The Particular Loneliness of Losing a Spouse

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A recent New York Times article about the epidemic of loneliness in America barely mentioned the loneliness that comes with grief. I get that—the article was looking at the broader problems of our disconnectedness, the decline of participation in communal activities, the post-pandemic decline of social skills, our reliance on online interaction, and that sort of thing. The loneliness of grief is something outside of that—although we musn’t forget that nearly two million Americans died during the pandemic, which is a lot of grief adding to our nation’s loneliness statistics.

An existential loneliness

But the article got me thinking about my own loneliness—the very particular loneliness of losing a spouse. This is loneliness like no other. It is existential loneliness. And it has nothing to do with anyone but me and Tom.

While I have very little in the way of family, I do have friends. Lots of them, old and new, and I value them more than ever since losing Tom. So in one way, I am not lonely at all. Any time I need to be around people, people are available. I am extremely fortunate in that way.

But I’m lonely, nonetheless, in a way that all the friends in the world can’t help. Because nobody in this world ever has, or ever will, know me as well as Tom did.

The intimacy of a long-term relationship

Tom and I met in our 20s and were together for more than 30 years. We grew up together. He knew my parents, who are long gone. He knew my younger brother, who is even longer gone. (I moved in with Tom the day after Oliver died, and he was my rock through that grief.) Tom saw me happy, he saw me sad, he saw me ugly cry, and he made me laugh until I cried. He took care of me through my stem cell transplant but died before my hair had fully grown back. (He took to calling me “Sarge” when it reached crewcut length.) He knew what drove me crazy and what brought me joy and what kind of movies I like. (“Everybody talks a lot, and nothing happens.”) He knew that I have nightmares, how I like my morning coffee, and that I’m grumpy when I wake up. (He did request, quite reasonably, that I not scowl at him when he delivered that coffee to me in bed.)

Of course every relationship is unique, and I suppose I have discussed things with close girlfriends that I didn’t discuss with Tom, but there is nothing that compares to the intimacy of living with a person day in and day out for decades. This level of intimacy is achievable only through proximity and time. I envy no one more than I do my friends who are in long marriages. Nothing can replace that. Nothing. And it can’t be recreated.

The luxury of being known

Your spouse is privy to who you are behind closed doors and sees the face you don’t show to the public. (Without makeup, first thing in the morning.) Your spouse knows your history, your quirks, your phobias. This is the person who you can be with even when you don’t feel like being with people—value-added solitude, I call it.

Your spouse knows who you are and who you want to be. Nothing has ever made me prouder than when Tom would say he was proud of me—especially since he was not generally lavish with praise. He believed I could accomplish my goals even when I failed. He believed in me more than I believed in me. I always appreciated that support, but never as much as now that’s its gone.

Past wounds may reopen

Of course, we all live with old wounds that can be ripped open in grief. Having grown up in a family that provided no emotional nurturing—it just wasn’t in my parents’ skill set—the relationship with Tom, in which I felt seen and heard and loved like never before, was like a cold drink in the desert. Losing him churns up very old feelings of being alone in the world.

The loneliness of losing the person who knows you is different from just missing the person. It is among the many secondary losses we suffer, one of the least concrete, and one that’s taken me a long time to understand and articulate. Once I had processed missing Tom’s hugs, his humor, his barbecue chicken wings, his guitar playing, our social life as a couple, and a million other things, I realized how disorienting it is to no longer see myself reflected in his eyes.

Who am I without Tom? I don’t know yet, which adds to my loneliness. In losing him I have, in some ways, lost myself as well. Yet another dimension to the complicated process of rebuilding my life.

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