Reader reaches out to offer help to widower

DEARABBY » Your advice to the grieving widower “In Need of Someone” (June 22) was spot on. I metmy husband when I was 14. Wemarried at 18, and he died when he was 44. After his death, I had no idea how to be a person because I had always been a partner.

In the early years, I cried every day and was searching, like “In Need,” to fill that empty spot in my life. Then one day, I started figuring out what to do about the other holes in my life.

I had not been the breadwinner, so my income was poverty-level. I had no college and not a lot of work experience. I knew if I was going to be able to keep my house and put my kids in college, I had towork on these other holes. In the process of school, working three jobs and keeping up with life, I realized I had never thought about what was important toME.

Over the years I have seen several close friends lose partners and go through exactly what “In Need” and I have experienced. Your advice is so true. Volunteer. Get a parttime job doing something you like or a job thatwill just give you someone to talk to.

Go to a support group, go to a church, but do not get into a serious relationship, because if you do, you will go from one dependent situation to another. Every person I know who went right into another relationship later regretted it. The new person is not your lost partner, never will be and will never measure up.

Be open to another opinion and a new lifestyle. You might like doing something you never thought you would see yourself doing before. You are not going to know unless you try. will be opened up to you.