Losing a Partner: How to Cope with Bereavement

All you must know about coping with spouse bereavement and finding a new purpose in life. 

Narmatha Murthy, 68, lost her husband 14 years ago. What followed was a huge void in her life and a loss of purpose to live. She took six long years to overcome the emotional toll .“I was totally dependant on him. He was a doctor, had his clinic at home and would be with me 24/7. He was my mentor and taught me how to manage finance and banking, made me learn new languages like Kannada, taught me to take care of my health and everything. We would even travel to his medical conferences together. When I lost him I was in my early 50s and my world shattered,” recalls Murthy.

The incident made Murthy, who had been an introverted and shy person, come out of her shell. “Financially I was in a good shape but the toughest part for me was to overcome the sadness. To get over that I booked an apartment and took up interior decoration and even now I keep myself busy with the same. Apart from that, I cook and take care of myself, I take care of all my properties, manage the tenants and travel. Just two years back I joined Silver Talkies Social and made multiple new friends. I travelled to Banaras with them right before the lockdown and made great memories. Keeping oneself busy and socially engaged are the best ways to cope with spousal bereavement,” says Murthy whose children live overseas.

Narayan Pillai, now 64, lost his wife four years back, it was an unexpected shocker. His wife underwent cardiac surgery, suffered from septicemia and succumbed to the condition. “She was a school teacher, hale and happy, who voluntarily decided to go for the surgery during one of her school breaks and did not survive it. It takes a considerable time to sync with it as one has to face a big vacuum, something which one never contemplates at all before it happens. Also, there’s a big gap to fill when you don’t have the lady of the house going forward,” says Pillai.

Though the sense of loss never goes away, after the first few weeks, Pillai decided to get back to normal life the best way he could. “I was retired by then but realised the best way to cope with the situation was to keep myself occupied. I took up a full-time assignment with a company that kept me going for the next two years and busy from morning to evening. However, the challenge of making a home without a woman exists and will exist. As my wife was a working lady, we had basic support systems like a house help and a cook. But getting the groceries at the right time and managing the house which I did not bother about earlier, now requires my attention.”

Pillai believes that getting attached to a like-minded group can immensely help. “The amount of socialising we do throughout our life is very limited due to work and other responsibilities and once we retire, we become almost immobile and social engagement becomes minimal. A club like Silver Talkies Social plays a significant role in getting seniors to engage with like-minded people and overcome loneliness,” he says.

Wellness Impact

Whether prepared for it or not, the loss of a partner impacts an elderly person’s health, both mental and physical, say geriatric psychiatrists.

“The severity of the impact depends on how death has happened. In case of a car accident or a sudden cardiac arrest, the extent of grief is more compared to a case where a person had been chronically unwell and the partner was aware that death was evident and could happen at any time. In cases of those suffering from conditions like Dementia, the partner who also happens to be the caregiver in a majority of cases, often witnesses the burden of life that the elderly dear one had to bear and often prays for his or her peaceful death over a sad life and later suffers from a deep sense of guilt when the person passes away,” says Dr Soumya Hegde, Consultant Geriatric Psychiatrist from Bengaluru.

Partners during the silver years become interdependent on each other and taking care of each other becomes their purpose in life. “When one passes away, it becomes extremely difficult to accept for the other,” says Dr Hegde.

The Gender Difference

Women, in most cases, are more dependent on their husbands in terms of managing the finances or works related to banks, says Dr Hegde. “When the male partner passes away, it becomes a mammoth task for their wives to understand finance amidst all that grief. They become helpless, dependant on their children and often feel their dignity hurt. Also, the traditional Indian society has several norms and rituals that a woman has to follow on losing their husbands and they often have to go through major lifestyle changes which may impact a woman’s bereavement more.”

The men, on the other hand, go through a sense of emotional loss of losing a companion, she believes.

Health Factors

A sense of guilt, sadness, depression, loneliness, pathological bereavement where some people go through the vision of the past, find it hard to let go of anything related to the late partner, feel a sense of guilt to be happy or eat something good and have bouts of crying even beyond six months of losing a partner are some of the common mental problems that an elderly partner may suffer from after the death of a spouse. “Pathological bereavement beyond 4 to 6 months certainly needs medical attention,” says Dr Hegde.

The mental and physical health trauma due to losing a spouse among the elderly ranks highest on the stress scale, says Dr Santosh Bangar, Consultant Old Psychiatrist, Dementia Specialist and Neuropsychiatrist, Mumbai. “Apart from the bereavement that may become a severe, clinical depression, there are a wide number of physical impacts as well. On losing a partner, the other person may stop taking medicines on time or go out for a walk and exercise alone and this could lead to a sedentary lifestyle and worsen the already existing physical ailments or result in the development of new ailments. Physical health conditions that get affected are Diabetes, Hypertension, Cardiac Diseases. There could be possibilities of a stroke, heart attack due to excessive anxiety and stress,” says Dr Bangar.

Finding a rainbow is possible even in the midst of grief

Coping with Loss

“Older adults must be kept engaged in some kind of physical activities and must be kept active. Social engagement plays a vital role in coping. The person must be encouraged to have his or her own world of companions, hobbies and interests. Family support is important and companionship must be encouraged to give them a chance to share good memories, helping the person to get back to the normal track of life, making him or her more independent with an emphasis on autonomy. Most importantly, the person must be given adequate time, respect and space and the grief should not be generalised and the context of the grief should be understood in order to help the person overcome the grief. There is an evidence-based treatment, individualistic psychotherapy, cognitive behaviour therapy, grief therapy involving structured sessions that are immensely useful in coping with the bereavement,” says Dr Debanjan Banerjee, Psychiatrist at NIMHANS, Bengaluru.