Halted Healing

I still feel married. The dichotomy of this phrase is largely dismissed by widows. Conversely, we pass it around like bread at the dinner table, slathering it with butter and comforting our palates with the way it rolls off our tongues. “I still feel married,” we say, and we really do feel married, but somewhere in this acceptance, we do not consider how polarizing it is to live this way. In truth we are agreeing to live two lives, be two people – one married, and one single. Anecdotally, this “still married” thing is a normal phase of grief, a universal force of widowhood that occurs, like gravity, so it rightfully has its place in the healing process, but if you stay in the land of I Still Feel Married – I believe it can halt your healing. You can get stuck.

“But you are not married,” my therapist says rather bluntly after I tell her that I still very much feel like I am a wife, a married person, married to JD – who died in 2019.

I immediately explain. “Oh, I know. Logically, I get that. But I still feel married. I don’t feel single.”

She investigates. “How so?”

“Just regular grief stuff. You know. I talk with him in the mornings over coffee. I talk to him in the car on my commute sometimes. I consult with him on things, you know, like, decisions I’m making and stuff.” 

Her expression is serious. “Does he answer back?”

               Ten seconds of silence…………….. 

“I know how he would have answered,” I say, in a quieter voice, but what I am thinking is – 

Yes. He answers back. I can hear his voice in my head, and I love hearing that voice. Don’t you take that from me! And if I forget for even a second what his voice sounds like, I pull up an old video of him so I can hear his voice and remember it again. 

I can see my therapist searching her mind for a way to explain, a way to couch a truth that I need to hear. 

“This…,” she tilts her head, looking at me, analyzing me, considering who I am as a person, a mother, a teacher – a writer. “This is a new book,” she says. “This is not the next chapter of your married life. This is the next book in the series, and in this book, your entire life is different. The choices you made as a married woman in that other book will not serve you here. They will not move this new plot forward.”

I am listening

She asks me all kinds of questions about the choices I have made in the last four-and-a-half years, and I realize that I’ve made all of them in honor of, and out of respect for, what Jay would have done or wanted. The car I am driving, the clothes that I wear, the way I do my hair, the home I am living in, my furniture, how I choose to spend my free time, how I think about the future – all these choices – I have made as if Jay were here, alongside me, navigating this life with me. Except he is not here.

My therapist starts with the little stuff: “How would you decorate your house if it were just you? Would it be the same?” She asks. 

My mind is wandering, trying to find the Sonney that is single. Who is she? Where does she go on a Saturday afternoon? What kind of movies does she watch? What does she make for dinner?  Where does she live? Where does she work? What kind of furniture does she have?

“I would get rid of the funhouse mirror,” I blurt, surprised by my own statement.

“The what mirror?!” She smiles.

I tell her all about this coat rack that Jay picked out while furniture shopping, and how it has this cheap, unflattering mirror that distorts your reflection – widens you by about 15 pounds. I keep it by the front door because I want to honor Jay (it was a favorite furniture piece of his), and now my life consists of looking at this wider version of myself every time I leave the house or walk by the front door. 

We chuckle for a minute, and she asks me if anyone in the family would like it for themselves. There are two people I can reach out to, and for now, I can put the mirror in the upstairs guest bedroom. The moment provides a sense of relief, like a weighted blanket has been removed from my shoulders.

I’ve been living in the land of I Still Feel Married for almost five years — I got stuck.

I normalized it. I allowed it to become my identity, a dual life that forced me into choices that have not served me well. I bought a house with a yard that’s too large for me to manage, because Jay valued big yards. I accepted a job with a commute that requires 25 hours of driving every week – because Jay commuted a lot, and I was trying to live up to his strengths as a provider. I took on things that would have worked – if I were still married, because I truly felt married, but what I needed to do was stop saying “I feel married,” and instead, start asking myself a question:

If it were really just me – and it really is, and that’s okay – what kind of life would I choose? How could my choices allow healing? How could they serve and nurture this new life? 

About Sonney Wolfe

Sonney Wolfe is a writer, educator, mother, nona (grandma), and widow. She holds a Master of Arts in English, teaches academic and professional writing for the University of Maryland, and writes features, press releases, blog posts, and personal essays for various news and social media.

Widowed in December of 2019, she soon joined the masses in COVID lockdowns, which deepened her understanding of grief as she witnessed widespread loss, especially among students. Now, she integrates grief support in her college classrooms by addressing pandemic disruptions, community loss, and mental health challenges. Her autobiographical teaching philosophy, born from her own grief journey, provides a platform to share her experiences and support students who have also lost loved ones.

In her professional writing, she sheds light on the human experience of loss and grief, particularly for widows. She explores the complex societal shift they face, transitioning from wives to widows and often single parents. This sudden change forces widows to navigate not only grief, but also a landslide of challenges: income loss, economic strain, relocation, career shifts, altered healthcare needs, and declining mental health.

Her Blog WIM Dispatches (Woman in Motion), https://sonneywolfe.com, chronicles her personal grief journey and advocates for the needs of widows, along with her IG: @WIM_Dispatches – and Facebook page: WIM Dispatches Life After Jay.