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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 July 2010
And then I began to learn what widowhood was all about and I don't think it's got much to do with whether your husband was killed in the army or not. Suddenly, an outcast.
Some war widows remember the wave of relief which swept through them after the death of their husband. Gwen Robertson recalls how she felt when her husband had a heart attack in 1985, when she was 62 years of age:
I stood beside his body on the floor … and prayed that he was dead … Oh god, take him, take him, we've all been through enough, all of us, we suffered enough … I suppose I felt relief it was all over.
Given the nature of her relationship with her husband, this response is not surprising. Often, an unhappy marriage is followed by a sense of relief expressed by the widow. Despite this evident alleviation, Robertson recalls how the period immediately after his death was extremely difficult for her. She went into a physical decline and was sustained by doses of Valium and Serepax. The strain was soon overcome, but it was as if the pain she endured was necessary to compensate for the guilt she felt for her husband's own hurt. She described her experience as being ‘bombed out’, but the overwhelming emotion was relief: ‘I suppose I felt relief. It was all over’, as there was ‘peace at least’.
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