All Is Well That Ends Well or NOT

I have been brainstorming about how to close out this blog and thankfully when I looked at my blog I had several insightful comments to address and an issue that I had not addressed surfaced. I had a widower in group that had treated his wife horribly and openly admitted to this in several group sessions. Once he stopped avoiding his guilt with the use of alcohol and cocaine he was open to the idea of concentrating on being a good grandfather, father, and productive member of society. Since his graduation over a year ago he has become a sponsor in AA and a jailhouse minister. He also reports an improved relationship with his daughter and grandchildren. He was recently a guest speaker in group and I feel he really helped my current widowers. I always tell clients that our secrets keep us sick which means that a problem cannot be addressed nor solved if the client does not identify the problem. The problem in substance abuse treatment is that the problem also cannot be addressed until the client is operating with a drug and alcohol free brain. Sara inquired about women who treat their husbands poorly before losing their husband. Oddly, I only have one widow in my group but she does however have much guilt. Her husband died of an overdose when the two of them were getting high together. She has never taken anything less than 100 percent responsibility but the fact of the matter is that his death is not wholly her fault. She has realized this more in treatment as she has discovered that only she can control or not control her drug use. The comments given have been great and I hope that I have addressed them clearly.
The reason I titled this last blog 'All Is Well That Ends Well or Not' is because I was reading over the ethical will information and I thought about how hard it would be for someone to write about what they have learned from life when what they have learned was learned through such painful circumstances. If my widowers were to write an ethical will, and I hope that they would, they would have to address what they learned from being a poor spouse and what they have learned from using drugs and alcohol to cope. Therapeutically I must say that I think it would be a healing experience for them and although they had to endure such tragedy to learn, at least they did learn and now they can pass what they learned onto the next generation. So much can be learned from a life well lived and perhaps even more can be learned from a life of trouble and tragedy.

Update on My Group Widows

My blog readers may not remember why I chose widowhood as my topic, as it seems like we have been blogging for months now; oh yeah, we have been! I chose this topic because I had, and still have, several widowed persons in my substance abuse treatment group. My widowed clients are actually doing very well. In fact, one of them visited his wife's grave for the first time just two weeks ago. This client is in middle adulthood so I will concentrate on my two clients that are in late adulthood. We learned from our Hutchison text that alcohol is the most commonly abused mind-altering chemical in late adulthood and that alcohol abuse is more common amongst late adulthood males than females. Both of my late adulthood widowed clients are males with alcohol use histories that entered the alcohol abuse stage after they became widowers. These two clients also have another thing in common and that is they both have strong feelings of guilt and shame about how they treated their wives before losing them. It appears that they turned to alcohol to dampen their grief and guilt. The question posed in this blog is how do you think guilt affects widowhood? I have talked about how whidowhood is affected when you lose a spouse that treated you poorly but what about when you were the lousy spouse that lost a great spouse. In my opinion, which is biased as I am very familiar with my clients, I think that you would not only be dealing with the grief of losing your spouse but you would have the added emotional drag of dealing with guilt and shame. Also, these alcohol abusers often alienate themselves from their family and so they have also lost family support that they need so much when dealing with widowhood. They are also more likely to face legal problems which just adds to the stress in their widowhood.

Is Widowhood more difficult for childless couples?

When reading Chapter 10 of our text I learned that, and always assumed, that widowed persons utilize their families most often to cope with the loss of their spouse. But what if there are no children born during the marriage? No children would certainly limit how much family a widowed person had to rely upon and more specifically, in late adulthood a person has even less folk available. We saw in The Sum of Us how involved Harry was in Jeff's life, how he took care of Jeff's meals and laundry, and you could see that Jeff gave Harry reason to live and more importantly a purpose. In The Upside of Anger we saw the widowed mother concentrating on controlling her daughter's lives and one wonders what she would have done without her daughters. I would guess that she would have done a lot more drinking and spiraled downhill. In The Namesake we saw the mother stay in the United States until she felt her children were in secure and happy situations and then went back to India where she was sorrounded by family. The point is, all the widows in these films had children to help them cope and give them purpose which would indicate that widowhood is more difficult without children. Children also, as Harry said in The Sum of US, are the sum of the couple and so after a spouse passes the widow has the comfort of seeing their significant other in their children. Children can also assist in the widowed parents needs. If a man or woman loses the spouse that does all the driving and bill paying then the widowed spouse at least has children that can help out. I know that my dad does not know how to cook nor shop and this will fall upon me to do if my mother were to pass before him. Chapter 10 also states that never married men without children are the most likely of late adulthood persons to enter a nursing home. Jeff, in The Sum of Us, kept Harry from having to enter nursing care and I know I would do my best to keep my parents at home. I think that it is clearly more difficult to enter widowhood as a childless adult, not only emotionally but more difficult because the widowed, childless person is less likely to have reliable sources for care and assistance. My blog on this date also makes me think about Erik Erikson's Ego Integrity vs Despair stage of development. In old age one looks over their life and hopes to find that they have peace and can accept that life may be over soon which is known as ego intergrity. The other option is looking over your life and having many regrets and feeling despair. I have found that most parents, even parents of very bad children, do not regret having their children. In other words, a late adulthood person could be less likely to enter despair if they have children and this would make widowhood a little less painful. What do you think???

