Antonia, these are really very early days. What people do not give themselves is time to heal. We grow in that time, even in the pain.
First of all you are very in touch with your feelings, so you aren't pretending things are other than they are. You had a long and happy marriage, and it fell apart. IMO it was mainly a MLC, and your husband changed. A deep connection however doesn't go away quickly or easily. Also research shows unequivocally that man and women differ greatly in how they mourn. Studies of widows and widowers indicate that women take much much longer to get together with someone else, as a rule. [Read Persuasion again if you are doubt about this].
If you accept that you are sad, and that you do not want to be with anyone else right now, it will take the 'people pleasing' pressure off you. There is no need to add feeling like a failure to your pain!
I too was bewildered by the continuing sense of connection, bewildered by the fact that i couldn't 'get over' my xh. I realise that in some ways I never will, he is part of who I am, but I am OK with that. This may sound bleak, but I have come to like being on my own, and having good friends. Doesn't mean you won't meet someone else, but perhaps not yet. I have worked through it slowly, I have come to accept that at times I will be lonely. And curiously enough having accepted these hard truths, am both happier and much more at peace. And no I am not waiting for my h to 'wake up'
You are not abnormal, and I got a little tired of society's expectations that we ought to be OK in a matter of months or a year or too, after a very very long relationship. Just because some people feel OK, and meet new people, or get their marriage restored ignores the fact that many people on these boards go on hurting, not because they want to, not because they don't try to move on, but the human condition, for most of us, is that we love for a long time after the object of our love has gone away, or died. Life is about more than happiness [and I am not knocking happiness!]- it is about spiritual growth and development, and I suspect that comes through pain as well as pleasure.
These are people who 'hang on' but i do not think you are doing this. You are processing your grief, and without the terrible closure that death brings.
My elder sister dies when i was 17. My parents continued to live a good life, but never really recovered from her loss, and no-one thought they should. Many widows do not remarry. You cannot replace one person with another, It doesn't work like that for us. Sometimes we meet someone else, but while i do not think there is 'one person' for us, I do not necessarily think there is an infinite supply! So I would say take your time.
I would suggest that you might consider selling your house and/or changing some of your furniture. I did that and then rented for a while, then shared, and am now back in a new house which needs a ton of work doing, but I love it. It is wholly mine.
