Widow fallout? SOS fallout?

I pretty much live my life without much reference to having been widowed. I have a “new normal”, complete with husband and family, and life is good. When I occasionally get slammed by an emotional response that seems out of proportion with the precipitating event, I wonder whether I have hidden layers of under-resolved trauma from having been widowed by a suicide-like event.

Willis’s death was not classified a suicide (nor an accident) by the coroner, but he was very suicidal in the months leading up to his death, and he was particularly suicidal on the morning of his death. My take is generally that he was very ambivalent. He was reported to have been pacing back and forth on the bridge near where he was killed- I imagine that he considered throwing himself off the bridge onto the highway below, but couldn’t bring himself to do it, for which I am very grateful. There are also reports that he was hitch-hiking on the highway below- it is easy to imagine him turning his back to the traffic that was not stopping for him and drifting into the path of that big truck. It is also possible that he stepped deliberately in front of the truck, which did its best to avoid him.

He was struck from behind, which makes me prefer the inadvertent scenario, but the effect is the same- he is dead, my children don’t have their dad, and I am left with questions and repercussions about why someone would appear to prefer death to living with me and the kids. This is, of course, an over-simplification. Suicide and mental illness is not really a choice, and the pain that Willis was experiencing was profound and unbearable. He certainly believed we would be better off without him, and I ache for him that he believed that was so.

I have spent hours in therapy, addressing all sorts of issues arising from being widowed and surviving the de facto suicide of a spouse. Like I say, mostly this is a part of my history, and not really a part of my present.

But...

Rob and his boys went to Vancouver this weekend to visit Rob’s sister. The boys haven’t seen Trish in a couple years, and it was time for them to make a road trip, as a family, as in times past. Me and my kids weren’t invited along. This is appropriate- logistically and for the emotional well-being of Rob and his boys. My head knows this. My heart and psyche have been aching, crying, raging, writhing about this. I hate the feeling of being rejected and excluded. The boys are 10 and 12- of course they want to have some time without their new family, and with their dad all to themselves.

We will go to Vancouver next weekend to visit with Hannah, Willis’s other daughter, and her mother. Rob is cherishing the idea of time alone at home. He is reveling in it, and why not? He was a half-time dad before we came along, and a bachelor the other half of the time. Much as he began to get lonely after 4 years of this, and much as he loves us all, it can be taxing to a fifty-year-old to be suddenly raising a 4-year-old daughter full-time. He is an introvert, and needs some quiet time alone to recharge. Sam is an extremely active, extroverted boy- much as Rob loves Sam, he finds him taxing sometimes (as do I). Of course Rob relishes the prospect of some time to himself. My head understands this and delights in the chance to offer this to Rob. My heart and psyche cry with feelings of rejection and loneliness that Rob can hardly wait for us to be gone.

After several anguished and stormy conversations with Rob about how painful I was finding the prospect of these two weekends, and how bewildered he was at my response, that references to Willis began to seep into my consciousness. Rob and I had not come back to equilibrium after one such conversation, and he was heading of in my car to pick up the babysitter. I told him not to crash the car, and added, in an angst-filled voice, for him not to take that as me condoning him crashing or harming himself. On the morning of Willis’s death, as we were preparing lunches for the kids, he told me how he couldn’t stop thinking of “it” (suicide), and how he couldn’t stop thinking of driving into something. My response? “Just don’t use my car to do it.” I will probably wish forever that I had added that I really didn’t want him to harm himself either, but it is doubtful that he would have heard it anyway.

After that comment, Rob came back to finish the conversation. In further discussion, we agreed that the emotionality of my responses was likely to be about my experiencing echoes of the ultimate rejection of suicide, and the terror of not knowing whether I would have a husband at the end of the day. The whole damn thing hurts. I may never forgive Rob if he doesn’t outlive me, and the separation of these two weekends and my upcoming conference in Florida is a terrifying prospect. This relationship better last a damn long time, because I don’t want to prove that I have the moxie to outlive another husband.