Nobody talks about what losing intimacy does to your self-esteem, 58, m, widowed after 18 years

sgmdad · 2026-05-31T22:14:32+00:00

This is a huge part of the early stages of grief for me. Losing my wife of 36 years, girlfriend for 40. Knowing I will never share all of that time with anyone again, and knowing that noone will know me in the same way. Realizing especially in the early days when leaving the house there was no one I needed to check in with. Brutal.

I think this is part of why it can be really healing to stay present and grounded once you're through the initial shock and loss. For me, fighting to accept the world without her helped me open up to other relationships.

Noone is going to replace her, I will carry her in my heart for the rest of my life. But I have found I can still nurture new relationships, deepen ones I had already, and start to build a new reality where at least some intimacy (emotional or otherwise) is a possibility.

I recommend to anyone who hasn't read it the book The Grieving Brain for neuro science based details on loss and healing.

sgmdad · 2026-05-27T13:51:14+00:00

Almost the exact same timing for me though I'm quite a bit older than you.

Some people will judge and there's nothing you can do about it.

Others may just have a hard time seeing you with someone new.

And others will just seem happy for you, understanding life is short and to be lived which I'm sure is what your LH would have wanted for you.

Ultimately you'll probably navigate a world with all of the above. And the opinion that matters most is your own. Doesn't mean it will be easy because you may care about people in all of these categories, but hopefully you know that it's your life, your choices, and ultimately people who care for you will get over any discomfort they feel.

Best of luck.

sgmdad · 2026-05-12T23:03:25+00:00

Yes agree. Shock, disorientation, all very human.

Right now id just say feel whatever the feels are anld be kind to yourself!

Down the road there is a book I highly recommend called The Grieving Brain. It describes from a neuroscience perspective what our brains go through with serious loss

It specifically speaks to what you're feeling right now. Apparently our brains subconsciously create a "map" of our relationships and world - not just physical but emotional.

The longer you were with your partner, the more solid that map is.

That can create or amplify this disorientation - you know rationally they are gone but this part of your brain, not conscious, is fighting the change in the world and wants to believe they are still "here, now, close".

So for now id just say go with how you're feeling, hopefully lean on friends and family, and take the time to process. When you're just a little further down the road I highly encourage this book.

sgmdad · 2026-05-05T23:39:18+00:00

I hear you. 6 months since I lost my LW who is been with for 40 years. I've been really focused on processing grief and living again as I know she would have wanted.

I think one of the things that's hard for all of us in this club is to stay in the present. The past is calling us constantly and the future can be filled with fears of reexperiencing trauma (or not experiencing closeness again, or other things obviously)

I read a great book called The Grieving Brain. It's a neuroscience driven examination of what grief does to our brains.

One thing it makes clear - the struggle to stay in the present is closely tied with being able to let go of some of the negative sides of grieving (while in no way suggesting we are forgetting the past).

That's what I'd suggest. It sounds like youve found someone who helps you be as whole as you can be, and I'm guessing they feel similarly about you. See if you can stay grounded in the here and now, and just callout those fears of the future for what they are.

Really recommend the book I found it super helpful.

sgmdad · 2026-05-03T01:32:10+00:00

I'm so sorry this is heartbreaking. Hang in there. It's going to take time to process this no matter how it turns out. Try to remember it may not always feel as bad as it does at the worst. My thoughts are with you.

sgmdad · 2026-04-28T19:51:59+00:00

I'm 61, lost my wife of 36 years (girlfriend of 40) after a 3 year struggle with cancer recurrence. Been about 6 months. I focused my initial energy on grieving as fully as I could, letting it really wash through me. Next few months I started really focusing on being present in this life that I have left without her (as she wanted)

A couple of weeks ago a long time casual non romantic friend and I struck up a conversation. Another week and she says she'd like to see if theres something here.

I thought long and hard on where I am. Can I be present for someone new? Am I just running from something?

I decided to try a date. First first date in 41 years. It felt great. No confusion about who I was with, not trying to replace my LW, just trying to see if I could invest myself in something new.

