Widowhood Doesn’t Define You: How to Reclaim Your Identity After Loss
I speak to so many women who have lost their partner or husband and hate having to call themselves a widow. It’s a term that instantly reminds them of everything they have lost and one that comes with expectations. In this blog, I’ll suggest that the word ‘widow,’ is just that – a word, a label that society has conferred on us but that needn’t define nor limit us. I honestly believe that whilst it may describe what we are it shouldn’t ever define who we are.
Historical perceptions of widows
When we hear the word ‘widow,’ we tend to envisage a sombre elderly lady, dressed head to toe in black, not someone in their 30s, 40s or 50s. It’s an image that’s been handed down to us from the Victorian era when widows used to dress in black as a way of reflecting their inner pain and were also expected to curtail their social engagements and mourn for a significant period of time. Sadly, these societal expectations have endured and continue to shape and define widowhood today.
Unhelpful expectations
Clients that I’ve spoken to have shared with me how compelled they’ve felt to live up to cultural perceptions about widows. They’ve talked openly with me about feeling under enormous pressure to grieve publicly, to avoid smiling or having fun and to shun social engagements until a requisite amount of time has passed. And they’ve shared with me their fear of falling short of these expectations.
When we lose our partner, our life suddenly falls apart. Our world turns upside down and the pain we feel, as we begin that uninvited journey into widowhood, is indescribable. To then layer on societal norms about grief and widowhood, is both unnecessary and wholly unfair. It simply compounds our feelings of inadequacy, confusion and guilt.
Widowhood – choose to define it or allow it to define you
Being a widow will always be a part of you – but how big a part of you it becomes will depend on where you are on your grief journey and whether you let it define you.
When your partner dies, overnight and sometimes without warning, you become a widow. And in those early days, when your pain is so unbearably raw, widowhood comes to dominate every aspect of your life. The fact that your partner was here one moment and gone the next monopolises your thoughts. It becomes an inescapable reality, one that’s etched into your mind and shapes the way you behave. It governs your thoughts and influences the way you engage with the world.
However, as you move further along your grief journey, as your grief starts to feel less painful, you’ll find it easier to redefine that label and determine for yourself what being a widow means to you. You’ll come to realise that the term widow is just a word that lets people know your person has died. It simply becomes another one of the many roles that you’ll play during your lifetime, including those of sister, mother, friend, mentor and colleague. And whilst all of these roles might describe what you are and form part of your story, none of them define who you are - at your core. None of them shed light on the values you hold, the passions you pursue, the dreams you nurture or the goals you set.
So, as widows, we have a choice. We can choose to allow widowhood to define us. We can live constrained by the expectations placed on us by society. We can continue to attach heaviness and pain to the term and make widowhood a profoundly negative and uncomfortable experience, or we can consciously choose to set our own expectations of widowhood. We can alter our thoughts about what being a widow means, tell ourselves a different story, attach a different meaning to it and transform it into a more comforting and empowering term. The power to change the way we think about things and to adopt a more positive outlook, lies entirely within us. We have the ability to develop a more constructive mindset, one that allows us to see things the way we want to see them, not the way in which they have been dictated to us. It won’t happen quickly. It will take time, but if you put the work in, you will come to realise that being a widow doesn’t determine who you are and how you show up in the world.
My story and what it taught me
It was a Sunday morning around 11:30am when I found out that Simon had died and my world in that moment fell apart. Once I had told my children, I knew I had to tell Simon’s mum in person before she found out by the police turning up at her door. She lived across town and so my mum and sister offered to drive me there and be with me whilst I told her. I remember sitting in the passenger seat of the car on the way over there and it suddenly dawning on me - I was a widow. I remember repeating the phrase to myself, over and over again. It utterly threw me. I had barely acknowledged, let alone processed Simon’s death and suddenly, in a split second I had to digest the unthinkable. I no longer had a husband. I was alone.
Now although many widows I have met struggle with the term widow as it forces them to accept the reality that their husband is no longer alive, the word widow never actually repelled me. It threw me, but I didn’t hide from it or avoid calling myself it. I wanted to talk to people about Simon and would actively find a way to bring up the fact that I was grieving, whether I was at the supermarket checkout, at the bank transferring money or making phone calls to people. I wanted them to know what I was going through and what I was feeling. I knew they didn’t or couldn’t really understand – but I desperately wanted them to.
