What is worse: being left through deat or divorce?
On September 27th 1994, my favourite uncle and protector, died unexpectedly, he was a PT teacher, accompanying a schooltrip and while on the bikingtrip he had a massive heartattack and died immediately.
My aunt, my mum sister was completely devastated !
He was only 50 years young, biked long distances every day and had a huge zest for life!
I had that same day gotten the keys to our first house and was two months away from delivering my twinboys. I was told only after the funeral, because of complicated family relations and being heavily pregnant while starting the renovation of my house.
I was also totally devastated, but I could not show my feelings of loss, I just did not even have the time and my aunt had completely gone incommunicado .
It was a crazy time, i worked very hard to get the place in order, before the birth.
After the birth, my aunt came slowly back in my life and I realise now, looking back, that I probably must have said the most stupidest, hurtful things to her, while being completely oblivious about it.
At one time, I compared her loss (of his life) with the loss of getting divorce and said in all my stupidity that I would have prefered my former relations to be dissolved in death rather than in separation.
She did not agree whatsoever, but being a widow myself now 30 years later, I think, though I might have put it a whole lot more diplomatic than I did than, I actually was right.
You see, if your partner dies, they did not do this purposely, it just happened (incidently I do include suicides in this, because I think they are often a spur of the moment kind of thing) so your loved one is ripped out of your life suddenly without any reason!
And if you are very lucky enough, they might leave you a message of love!
But even if they could not, this unfortunate demise had everything to do with the cosmos and little with a purpose.
So you are left with a lot of emotions, I mean your life has ended as you knew it, and your partner is not there anymore to assist, protect, coach, love, push you along to survive this devastating event. The only thing left is that you have somewhere in your mind the conviction that what ever happened, you were (intensely) loved by them!
And that is the crux between separation through death or divorce, because in a divorce, you partner (and possible lover till that last day) all of a sudden turns around and says that they cannot go on like this!
And that makes them in many cases almost automatically the ennemy there and than!
And there you have the differance between losing someone through death and losing someone through a one sided separation.
Having been a divorce mediator and having been married plural times, I do realise this “article” misses a lot of nuances, because life is never black and white, au contraire, but I believe that having loved and lost is a whole lot better than never haved loved at all.
I wish you a nice day!
Olha, Saturday November 15th 2025
Colette Pastoor