Finding Yourself Again After Losing Your Husband | Hope Speaker

Rebuilding Your Sense of Self When Widowhood Changes Everything

We're getting honest about something that can be surprisingly hard to put into words... because when your husband dies, you don't just lose the person you love. You lose the context in which you knew yourself, too.

When your spouse passes, you can feel like "half a pair of scissors," as David Kessler says.

When Andre died, I missed him: I missed his voice, his presence, his companionship, and all the ordinary things that had simply become part of our life. But there was another loss I wasn't necessarily prepared for: I missed the version of me who existed inside that life I didn't have anymore.

I was a wife. I was part of a “we.” There were routines, responsibilities, decisions and future plans that belonged to the two of us. Then suddenly, it all changed, and I found myself having to figure out who I was in a life I didn't want.

Maybe you've found yourself asking that question, too.

Who even am I now?

When “We” Becomes “Me”

There are more obvious losses in widowhood that we can easily name. We talk about missing our person, the loneliness, the holidays, the anniversaries, the practical responsibilities, and the future we thought we would have.

But there are also other losses that can be harder to identify.

Your marriage created a context for your life: You made decisions together and developed routines together. You had things you both enjoyed, things you disagreed about, things you did because they mattered to one of you, and things you did simply because they were part of what you built together.

You spent time asking, “What do we want?”

Then suddenly, you're making decisions as only one person. And as a widow, you may not even be sure what you want anymore.

So many widows are left in grief, wondering:

Who am I without the life I had?

What is Mine Now?

This is one of the strange things about losing a spouse. Even if you were always very independent, you may still have built so much of your life around another person that it takes time to figure out what belongs to you now.

It's hard to know the answers to questions like these:

• What do I genuinely enjoy?

• What did we love together? What did I do because he loved it?

• What did I stop doing or dreaming of because it no longer fit our life together?

• What dreams belonged to both of us? And what, if anything, do I still want for myself?

If you've ever heard, “Now you need to find yourself,” and felt like adding that to the enormous list of things you're already supposed to figure out, I have a gentle encouragement.

You don't have to reinvent yourself.

Rediscovering Yourself

There is a difference between reinventing yourself and rediscovering yourself.

Reinventing sounds like another widow to-do you don't want to do.

That "project" has the pressure that you need to become someone entirely new. You need a new passion, a new life, and preferably to figure all of that out quickly so everyone can see that you're “doing better.”

That's not what any widow sister needs.

What if you just started noticing what was already there, what is still there, and what is coming up for you now?

• What has always mattered to you?

• What qualities have carried you through hard things before?

• What did you love before widowhood?

• What made you laugh?

• What were you passionate about?

• What did your husband or others see in you that maybe you've forgotten about yourself?

And there may also be things you discover now that weren't part of your old life (that's okay too).

You're not required to go backward and or stay exactly who you were before your husband died. You've lived through something that changed you. Of course you're different.

The question isn't necessarily, “How do I get the old me back?”

What if better questions sound like:

"Who am I now?” Who do I want to be, or become?"

Widowhood Is Part of Your Story, But It Isn't Your Whole Story

I want to be careful here, because I never want to minimize what it means to be a widow.

Your husband, your marriage, and your losses matter. Widowhood is a significant part of your story, and you don't have to pretend otherwise.

And, you will not always be, or feel like, half a pair of scissors.

You still have gifts, preferences, relationships, and a sense of humor (even if you haven't connected with it in a while!). You still have things you care about, things to be discovered, and parts of yourself that may be waiting to be noticed again.

And if you are a Christian, your identity and worth before God were not lost when your circumstances and marital status changed.

That doesn't mean you won't wrestle with God... You might. You may have questions you never expected to ask. You may feel close to Him one day and far away the next, or in longer seasons.

But you don't have to have all of that figured out before you can begin discovering who you still are now.

Try This: What Was Mine? What Was Ours? What Has Changed?

If you feel disconnected from yourself, I want to give you something simple to try.

Take a piece of paper and make three columns to jot some ideas.

1) Mine

What things make you who you are? This can be the present tense, or if that's difficult: things you can connect with (at least somewhat) that were true in the past also. You can think of what you brought to your marriage, or what you bring to your other relationships and life outside of that as well.

• What things are genuinely part of me?

• What do I love?

• What do I feel passionate or a sense of justice or purpose about?

• What/who matters to me?

• What are my strengths?

• What makes me feel alive?

2) Ours

• What belonged specifically to the life my husband and I shared?

• What traditions, routines, dreams, places, activities, or plans were part of our “us”?

3) Changing

This column gets a lot of grace, permission, and gentleness. Because rediscovering yourself apart from him, moving forward, and rebuilding is not leaving him behind, disloyalty or minimizing your loss.

Remember, grace, permission, and gentleness.

• What simply doesn't fit the same way anymore: Routines, dreams, responsibilities, etc.

• Maybe it's something you assumed your future would contain, but you aren't sure you want to continue things the same without him (or can't).

• What might the Lord be leading you into in new seasons and new chapters?

• If you allowed your heart to desire and dream about good things ahead, what might that be?

Don't judge the answers. Just notice them.

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Now, here's just one step: look at your “Mine” column and ask yourself:

What is one thing I want to reconnect with?

Maybe it's something you used to enjoy. Maybe it's something you've been putting off. Maybe it's something as simple as making time for a part of yourself that has been buried under survival and responsibility.

Start there.

This MINE-OURS-CHANGING framework can help you as you navigate decisions going forward, as well. You can keep adding to it, or recreating it anew.

You Don't Have to Have it "Figured Out"

Sometimes we want the whole map before we have any confidence, purpose or hope.

But sister, you are charting new territory... And you just need to keep taking the next step.

You don't have to know exactly what your life will look like five years from now. You don't have to know all the answers (or even all the questions, for that matter!). You don't have to have a beautiful explanation for everything widowhood has changed.

You can still be figuring it out.

You can still miss him.

You can still have hard days.

And, you can still begin discovering yourself again.

Because there is a woman who is still here, sister. She may feel different. She may be hurting. She may not recognize herself yet. But she is still here.

And when a chapter in your story comes to a close, you rediscover her.

You rediscover there is still more of your story to live.

Want to Do the Journey Together?

If you are looking for other widow sisters who are finding themselves again with Jesus and with one another, you have found your place of belonging.

The HOPE Stronghold is my private, virtual Christian widow community membership where we are journeying together. We grieve with hope, we heal more deeply, and we rebuild a life we genuinely want again, to the glory of God.

Consider this your invitation, and join us here.

With you,

Rachel

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