I think the reason I didn’t mind calling myself a widow, is because I knew very soon after Simon died, that I didn’t want to be a ‘typical’ widow, one defined by their grief. I knew that I didn’t want my girls to become victims or for their life story to be defined by the loss of their father. I was determined that Simon’s death would not negatively shape their outlook or choices in life. I wanted more for myself and for my girls. I chose in that moment, not to be that person who lived a life half-full, laced with heartache, resentment, guilt and victimhood. If people wanted to put me in a box and have their own perceptions of how I should act as a widow, then that was up to them, but life for me took on a whole new meaning when Simon passed away. I realised that it was a gift, one that should not be squandered. And in this realisation, I began to think of widowhood differently, as a tool for self-discovery and re-empowerment.
Widowhood as a tool
I have learnt over the years to be proud of being a widow. I recognise how lucky I was to be married to Simon; how fortunate I was that he chose to spend his life with me. I promised to love him until death parted us. And I did. I loved him until the day he died and continue to love him still. Being Simon’s wife was an absolute privilege and being his widow is no less of an honour.
Becoming a widow has taught me so many things. It’s sharpened my understanding of what’s important and armed me with qualities and characteristics I never thought I possessed.
I now have a much greater appreciation for all the opportunities life affords me. I am reminded that tomorrow is not a given, that we only have the present. I’m here to live my best life and subsequently have learnt to be brave and take more risks. I tolerate less drama, deception and fake behaviour and strive to build authentic connections with those around me.
I have developed a great deal more compassion and empathy towards others because I know what it’s like to be on your knees, utterly heartbroken and devastated. I have learnt to connect more deeply with those I care about and take time to nurture these relationships.
I have also become more resilient and resourceful when confronting challenges. I have learnt to live with my grief and grow from it. I have had to in order to survive and to be the best version of myself for my children. Although I still have days where I feel empty and sad, I know what I need to do to take care of myself in that moment and I no longer avoid prioritising this in order to recover and feel better.
And becoming a widow has really helped me to focus on how I want to rebuild my life and the type of person I want to be. It has encouraged me to consider the values that are important to me and by which I wish to live.
When thinking about how we can view widowhood as a way of understanding ourselves better, I am reminded of one of my clients. I have been working with this lady for three months and when we first started working together, she was so sad and so utterly exhausted. She felt constantly overwhelmed and lacked both the confidence and energy to make decisions. She was fearful about her future, continuously wracked with anxiety and felt disconnected from herself and those around her. And worst of all she doubted herself. She genuinely felt she was neither an effective employee nor a good mother.
However, just three months later, after working hard on developing a more productive mindset and challenging the negative perceptions she’s held about herself, she has become a different person. It hasn’t been easy. It has required a lot of dedication and self-reflection, but the results have been so worthwhile. She has become far more buoyant and has developed a new-found optimism. She has shared with me how she wants this next part of her life to be better than the first part. That’s not to say she hadn’t had a happy life with her husband. She had. They had been childhood sweethearts and had loved each other deeply. However, becoming a widow has helped her to unlock her potential and realise how much life still has to offer her. With her biggest cheerleader gone, she has become her own greatest advocate and learnt to trust her judgement and decision making. She’s made big decisions about work, gone on holiday and had fun. She’s no longer fearful about her future and is instead excited by it. She’s taken back control over her life and is starting to enjoy herself once more.
She knows she is always going to love and miss her husband and acknowledges that her grief will always remain, but she is learning to bring it with her in a more positive and productive way. She is now able to remember her husband with more love than pain. And for me this is what being a widow means - working through your grief, discovering yourself and taking back control over your life.
Conclusion
If we as widows can work through the perceptions of widowhood that history has handed down to us and shun the cultural norms placed on us by society, if we can instead create our own expectations around what widowhood means, we can use it as a tool for growth, self-awareness and re-empowerment and learn to move through our grief journey with more peace and less pain.
