Loneliness after a death

There are two kinds of lonely, and grief brings both.

One is the loneliness of a smaller world — fewer people, quieter phone, a calendar with gaps in it. Company helps that one.

The other is the loneliness for one specific person. Not for people. For them. Their voice, their opinion on the thing that happened today, the way they'd have laughed at it. No amount of company touches that, because company was never what was missing.

Most advice you'll be given is aimed at the first kind. If it's the second kind you have, the advice will feel useless — and it isn't that you're doing grief wrong. It's that people are handing you the wrong tool, kindly.

Research that followed widowed people over years found something worth knowing: their social contact often *increased* after the death, and they felt lonelier anyway. So if your diary is full and you're still alone in it, that is a normal, documented thing, not a failure of effort.

Many people find the loneliness isn't spread evenly. It arrives at particular hours — the end of the afternoon, Sunday, the walk from the car to an empty house, the moment something happens that you'd have told them about.

Naming your own worst hour is useful, because a known hour can be planned for in a way that a vague dread can't. Some things people do with theirs:

• Put something in that slot on purpose. The same thing, every week — a walk, a class, a phone call you make rather than wait for.
• Leave a radio or the TV on before you go out, so the house isn't silent when you come back to it.
• Tell one person which hour it is. People want to help and mostly don't know when.
• Write to them. A notebook, a note on your phone, a letter you never send. Many people find the urge to tell them things doesn't go away, and giving it somewhere to go is easier than swallowing it.

This one is stark enough that you should know it.

In the first year after a spouse dies, men's loneliness rises about three-fold; women's about two-fold. Women's then tends to decline over the years that follow. Men's has been found still raised as long as nineteen years later. And widowers are considerably less likely than widows to form new connections.

That is not weakness and it isn't personal. It is a pattern large enough to show up in decades of data, and much of it comes down to who was keeping the friendships. For a lot of couples, one person held the social life for both. When that person is the one who died, the other doesn't just lose a spouse. They lose the connection to everyone.

If that's you, the thing that seems to work is not sitting down opposite someone and talking about feelings. It's doing something beside someone — a shed, a club, a job that needs doing with other people, a regular thing where turning up is the whole requirement and nobody asks how you are.

Honest version: there is no cure, and the research is mixed. But a few things have more than sentiment behind them.

*Volunteering.* Widowed people who volunteered substantial hours had loneliness levels similar to people who were still married. Of everything studied, this came up most consistently. It may be that being needed on a schedule does something that being invited does not.

*People in the same situation.* Not everyone gets on with groups, and plenty of people try one and never go back. But a room where you don't have to explain the basics is a different room.

*One fixed commitment.* Something in the diary that recurs, that other people expect you at. Motivation is unreliable in grief. An obligation to someone else survives a bad week better than a plan you made with yourself.

*Your GP, if it isn't shifting.* Loneliness and depression are not the same thing, and they travel together often enough to be worth saying out loud to someone qualified. There's a guide on when to reach out.

Griefline — 1300 845 745, 7 days, 8am to 8pm. Free. Grief and loss specifically, which means you don't have to start at the beginning.

FriendLine — for anyone 18+ who is lonely or wants a chat, free and anonymous, run by Lifeline. You register your number on their website and a volunteer calls you a few times a week, rather than you calling in. There's also a web chat, Mondays 5pm–8pm and Wednesdays 1pm–4pm AEST. Not a crisis service.

Solace Australia — support groups, café meet-ups, walking groups and online meetings for people whose spouse, partner or fiancé died, whenever that was. Operates in NSW, Queensland, WA and SA, through state branches.

First Light — an Australian charity for widowed people. Free online community, local catch-ups, and free packs for the newly widowed.

Your local council, neighbourhood house or library — the least glamorous suggestion here and often the most practical. Most run things that are free, regular, and don't require you to be interesting.

If it is heavier than loneliness — if you're thinking about not being here — Lifeline, 13 11 14, any hour.