surprising. Lane had kept a folder containing memos from bosses announcing his promotions, letters of praise from clients and clippings from the advertising trade press that mentioned his name. I was shocked. I sudden realized that the man I thought had no ego had one. And I was happy about it. I am glad he was proud of himself.
Okay, what I found is not earth shattering. Not even gossip worthy. But it was fun to discover something new about him. Frankly, compared to what other women have found out it was a relief.
What have you discovered about your late husband?
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This is an interesting subject... I didn't know where to begin when my husband died. I started with the mail box. He did all the bills and took care of everything, so I had a big job ahead of me. I didn't have a clue to how much was in the bank or anything. I figured out his passwords on laptop and things. I had to go to his work and pick up his office stuff. I found pictures of me and the kids, what was really special is he still had my number I wrote down the night we met 11 years ago. Everything I have been going thru has been wonderful and touching. He was a wonderful person... But, here I go... My husband hated his so called son's mother, I could never understand why, she seemed nice, but I found a bunch of unopened cards and letters dating back from when I was with my husband. I read these letters and all she did was stalk him and hound him, she was in love with him. I remember her sitting in the waiting room at the hospital, she looked like the grieving widow. After finding these cards/letters these people make me sick. Sneaky liars that were trying to be homewreckers. I was just surprised that my husband didn't say anything. The letters were sent to his work, so I wouldn't find out. Four yrs ago they pop in our life, poof you have a 25 year old son. No DNA, looks nothing like my husband... Users that can stay in the state they live in. Even my friends read the letters and said she's a wacko. Good ridence to weirdos. But, it is weird to find out things after the fact... Trish...
ReplyDeleteYou may be opening a can of worms with this subject. I guess I am lucky as it has been 18 months and I have found nothing but old cards and letters from me. But the strange thing is that there was nothing in his briefcase which was the only private thing that he carried around all the time. It was basically empty and I can,t for the life of me figure out when he cleaned it out! It's been driving me crazy as he died very unexpectedly/suddenly. It makes me wonder if he had a premonition or something. I guess I will never know.
ReplyDeleteI received a letter a few months ago, just shortly after the first anniversary of my husbands death. It was from a woman I had never heard of, claiming she had loaned my husband several thousand dollars over a number of years and asking me to repay her. She made it clear that they had a long term relationship & that they had last spoken just days before his death. She said "He was such a charming man". I think the intended message had nothing to do with money but instead was meant to tell me I was not the only woman in my husband's life. It broke my heart. I didn't need to know about this. A couple of weeks ago I came across a hand written list of names & phone #'s...her initials were on the list followed by her number. Ignorance was bliss. Now I'm the same sad widow but my happy memories are tainted.
ReplyDeleteMany widow's would not be willing to speak publicly of these kinds of findings; which brings even more grief to them, and sometimes another type of "death".
ReplyDeleteI am one of them. But I will say that my marraige was far from a bed of roses. Less than two years after our wedding, my husband said he felt he had made a mistake, and divorced me. Two years went by, I struggled to make ends meet, and raise my daughter. It was very very hard. Then he started contacting me again, and stated he still loved me, after some time talking, and reconnecting, we remarried. Six month's later he had a major heart attack, and the next 23 yrs. were a series of more struggles, hard times, and just plain "making it work". The day he died it was instant, another major heart attack.
There was no fairy tale events, just making the hard choices to do the right thing, even when we argued, and at times felt no love for one another. I think this is real life for most of us.
We did love one another, and stuck it out to the end.
The secret part of our lives are part of the mystery of life itself. We never really know a person here....only a certain perspective of them, that they allow us to know.
My husband died very suddenly. I was blessed in that he was an organized man (and that in itself used to irritate me to no end - who organizing warranty pamphlets from an electric can opener?!) who left a binder of all investment statements, life insurance policies, bank accounts and passwords. Interesting things I found while going through his desk and office contents included every single card I had ever given him, kept neatly in a large manila envelope. I had long forgotten them. I wanted to find evidence of cheating so I didn't have to love him so much and miss him so badly. He never gave me any reason to believe he was. And to this day I believe him. I cannot imagine the HORROR of a widow finding her husband was cheating on her and never getting the last word.
ReplyDeleteMy husband passed away 10 months ago. It still feels like yesterday. He was only 48 years old and was diagnosed with small cell lung cancer. He passed away 4 weeks from the day we found out about his cancer. Our lives chanegd in an instant. We were married for 24 years, however we were together for 28 years. We met when I was 18. Being with him is all I have ever known and I loss my best friend. I am so afraid that I will live the rest of my life with with this unbearable pain. I feel like I will never be truly happy again. I to wonder why us, why him?
ReplyDeleteMy husband passed away in June of this year, and in October I went through all of his mementos. I found many touching things, but no shockers. We met when we were 20, but broke up and didn't reconnect until we were 35. We were married for 22 amazing, wonderful years, and were true soul mates with a love and connection that even death cannot change. He was always a very sexual person who was quite enamored of the opposite sex so I knew that there had to be many women in his life during those 15 years we were apart, but he would never openly discuss it with me. I'm sure that was partly because he was raised to be a gentleman who would never kiss and tell, and partly because he was concerned about keeping the green-eyed monster in me at bay! Going through his mementos, I discovered that he had kept all of his bachelor correspondence, and, of course, I read all of it -- much to his chagrin, I'm sure! Each of these women fell for him for many of the same reasons as I, but I was the one he chose to marry, and I am so very glad he did. The most touching item I found was a slip of paper on which he had written a reminder to himself of the date, time, and flight number of the flight which brought him to me after all those years apart. I had no idea that he had kept it, and finding it made my heart swell with love and my eyes fill with tears.
ReplyDeleteMy husband had an incurable disease which slowly robbed him of his life over a span of several years. Shortly before he died, my husband went through all his memorabilia and put in chronological order, his favorite photos/cards/letters from me. I cannot tell you how painful it was for me to discover this after he was gone. I haven't gone through it totally because I just start crying and it is too hard. I had long forgotten so many things, but not him. He cherished them and I'm lucky to have this archive. I fall in love again every time I go through it.
ReplyDeleteIn all of his things, I found only one photo of an earlier girlfriend during his college years. Family members asked who she was and I told them he would not tell me when he showed it to me several years back. He was a private person, traditional, and a committed romantic. I am so grateful I kept all the cards he gave to me on my birthday, Valentines Day, our anniversay, and Christmas. This will be my first Valentines Day without him. I found his last card he gave to me and have it in my office. He wrote: "you've secured a permanent place in my heart."