Which is more Heart Breaking, an unwanted divorce or the death of your spouse?

Timewise 60+ said:
Death! It is final, you will never see or be able to speak to the person again...
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exactly you will never have that person that you love cause you pain over and over again for years.. and another thing , in a divorce not only have you lost that person, you've also lost an income, which means that suffering from the deep shock of losing your partner, you suddenly find yourself in financial poverty...

Widows and widowers tends always to have insurance, there's no insurance for someone walking out on you for someone else... and leaving you financially cut off..
 

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I have a newish RL friend in my neighborhood who may have had a still more awful experience. Her husband unexpectedly killed himself. I asked if she referred to him as her "ex" in that in a sense he left you but she said she prefers "late".

So his relationship with her was not enough to keep him interested in life at that point in time, but it was probably something that elongated the time he had during which life was worth it or at least bearable. Spousal suicide would feel like a rejection to me but if the spouse was in psychological pain which they couldn't cope with or even acknowledge to themselves, then I don't think their departure at a low point shouldn't be taken too personally.

I've been divorced. I may yet be widowed (widowered?) With divorce there was a sense of failure even though it was absolutely the right decision looking back. But at the time, with what you know when you're younger, it can be very surprising and disappointing.
 
PeppermintPatty said:
I agree that death would be far worse. With divorce there’s usually a mutual understanding that it’s not working out. Both parties have an equal chance to find love and remarry. Even if you didn’t get along well with your former spouse, you can be happy for him in finding someone else.
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I completely agree. I love my husband enough to want him to be happy, whether it was with someone else or his being alone on his own. If he wasn't happy under our roof with me, I could not feel any happiness either. I hear they're trying to eliminate no-fault divorce, which is insane. It should be as easy and friendly as possible if there is abuse, addiction or a plain old loveless marriage.
 

I would say divorce is worse. We expect death. We know we are going to die and those we love will too, but divorce is frequently completely unexpected. That takes special reserves of inner strength to survive and move forward. This is just my opinion because I have been through death but never divorce. :unsure:
 
Heartbreak is heartbreak no matter the cause. It could be death of a loved one, divorce, or losing everything in a natural disaster. I never really knew grief until my wife passed away. My Dad was married three times. My Mom was the third. I know he loved my Mom, but he still carried a photo of his first wife in his wallet.
 
I don’t know what I don’t know. Never lost a spouse to death. I did lose a parent when I was a child. That took me about ten years to make peace with.

Regarding divorce, a lot depends on how things ended. A mutual parting is a lot different than discovering a months long affair going on while they were pretending everything was fine. That they thought so little of your feelings. It’s a tremendous blow to one’s ego.
 
SeaBreeze said:
I have to say if I got a divorce from my husband, I'd be very sad. If he died, I'd be devastated, big difference IMO.
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I'm in a unique position of both divorcing and attending the funeral of the same wife.

I didn't want to divorce Shelly because of the kids, and because I loved her very much. Divorce is the destruction of a family. But she literally escaped rehab with the help of her boyfriend, and they made 3 stops on their way to Arizona - his meth dealer's house, a tattoo shop to get his name shot into her buttcheek, and a biker bar. So I didn't think I had any choice. I HAD to divorce her.

I agonized for months after the divorce. I cried. I worried about her night and day. The kids cried. The boys asked for their mom every day. They got angry at me for divorcing her. I stayed in touch with her parents, and they got angry at me for divorcing her. Why didn't I give her another chance? Why didn't I ask for court-ordered rehab? Why didn't I this, that and the other???

About 3 years after the divorce, Shelly was killed in a car crash...driving under the influence. And it sounds weird, but that was easier. Way easier.

The circumstances are different from a lot of people who commented here, but I was still totally in love with the woman I married. And the "If I'd only done this or that" did echo in my head for a while, but only for a while. Not for 3 whole years, like it did after the divorce. Nobody pressured me, nobody got angry at me, nobody blamed me...out loud. Shelly's death didn't plague me like divorcing her did. And I'll never know for sure, but I think that's how it would have been whether the divorce happened or not.

Divorce and death of a spouse both destroy families, but in very different ways.
 
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Mizmo said:
Death is final. It is over and you grieve. The hurt eases , you have good memories and life goes on.

The hurt and rejection one experiences from divorce never really goes away.

That person who was so much part of your life is out there with someone else doing the things you did together as a couple
while you are alone, still hurting with memories of good times and sometimes anger when the nastiness creeps in and can go on for a very long time.
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This is me, this is my life now. I left him because he was no longer the man I married. We remained friends and I was okay with it....until he met someone else.
 
I don't think you can compare the two events. You can more easily compare the death of a spouse with the death of a parent or child. A divorce is (IMO) totally unrelated. I guess what they may have in common is the survivors will think of them to one degree or another for a long, long time.
 
