“…those of us who have buried a beloved spouse never stop grieving for our loss”

Among the many popular misconceptions about grief and its trajectory, one that particularly rankles widowed people is the assumption that if you’ve found a new love relationship, you’ve “moved on” from your grief. How very tidy.

How very ridiculous. In conversations with hundreds of widows and widowers, I’ve discovered that I’m hardly unique in feeling that those of us who have buried a beloved spouse never stop grieving for our loss. As time passes and life admits new possibilities and opportunities, the intensity of the pain diminishes, becoming more tolerable and less central to the course of most days. But the love doesn’t go away. And count on it, as where there’s love, there’s pain.

Jill Smolowe, “I Am a Bigamist”, The New York Times (7 June 2015), SR2.