Losing a Spouse: On love, grief and recovery

The loss of a spouse is in many respects similar to the loss of any other loved one. No two instances of grief are the same, and no two people suffer in exactly the same way after losing their partner, though many threads of shared human experience may connect them. Losing a spouse is different from other losses in certain ways: • Your bond with your spouse is usually the most intimate one you form, after your relationship with your parents • The person who knew you best has died • You have lost your closest confidant and soul mate • You have lost the person who satisfied your deepest needs: your need for an intimate emotional relationship, your sexual needs, and your need for companionship • Changed financial circumstances may force you to make fundamental changes to your habits and way of living • Altered roles and a different lot in life will require you to reevaluate yourself and your whole life. The loss of a spouse is one of the most serious, and also one of the most common, crises to occur in a person’s lifetime. This book is based on the authors’ own experiences of losing their spouses, as well as psychological discussions on human responses to the shock of losing a spouse: how you feel, how you try to survive, how you grapple with your deep grief, and how you try to find your footing again. The seed to the book Losing a Spouse is the story of Anna Ingolfs, who was thirty-five years old when she lost her husband, Árni Margeirsson, to cancer after a seven-month illness. He was thirty-nine. They have three daughters, who were four, six and twelve years old at the time. What makes Anna’s story unique is that it is based on journals she kept during her husband’s illness, and after Árni passed away. Through the years, she wondered whether these journals should be made available to the public. After becoming involved with a group of people who had lost their spouses, Anna realized how important it is for those who are in that situation to share their experiences with others, thereby acquiring knowledge and understanding of the seriousness of losing a spouse. This motivated Anna to seriously consider sharing her journals publicly. Anna contacted Gudfinna Eydal, a respected psychologist in Iceland, whom she knew by her professional reputation. She asked Gudfinna to read her journals. Gudfinna had several decades’ experience as a clinical psychologist in private practice, and had lost her husband, Egill Egilsson, about two years earlier when he died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of sixty-seven. Gudfinna was moved by Anna’s story, and after some discussion they decided to write a book together that would also incorporate Gudfinna’s memoir of her life with her husband. The idea gradually evolved into a more substantial work on the loss of a spouse, containing both accounts of real life experiences and a discussion of the psychological aspects involved. That work is the book Losing a Spouse.