Remarrying in Widowhood

I have talked a few times in previous blogs about my grandmother refusing to ever remarry and my grandfather remarrying very soon after these two entered widowhood. After watching The Sum of Us Dr. Drolen discussed how Harry should not have said to his new girlfriend, and possibly future wife, that their love could not be like the love he had with his first wife. My first reaction was that's right he should not have been that way. He should love his new love as much as his deceased wife and hey, the new wife deserves that as well I thought. One of the biggest issues for widowed persons in late adulthood is loneliness. We know from our studies that many are no longer able to drive and in a lot of cases the children have moved away. They are also often experiencing hearing loss which also limits their social outlets. I think that for a lot of widows they realize that they can never have that great first love but realize that sharing their lives with another person in their age bracket would be great. I also think that the father in The Sum of Us was just being realistic when he said the love would not be the same. I think that falling in love in your 60's cannot be the same as falling in love in you 20's. Not just because of the physical part but because when you marry in your 20's, you and your spouse build a life together, in a sense you grow up together. And in the case of the movie, you create a family together. Harry and his new love were more than likely not going to be reproducing and they both had grown children. I do not doubt that people can fall deeply in love in their 60's but I do question whether it can be like love in their younger years and spefically to my topic: Can it be like the love they had with their first spouse? What do you think?

Widows of Suicide Victims

First, thanks to everyone who responded to my last entry. Your comments were very interesting and I agree that losing someone, whether they were a poor partner or not, is painful and can make life difficult. Last weekend I was contemplating what I would discuss in this week's blog and then this past Tuesday I received a call that one of my clients had committed suicide and made his wife a widow. I could not bring myself to write about this earlier in the week as I was still processing what had happened.
Widowhood is difficult enough to deal with and in this case, the widow was saddled with dealing with her husband's suicide and all of the many questions that go along with that. When my client's wife called she was asking why he did not just run away. She stated that she did not see this coming. She cried about having her last memory of him being the image of him hanging from a rope. He left her with financial burdens and worst of all he left her with emotional burdens. She is grieving his loss but she will and is already dealing with the anger of his suicide. She is left to survive his death and question his reasons. She will surely at some point experience more anger that he left her to deal with all the problems they were sharing before his suicide. As a mental health professional I can analyze his reasons for his suicide but for his widow, she may only see this as a selfish choice of her partner. When I talked to my mom about this, yes I am a momma's boy, she stated "Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem." I thought about her comment and sadly my client has created some permanent problems for his spouse. I wrote this blog in hopes that I would receive some feedback about how my classmates think that suicide would change the issues of becoming a widow. I feel that it only makes the process of widowhood more painful. I feel that my client's wife is now not only dealing with becoming a widow but she has to now also deal with questioning why this happened and what she could have done to change the outcome. I have been counseling now for two years and this is my first client to commit suicide. The processing of this has been challenging for me and I can only imagine what his wife is going through.

Widows Who Lost a Lousy Spouse

My thoughts while watching The Upside of Anger were drifting towards the issue of widowhood. I had watched this movie about a year ago and knew that Terry's husband was dead when I watched it this time and so I found myself thinking about how she would have been reacting differently if she knew he were dead instead of in another country with his secretary. I was also considering how widows and widowers deal with widowhood when the spouse they lost is a spouse that has hurt them and may have even become a spouse that was no longer loved. An aquaintance of mine lost her father about two years ago and I remember thinking how her mother must be feeling. I was not concerned about her mother being alone but I was instead thinking about how horrible a relationship this couple had. I will refer to this person as G. G spoke often of her hate for her husband and how much of a cheat he was, she shared once that he came to the hospital with lipstick on his cheek when my friend was born. She refused to divorce him and now that I look back on it, I think she hated him for not loving her. I don't think she hated him completley. I was meeting with a client recently and he asked why he loved a girl that stole from him. I told him that love was not an emotion that you can just turn on and off just because someone does you wrong. I think that with G, she grieved for the loss of a dream of having a good marriage. G's husband was clearly wrong for committing adultery but she still loved him and the idea of him as a good husband. G is doing well in her widowhood but she did grieve her cheating husband's death. I think however that she grieved the loss of her old life and the death of ever repairing her marriage. In Terry's case, she grieved the loss of her husband as though he had left her for another woman. I wonder how she would deal with knowing that he did not leave her for another woman but rather died in the woods behind their home. Unfortunately the film did not enter into that portion of Terry's life. I wonder if my grandmother and other widows of course miss their husbands but also enjoy their independence. My grandfather was also very ill and his death was one of those cursed blessings in that he stopped suffering but we stopped having him in our lives. It only makes sense that the loss of a spouse that treated you poorly would ease a person's transition into widowhood. In this blog I am addressing widowhood specifically in late adutlhood and in late adulthood persons are often very use to living their lives a certain way and they may have reached a place where they have accepted their spouse for who they are. I think that when you look at this from a late adulthood perspective you must consider that even when a person loses a lousy spouse they are still going to grieve over losing a person they have shared so much of their life with and not only that but they are going to grieve the loss of their life as they knew it for so long. In The Upside of Anger, Denny wanted to be a part of Terry's angry and chaotic life because his alternative was to be at home alone drinking. I think that even if a widow has fallen out of love with their spouse, they will still grieve the absence of that person. If I could get inside G's head I think I would hear her say "Who am I gonna yell at when I get home everyday?"

