There is nothing more devastating than losing a partner. You had planned to spend your whole life with this person, and now your own life feels adrift.

Men grieving the passing of partners and wives can face a slew of special challenges in dealing with this pain. Grief counselors can help you address that pain – and here’s how.

Opening up

One of the most pernicious lies infecting our society is the idea that men cannot cry and should not grieve. Claudius sneers at Hamlet’s supposed “unmanly grief” – and look how well that worked out for the both of them.

Honestly sharing one’s feelings is one of the most important steps in regaining one’s liveliness following a loss – and it’s, unfortunately, one of the most stigmatized steps by culture today.

It is okay for men to cry.  It is okay for men to grieve. It is more than okay but necessary for them to share these feelings to come to grips with the loss of a beloved partner or wife.

It can feel awkward to overcome these societal hurdles blocking men from properly grieving and healing – but grief counselors can lead the way. They understand how difficult it can be for men, in particular, to open up about their feelings, and are specially trained to help work with male widows on overcoming this hurdle.

Remember, there is nothing “unmanly” about grief, and facing and conquering it makes you even more of a man.

Setting Goals

As expressed so well by licensed therapist C. Lancianese, one of the most common obstacles to recovery for anyone suffering from grief is a sense of hopelessness - that there’s no hope and nothing matters anymore. Grief counselors can help combat this by helping you set concrete, attainable goals along the path to recovery.

Maybe you have slipped out of your routine and need to recover a sense of normalcy. Maybe you used to work on projects, but with the death of your partner or wife, this just doesn’t seem meaningful anymore.

Grief can be a major stressor to your physical health too, often causing heaviness in the limbs, aches in the neck, back, or skeletal joints, or overall muscular pain, so if this occurs, do consult an expert like coral coast physio for help.

Maybe you have begun to fill the void left by your partner or wife’s absence with drugs or alcohol. A grief counselor can help you set goals and find better-coping mechanisms to sort through these complex feelings, uniting empathy, and understanding with tangible action.

Support Groups

Because of the stigma against emotion and grief that exists within many male spheres today, it can be hard to feel like you can talk to someone who’ll understand.

That’s why support groups for grieving fathers and male widows can be immensely helpful for men who fear this stigma or feel others may not understand their grief. In these support groups, healing and healthy male bonding come together to create communities that are stronger than the pain that has brought them together.

The opening paragraph of D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover deals with the weight of immense loss, speaking for countless millions who felt (and still feel) “among the ruins” with “no smooth road into the future.”

Grief counseling for men can help you rebuild from the ruins of loss to help you heal and find a new path forward for yourself because, as Lawrence says, “We've got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen.”