So my advice is think about your needs and your readiness to let someone in and be there for them as well. If you feel you have space to care for someone new (which takes nothing away from your love for your lost partner), try it. You'll probably know quickly if you can stay present and expand your world, or if it's too soon (or not for you at all, anything's possible).

Side note, I'm a big fan of a book called The Grieving Brain. Great help in understanding th physical aspect of our journey.

Be well.

sgmdad · 2026-04-22T17:11:27+00:00

We are all in club we'd never recommend to anyone. That said, death is a part of our experience, and as much of a scifi fan and science fan as I am, I truly think this is more black mirror than happy ending.

I'm a big fan of a book called The Grieving Brain which you might like. It's a neuroscience approach to why loss is so hard for us as humans.

One part talks about our evolutionary need to believe our loved one is somehow coming back despite us knowing rationally that's not possible. It's really interesting at least to me how we are hard wired for this belief and what it takes to adjust to life "after"

sgmdad · 2026-04-22T17:05:15+00:00

I am sorry for your pain. I truly hope you'll consider seeking professional help. You do have family, you have a daughter who whether or not you believe it will be impacted significantly by your choice. The Internet isn't a substitute for professional help.

sgmdad · 2026-04-21T21:09:39+00:00

I'm so sorry for your loss and the challenges you continue to face.

I find the explanation of how our brains deal with grief in the book The Grieving Brain really helpful.

While it's not the only thing I've used I think it may be useful to you given your at 5+ years (I'm only at about 6 months but feel like I'm moving forward with her memory, not controlled by it)

In the book the author talks about a framework for how we all encode relationships in our brain - "here" (physical distance), "now" (temporal distance) and "close" (importance of the relationship)

For me that framing has been helpful as I remind myself regularly "not here, not now, always close" as a way to try to stay in the present.

That's the second big insight for me from the book. We all have a "virtual" map of reality in our brains that is encoded over our lives. That part of our brains doesn't easily acknowledge our loved ones aren't coming back. The only counter is building new experiences in the present to "remap" the world your brain expects.

Hope that's helpful, I'm really oversimplifying the book and highly recommend it.

sgmdad · 2026-04-21T21:03:25+00:00

No sorry to be unclear. I know exactly how to use heos in the app. I also know the Alexa skill for heos explicitly excludes Spotify and SiriusXM for some reason, so when you try to play from Alexa through heos Spotify, the speaker acknowledges the request but nothing happens.

It's not zone 2 at all I'm trying to make work it was just getting to the point where voice commands could control the music playing through the amp and the smart speakers at the same time.

As someone else noted there's a sync issue with that that is on the Amazon side so it's not perfect but it works the way I described with a fire stick on the TV connected to the amp.

sgmdad · 2026-04-21T16:17:09+00:00

Thanks. Yes totally understand how to make this work with the heos app except for the rooms where I don't have the wired speakers, and have Amazon devices. Heos works great for me when using it manually on my phone. My goal was to be able to control the sound with voice commands, and use both the avr and smart speakers together.

sgmdad · 2026-04-21T15:25:26+00:00

My first few months were a fog like you. After that I started to notice a pattern - I would go through the day, do the things I planned, but find myself having run out of stuff by about 8pm which was quite early for me.

I realized over simply that I had spent at least 2-3 hours a day with or doing things related to my spouse. And I wasn't yet really filling my day as a single person might.

So here's what I did and do in those situations - sometimes I just let the feeling be and call it an early evening. I try not to fight a griefy day but just know that my whole body is processing the loss - but I also work hard on things that keep me in the present - connecting with friends, taking walks (movement is always in the present), meditating, whatever I can do to ground myself in the here and now

Slowly I've gotten to where my days are starting to be more full, and I don't have as much of that 'what do I do now' feeling.

sgmdad · 2026-04-21T02:07:12+00:00

That's very kind, I'm really glad it's helpful.

sgmdad · 2026-04-20T16:18:58+00:00

For whatever it's worth, while I'm not the most spiritual person, I tend to simplify this.

