Blossoming: Finding a New Identity after the Loss of a Spouse

Abstract

The passing of a spouse is a difficult life event that many older women face. This study focuses on the transition period and the implications for the life left to live. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 13 older widowed women regarding their thoughts, feelings, and adjustments after the loss of their spouses and understand how their routines and lifestyle have changed over time. Overcoming challenges and finding new interests, often through leisure, created a sense of positivity about the future without their spouse and allowed these women to create a new identity and blossom into fulfilled individuals. Our findings suggest three ways that managing these adjustments may help women. Discovering that they can manage being alone can improve confidence to overcome larger tasks. Mastering new skills can create a sense of positivity about the future, and finally developing new activity patterns contributes to a new identity.

Keywords:

• death
• leisure
• qualitative analysis
• thematic analysis
• social roles & social factors
• widowhood

Disclosure statement

The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare. All coauthors have seen and agree with the contents of the manuscript and there is no financial interest to report.

Notes

1 The researchers acknowledge that spousal or long-term partner loss are not experiences exclusive to cisgender heterosexual women, a point to be addressed in the limitations section.