I met my husband at 15, engaged at 18, married at 20, Our time cut short at 51 when he passed from a 5 year cancer battle. I will not say it was a perfect marriage, there were many trials we had to work through, that is what a true marriage is about, getting through those hard times.

As I have already said to @hollydolly, it would have been so much easier if he had been truthful, if he had said he was unhappy so they could try to work thru it. What he did not do, he chose to commit the ultimate betrayal. He did what he wanted and gave no regard to her, He chose to step outside the marriage and hook up with a little chippy, a girl hardly of age. This is not true love this is an older man living in a dream world to help him deal with the fact his youth is gone, his last chance of pretending he can still get a young thing,

The truth is she is there for the money, the things he can buy, the high living while he is taking medication to prove he is still a virile man. I think men are just as guilty of chasing youth as women. The truth for both sides is embarrassing, It is on both sides a farce. Age is as natural as time. I accept that and will not apologize for my wrinkles, gray hair or weight.

Men also gray, gain weight, get wrinkles, have body parts sag and fail to work the way the way they want, At least, women admit the change in their life with menopause. Men fail to recognize they have the same issues; they suffer the same outward changes and the changes that they can't function downstairs as in their youth. Oh no, it is the fault of their aging partners, has nothing to do with them.

Then they learn about those little blue pills and think they are 20 again. No, dude you are not young again, it is a drug making that thing function. Get over yourself!

So, in answer to your question, death is the better option. Death is not a choice for the most part, making a fool of yourself, hurting your family, making a mockery of your life that will live on in history for generations will be your legacy. Your tombstone to read, I was stupid, had it all and gave it up to pretend I was still virile.

I wanted to say it another way but that would be impolite. Most of the men on this site are respectful, loving husbands who know they are gifted to spend a wonderful life with the woman they chose to spend their life with, to be the mother of their children and had the courage to honor the commitment they made before God.
 
Blessed said:
I met my husband at 15, engaged at 18, married at 20, Our time cut short at 51 when he passed from a 5 year cancer battle. I will not say it was a perfect marriage, there were many trials we had to work through, that is what a true marriage is about, getting through those hard times.

As I have already said to @hollydolly, it would have been so much easier if he had been truthful, if he had said he was unhappy so they could try to work thru it. What he did not do, he chose to commit the ultimate betrayal. He did what he wanted and gave no regard to her, He chose to step outside the marriage and hook up with a little chippy, a girl hardly of age. This is not true love this is an older man living in a dream world to help him deal with the fact his youth is gone, his last chance of pretending he can still get a young thing,

The truth is she is there for the money, the things he can buy, the high living while he is taking medication to prove he is still a virile man. I think men are just as guilty of chasing youth as women. The truth for both sides is embarrassing, It is on both sides a farce. Age is as natural as time. I accept that and will not apologize for my wrinkles, gray hair or weight.

Men also gray, gain weight, get wrinkles, have body parts sag and fail to work the way the way they want, At least, women admit the change in their life with menopause. Men fail to recognize they have the same issues; they suffer the same outward changes and the changes that they can't function downstairs as in their youth. Oh no, it is the fault of their aging partners, has nothing to do with them.

Then they learn about those little blue pills and think they are 20 again. No, dude you are not young again, it is a drug making that thing function. Get over yourself!

So, in answer to your question, death is the better option. Death is not a choice for the most part, making a fool of yourself, hurting your family, making a mockery of your life that will live on in history for generations will be your legacy. Your tombstone to read, I was stupid, had it all and gave it up to pretend I was still virile.

I wanted to say it another way but that would be impolite. Most of the men on this site are respectful, loving husbands who know they are gifted to spend a wonderful life with the woman they chose to spend their life with, to be the mother of their children and had the courage to honor the commitment they made before God.
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explained better than I could ever have done... thank you Blessed 🤗
 
hollydolly said:
Very often in a divorce it's only one party who has fallen out of love, so not only does the other party feel the serious and severe loss of the other, they have to watch while that person no longer speaks to them and watch as they are in a loved up relationship with someone else.

This is continuing heartbreak. The wound is open again and again.

With a death it happens once .. and they're gone.. they don't keep getting up and dying, and breaking the heart of the other over and over....

When my mother died so suddenly.. I used to beg God.. if only you had made her leave us for someone else, at least we could still see her...sometimes.....

When my husband left suddenly.. no warning... I thought the opposite.. if only he'd died I'd be able to get over this and not have him be continually nasty, and parade his new conquest.... salt in the wounds over and over...
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Thank you for sharing this! Yes!! I can understand the "continuing heartbreak" that you wrote about and "the wound is open." I don't have that...just memories that return now and then.
 
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