How Does One Prepare for Widowhood?

Gradual Student asked the title question to this post and my first thought was 'how could anyone prepare for widowhood.' I then thought more on the question and remembered that in The Namesake Ashika thought that her husband went to Ohio without her to teach her to live on without him. I think that there is prepartion possibilities. Financial preparation seems particularly important, even funeral planning. I would not want my mate to be grieving and worrying about money or even having to enter the workforce in late adulthood. Ashika had enough money to travel back to her homeland and she went back to singing. My grandmother travels and participates in a lot of social activities but she could not be doing so if my grandfather had not been smart financially. I will add more to this post but wanted to empty my thoughts for the time.

Widowhood in 'The Namesake'

Ashima and the Ganguli family had to deal with the loss of Ashake and I thought it tied into my blog topic Widowhood. I did not consider cultural issues when I first decided on this topic but it was addressed in this film in that Ashima would not consider remarriage due to her cultural values. Also, even though her children were grown, she would not pursue her life back in India until she felt secure that her children were ready for her to leave. It is clear that some widows dedicate their lives to their children after the death of their spouse while some decide to pursue more personal lives; Ashima did both which was interesting. When my grandmother became a widow she refused to remarry stating often and still today that she had only one love. She did however start golfing, bowling, playing bonco, and she even started skating which she has had to give up as she is now in her 80's. My grandfather on the other hand seemed to just change wives. My mother feels he never really dealt with the death of his spouse. I think, that like everything in life, people deal with issues differently. I also think it is important to deal with the grief and find some sort of closure. I would like to hear from my fellow bloggers on how your loved ones or people you know have dealt with the death of a spouse.

Definitons and Statistics

Thank you for your comments. It was very interesting because reading these comments was like reviewing my grandparents history; both of whom were widowers. My grandfather married very soon after losing his wife. He was not a womanizer but according to my mom he did not know how to survive without a wife.My grandmother on the other hand refused to date. She would state often that she met and married the love of her life and would never marry again. She has many pictures of him all around and talks about him constantly.I wanted to define widowhood and late adulthood in my blog this week and also share some basic statistics. I know that is not exciting but in order to apply our critical thinking skills we need to define the terms and know the facts. I found the following information in our text.Widowhood is defined, in most cases, as the loss of someone with whom an individual has spent most of their life. Our text also points out that this sharing of life together becomes even more important in late adulthood when persons are no longer raising children and are often retired.And our text defines late adulthood as starting at age 65 and continuing through the 85 and older range. The text also points out that many more persons are reaching late adulthood in today's society. Another term that needs to be defined is widow which is a woman who has lost her companion. A male that loses his companion is a widower. 2004 statistics calculate that there were four times as many widows as widowers. The statistics also share that 43% of women in late adulthood are widows. I knew that there were more widows than widowers but I had no idea of these particular statistics. The book points out that the death of a spouse can be the most stressful event a person has to suffer but I will discuss the effects of widowhood on late adulthood persons on my next blog.

Why I chose this topic?

To begin at the beginning, both of my grandparents were widowers by the time I was four and now that I am just a little bit older and understand more how painful losing your spouse can be I am interested in researching how persons learn to cope or not cope with the loss of their spouse. I want to research what society does to offer help to these persons and what social workers in general can do. Also, recently, and for the first time in my very long career of two years, I at this time have four persons in my group therapy that have become widows in the past year. Some tragic circumstances involved and some natural deaths, but all are suffering from the loss and are reaching out for help. Hopefully my research into this subject will help me and my social working buddies be helpful from here on out.