Anyone else widowed?

Has anyone else here found themselves 'single' due to being widowed?

I'm not divorced, I'm not seperated, my husband died suddenly, leaving me with an 18month old and 3 months pregnant with another. We were madly in love and had so many plans for our future together.

Amongst the terrible things we've all had to deal with I've been finding it hard to find my identity and where I fit in.

Am I a single parent? Am I a lone mother? Am I a widow?

Sounds silly but I need an idenity.

I also feel like explaining to strangers that I'm not a single parent by choice - especially when struggling to cope with 2 children whilst in a busy supermarket.

That in itself is silly as I know there's nothing wrong with being a single parent.

Came across this site whilst ready the book I just got from the library. But again, not sure how much of it relates to me? Although 'the ex' could well be the outlaws instead I guess! (My late husband never had a good realtionship with them and was denied of the usual family comings and goings by his dad) Since my hsuband's death, I tried so hard to build a relationship, but last summer, this went very wrong as they bascially abadonded me and my children and not contacted us since. And since this, I;ve realised that they are emtionally unbalanced (seriously) and a very bad influence on us so I do not ever want anything to do with them again and want to protect my children from them. (My husband didn;t want them mixing with our son either)

I also go the merry widow book too, but this ovbiously covers breavment as a whole; male, female, old and young - therefore not much realting to me again.

Where do I fit? Who am I?

I feel so lost.

Categories:

This is all new to me / early days

Hi We have worked with other

Submitted by kate on Wed, 2010-02-03 10:09.

We have worked with other widowed young mums , and have found that particulalry at the outset of their life as a single mother their journeys, experiences and attendant emotions are so different that mixed groups haven't ben wildly successful.

Some of this is as you say an issue of how they feel and are precieved, which is different . Some of this is down to that perception but some is from the very real difference that there IS a Dad who maybe doesn't live with the children but there is still someone to share with , so I do understand why the differences can seem hige. I think though that there are parts of the book that might be of use and I would urge you to just skip over the bits that feel alien to your situation .

The bits that might be most useful relate to looking after yourself, maybe some of the communicating with children section , money , moving forward and reinventing your family extending your network , good male role models and so on . As far as Dad and co parenting go the way I would proceed there is a problem on the site that I shall find that deals with keeping talking about Dad as a whole person as a real person and so on but I am sure that this is something the WAY foundation will be au fait with .

All the best, I shall beetle off to find the other problem

Kate

Hello, I can see how you

Submitted by emily on Sun, 2010-01-31 16:15.

Hello, I can see how you feel, unable to fit into a particular label, or crossing several. Here's a website for widowed and young which you might find interesting / useful? I know several people who also found themselves widowed with young children and they found people through this club who understood them here and also met up and had some fun with them. http://www.wayfoundation.org.uk/ . I wish you lots of luck and hope that the day when you feel just 'you' and the labels don't matter or mean anything anymore. Emily