Is Year 2 Of Widowhood Harder Than Year 1? Here Are 4 Different Answers To The Same Question!
In a recent Widow Connection Community meeting, one of our members raised her hand to ask a question.
“I read it and I hear it a lot from other widows that year 2 is harder.
And I’m like NO! Is that true?”, she asked.
In this article, you will find 4 different answers to the same question from 4 different widows at different stages of grief. One at 2 years, one at 4 years, one in the first year, and me at 10 years. Each with a different perspective, each with such valuable advice, I felt compelled to share it with you today.
The first response was from a member who raised her hand and said:
“Well, the first year for me was a lot of cloudy and bracing against date and getting through it and asking myself “How am I gonna get through this?” and “How am I gonna get through this?” and then dealing with it.
Each milestone was different. And then you tell yourself “Whew, you made it through a year and check that box, now you know you can do it.”
And the second year anniversary I still have issues on the days it’s just showing up different and I’m bracing for the day and then I get through it and it’s not so bad. The realization comes to you the SECOND year, like “This is it. He’s not coming back. This is forever now.”
And in the second year I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to have a relationship with him still. I know I can’t have him here physically. But we are facing a life without them. So in the second year I’m figuring out what that new relationship with him looks like.
So, year 1 was so much of panic and scrambling and trying to brace for those dates and occasions and “How am I going to manage this?”
Getting into year 2 and 3, I’m in a different place now and investing more energy into finding a way to still have a relationship with him.
So, is year 2 harder? It’s just different. It’s like leveling up at a game, you move up to the next level after completing the first. Now you have this new level of challenges. And other things to focus your attention on and work through. It’s not harder, it’s just different because it’s a new set of challenges.”
Next, another widow of 4 years raised her hand to speak. Here’s what she said:
“I would not want to set anybody up with an expectation that one year is harder than the next year. Because the first year is ungodly. It is so miserably gut-wrenching horrible and if somebody said to me “Oh my gosh I heard that year 2 is worse!” I mean we shouldn’t put those thoughts out there.
It is really different and we’re all going through our own grief in our own way in their own time and you are constantly learning and adjusting, adapting. Reality is hitting you, sometimes in big doses. Sometimes smaller doses. And you’re dealing with it. And it’s constant.
It’s been 4 years for me. Each year has it’s own challenges and they’re different challenges.
My mindset is one that “I need to and want to still keep living. My life is still here. And I have always wanted to make the best of every day. So, that’s my orientation.”
I would never want to set somebody up with an expectation that it’s worse and you’re going to be in for something worse than what you’re feeling now. I just don’t believe that. It’s all about your mindset and how you want to move forward, truly. Have hope each year. Have hope that you’re moving forward. That’s what I would say.”
I’ve been a widow for 10 years. And this is what I added about my experience:
“I had heard that too. The second year is harder! Just wait!
It was not for me.
The first year is gut-wrenching pain. My whole first year was nothing but pain, anxiety, fear, despair…any word like that that you can think of…that was my first year. The second year for me, the pain lessened. The first year, in those first few months, I was in a blur and numb and crying all the time and in pain. But year 2 was not like that for me. The pain lessened. Year 1, I was grasping onto my old life and I wanted that old life so badly and I wanted to go back and I’m holding onto that previous life with everything in me because that’s what I want and I can’t have it!
And that was the other word for my first year…frustrating…because I can’t fix it. I can’t fix what happened.
The second year was when the reality hits that “ok this is not going to get fixed. This is real. I cannot go back to what I had.” So, year 2 for me was figuring out what to do next. Year 2 was asking myself what my life was going to be like and trying to make a plan for the future, and living more day to day, to get through it all. With less pain than year 1.
The meltdown days were further apart. Crying less.”
And lastly, another widow spoke up and said:
“How much you grieve and how much you do the work, as opposed to avoid it, impacts the next year.
So if you avoid all of year 1, year 2 is probably totally going to suck! Because its’ gonna catch up to you eventually. You can’t avoid it forever. If you make yourself too busy. Or you really don’t have the time in your life and schedule to give yourself the room to grieve, you will have to face it sooner or later. And that may be year 2 for you. And THAT may make it worse.”
There were 2 really valuable things I took away from this meeting:
1. What I loved seeing happen in this group was the contribution from all of these women with all of their experiences, sharing what they went through, comforting someone who was having a really hard time. Sharing the wisdom of what they went through to help relieve someone else’s worry and pain.
I loved that this conversation happened, that this member was willing to be vulnerable and ask her question, and we were able to come together and offer some advice from our own perspectives. I love that we have each other there to ask these types of questions and get some help if we need it. I feel like this type of community is so important for healing. It really does make so much of a difference.
2. We hear these things all the time. The “timeline theories” about grief. The expectations of what you SHOULD or should not feel like at a certain point after losing your spouse.
I wish we didn’t have to hear these things because then that puts that thought in your head and then you’re focused on that. We think “Oh God year 2 is coming! It’s gonna worse! That’s what they all say!!”
So then the thought is in your head. And you’ve heard that saying that says “What you focus on becomes your reality.” What you choose to focus on becomes your reality.” So, it’s hard to UN-think a thought. It’s like you can’t un-see something. You’ve already seen it. Well, you’ve heard that year 2 is harder. But it doesn’t have to be NOR is that everybody’s reality. Here are 3 examples in our member discussion that show otherwise. None of us thought that year 2 was harder.
So, when you hear these “expectations”, take them for what they are at a surface level…that was SOMEBODY’S experience, that doesn’t have to be mine!
I can choose to look for hope in my second year.
I can choose find a way to incorporate my loved one into my life with out them being here.
I can choose to start making a plan for what my new life will look like and what I want my new life to be.