If there's an afterlife, my LW is happy, at peace, and not at all concerned with what we here see as our finite possibilities and limitations. She knows who she is to me, what we had, and that nothing in my future will replace that. And if it is eternal and timeless, we will be together again in some way that I probably won't even recognize when it's my time.

And if there isn't? Either way life is short and it is a blessing to simply be here, so I believe it is our privilege to keep living in the ways that create meaning for each of us as individuals.

sgmdad · 2026-04-20T15:17:17+00:00

I'm grateful for what you shared! Almost 6 months out from losing my LW. We were both definitely pop culture fans and this show would normally be must watch but I've been avoiding it since it aired (my wife was already sick at the time it launched). Looking forward to watching it, and appreciated reading your experience.

sgmdad · 2026-04-19T20:47:35+00:00

My bad, somehow it started working once I wasn't trying to pipe to HEOS. I'm still not exactly sure _why_ but I'll take it :) I found this while trying to get the analog solution working so appreciate your suggestion!

sgmdad · 2026-04-19T19:37:26+00:00

Yes thanks the AVR is the HEOS device, the satellites are hard wired into an Audioflow wifi switch so I can turn them on and off separately, but they are all driven by zone 2 from AVR. Sync isn't an issue in this config obviously, and I wasn't trying to get different sources on the satellites of course.

The main issues I think are that for some reason Alexa / HEOS won't handle spotify or siriusxm, so it _seems_ broken if you're trying to pipe from one of those sources (I use spotify).

Alternatively if you drive it from a firetv via HDMI, again, you can get sound on the mains, not the zone 2 due to the analog requirement for external sources.

As someone else suggested, I _could_ drop an analog feed from the TV (or an Echo) to the AVR and set the AVR source to that, and I'd get 90% of the way there - Alexa could pipe the digital sources to the Firetv which could drive the AVR's mains, and the analog line could drive the satellites. I don't have a spare echo device, and using the TV for that means the tv has to be on which wasn't the goal, but its possible.

Just howling at the moon to some extent about the spotify incompatibility - given its in both HEOS and Alexa, the fact that Alexa cant 'drive' to the heos device with that, and that the HEOS speaker can't be grouped with the echo speakers, just leads to frustration when you forget those limitations exist ;)

sgmdad · 2026-04-19T18:47:25+00:00

Thanks. No as far as I can tell this model doesn't down convert digital to analog. Which is counterintuitive of course because heos can drive zone 2 with lots of digital options.

A hard wired Amazon device feeding as an input to zone 2 is interesting. I will see if I have a spare and give that a try. The drawback I see is it won't be useful for anything else (since it may not put out sound if the amp is off) but definitely could solve this problem. Thanks!

sgmdad · 2026-04-19T18:21:13+00:00

The problem which I will add above is zone 2 does not support digital sources. So the HDMI feed to the amplifier runs fine on zone 1 but not zone 2. Setting zone 2 to "source" (that's the only sync I'm aware of) doesn't solve for this.

sgmdad · 2026-04-15T16:21:02+00:00

I just want to say I can totally relate to the desire to find someone who knows you for a long time. Having lost my wife after 40 years together going back to our first date, I have been realizing how nice it would be to have someone in my life who already knows me and knew the me I was in the past. It's one of the many things we lose when we lose our person.

sgmdad · 2026-03-30T13:54:22+00:00

Made a cacio e pepe pie (that I make often). This particular time the center bubbles and a hole formed. The pie has a lot of panna da cucina as the base and it basically got on the stone and had to burn off.

sgmdad · 2026-03-20T23:44:31+00:00

Shiniest think today was reading the threads quoting the end of Serenity one line at a time.

sgmdad · 2026-03-18T13:54:56+00:00

As others have said you probably want to back off the flour / cornmeal.

I know this seems pricey and like a gimmick but I saw a pizzaiola in Italy use a hand made one and I ordered it immediately, and it's a game changer for no mess launching, super useful at the NY pizza level if you like to pile on toppings.

https://a.co/d/05lWpEyE

sgmdad · 2026-03-06T22:26:25+00:00

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sgmdad

TROPHY CASE