Guilt Is a Tricky Thing

Something I've experienced, and I believe to be common when losing a spouse, is feeling guilty about everything you do or feel. Guilt is a tricky thing.

My oldest son had a birthday six days after my wife passed away. I remember feeling guilty when we were with family and having cake. I caught myself smiling, and celebrating my son. From out of nowhere, guilt moved in. How could I be smiling? How dare I? She's gone, and if I'm already smiling, I must not have loved her as much as I thought I did!

This is a trick your mind will play on you. It will make you feel disgusted at yourself. And moments of happiness are not the only thing that will bring on a heavy load of guilt. Moving forward in any way can make you feel guilty and unsure if what you're doing is right.

I remember feeling guilty over many things. For instance, almost a year into our loss, I decided to move to a different house, with the encouragement of my extended family. This move brought us much closer to my parents and other family who would be able to help me get the boys where they needed to be, and it put the boys in what I believe to be a better school district. Although I never heard a negative word spoken about this move from anyone, I felt very guilty. I felt like if my wife knew what I was doing, I would be ashamed. The guilt was not so much about the house we were moving to, but more about the one we were leaving behind. It was the house where we lived the majority of our married life. It was the only house my children had ever lived in. My mind was telling me that I was leaving all those memories behind.

Basically, anytime I experienced happy moments, or did anything good for myself or my children, guilt followed, because she was not getting to experience these things with us. 

This is completely irrational. I don't believe my mind was trying to trick me. I think the mind, after experiencing such a traumatic event, is trying to compute it's response. It's trying to grab ahold of anything that will be congruent with it's wounds. It's looking for justification. I felt guilty for wanting to live a long life and watch my kids grow up, when she didn't have the chance. My mind was telling me that we were leaving her behind, when in reality, we're the ones left behind. Not to get overly spiritual, she finished her time here on this earth. We are left behind to finish ours.

If I had only done things that didn't give me any pause, I would've never left the house. I couldn't enjoy anything on tv, I couldn't engage in any enjoyable activity. I had to realize that it was all in relation to the trauma of loss. 

As time has gone on, the guilty feelings have faded. Not that they're gone, but they're more in the background now. If you're experiencing these guilty feelings, realize that it's just your minds way of working things out. I'm not suggestng that nothing should ever make you feel guilty, but I'm talking about things like smiling, laughing, enjoyment of anything. You must hang on, and trust that things will become more clear after a little time passes. Time may not heal your wounds, but your days will get easier to get through.

Whatever you do, hang in there and don't give up.

Anthony