We are delighted to bring you this Guest Blog from Wendy Smith who talks openly and honestly about her grief and mixed emotions following the death of her ex-husband.
I knew I would get on with Jenny* the first time I met her. As she walked into my home, she laughed and told me she had had to have a ‘sharpener’ before she arrived. It was very understandable and refreshingly honest. She was my ex-husband’s girlfriend and we had never met. I had invited them to dinner to allay any fears that I was a threat and slightly less altruistically, I wanted my friendship with my ex to continue.
Neither of us could have known then that he would be dead within a year and how much our relationship would come to mean to both of us.
I had met my ex-husband Ben* at the age of 17. We had dated for 11 years before getting married and then divorcing 5 years later. I had lost my elder brother when I was 15 and my mother at 24 so he became a huge part of my family from the start. We felt like soul mates and yet our marriage died a painful, slow death during those years, as we both came to see that we were on different paths, with different visions of the future, despite loving each other deeply.
Leaving a marriage when you still love each other is extremely hard. The grieving starts before you leave as you begin to realise it isn’t going to work but cling on because life on the other side is still unimaginable. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.
Once we had separated, Ben moved to the other side of town and we didn’t see each other for 10 years. A decade later, we were finally able to discuss what had gone wrong and to understand that although we weren’t destined to be life-long partners, we could be life-long friends, and even work together at times.
Ben then met Jenny and I couldn’t have been happier. Jenny fell pregnant and despite my sadness at not being able to have children, I was thrilled for them.
One day in 2017, 6 months after that dinner at my home, Ben called me. He asked me if I was sitting down. It was never going to be good news but I couldn’t have imagined just how bad it would turn out to be.
He told me calmly that he had been diagnosed with a brain tumour of the aggressive kind — a glioblastoma — and had been told to get his affairs in order. I was utterly speechless as the tears poured down my face. I had had coffee with him two weeks earlier and he had been his usual cheerful self, excitedly showing me photos of his gorgeous baby daughter hiding in the kitchen cupboard.
This was just impossible to believe. He was the most vital, engaged, healthy and dynamic person I knew. He had always been there for me and had helped me through the deaths of my own family, most of whom had died very prematurely. He was the one person who wasn’t meant to die.
During the weeks that followed, Jenny and I joined forces to try to save the man we both loved. We swapped notes on complementary therapies, we thought we’d found a trial drug that might help him but it was all too late. His cancer was too aggressive and too advanced.
I will always remember arriving at the hospital on Easter Sunday where he had been admitted two days before. With huge grace and strength, Jenny gently told me there was no hope. I sat silently crying in the midst of her incredible restraint.
She then suggested I sit with him, leaving us alone. Although he couldn’t speak, he was conscious. With the space to say anything, I simply had no words. It was in equal parts desperate and soothing.
I saw him once more before he died at their home and yet again, Jenny showed such courage and kindness to me, as we all sat together one last time.
After the funeral, Jenny said to me she couldn’t have done it without me and I most definitely couldn’t have done it without her. We formed a team, supporting each other and Ben’s parents, who I had stayed closely in touch with over the years. We all vowed no one would have to grieve alone.
But dealing with my own grief was not straightforward. I felt a terrible fraud, feeling so much sadness for a man who was no longer my husband. A few times, well-meaning friends said they couldn’t imagine their exes being so upset if they died. I began to wonder if there was something wrong with my feelings. I couldn’t share my grief with Jenny, who was overwhelmed with hers, nor could I add to Ben’s parents’ pain with my own.
When my family died, I had had very mixed experiences of grief counselling but after Ben died, I knew I needed to talk. The grief counsellor was very helpful in validating my feelings, recognising and reframing my guilt: the guilt for being so sad about a man who was no longer my husband, but had been such a huge part of my life. Guilty for my pain when Jenny’s seemed so much worse. She had 3 young children, including her tiny daughter with Ben. Ultimately, talking it through with an impartial therapist and having my feelings validated was very freeing and enabled me to let go of my grief.
Since Ben’s death, Jenny and I have forged a very real bond; a friend/sister thing. We have connected on many levels, including of course, the progress of Maddie, their beautiful daughter.
I have had the privilege of attending Maddie’s nativity plays and sports days and watching her grow up. She has all Ben’s spirit and I am full of gratitude for the gift he left us all.
Jenny and I often laugh about that first evening we met and wonder what Ben would make of wife no 1 and wife no 2 forming a new kind of family. I think secretly he’d be rather proud.
*Names have been changed