My Husband Died. Then I Found His Journal.

Editor: Xiaojie Qin

Date: Sep 2025

Two years ago, I ran into CYN. "I’m moving," she told me. "My husband died." The news stopped me cold. That must have been crushing, I thought—yet there she was, living fully: creating, working, persisting. Only later did I learn the truth: her husband had died by suicide. I hesitated to reach out, stopped by the fear that my words might wound rather than comfort.

Earlier this year, as I planned for today’s World Suicide Prevention Day, I kept thinking about her. At CandleX, we confront stigma by amplifying voices often silenced—not just sharing pain, but the quiet strength that follows. For a decade, our community writing project has thrived on this alchemy: raw honesty meets resilience, offering others a mirror for their own unspoken battles. I wondered if CYN might let us honor her journey, if her story of recovery could light the way for those still lost in the dark. She accepted our invitation, and after working together for two months, here is her story.

Navigate your story with clarity and courage. CandleX's supportive program (Coaching Support for Your Mental Health Stories) blends guided coaching with the power of writing to help you make sense of your mental health experiences.

Author: CYN (pseudonym)

Date: Aug 2025

“How are you?” an old friend from Shanghai asked when we met for brunch at a small café in Beijing, a couple of weeks after the funeral.

It’s what everyone asks after someone dies. And the grieving often say, “I’m okay.” Not because it’s true, but because the real answer feels like too much. Too raw. Too hard to explain.

“Well,” I said. “Things have settled. My husband’s gone. I’m —” I paused, suddenly aware this was the first time I’d said it out loud.

A widow.

The word felt foreign in my mouth. Almost antiquated. Like I was trying on something old, theatrical, not quite mine. And yet, somehow, it lit me up. Like saying it out loud unlocked something.

Not grief. Not pity.

Power.

I felt like Scarlett Johansson in Black Widow, stepping into leather and combat boots. I felt like a badass. And I had an eight-year-old sidekick at my side. Little did I know I’d need all that power for what was still to come.

I wasn’t angry at my husband for ending his life. He had been quietly suffering from depression for years, and I knew he had tried his best—just as I told our son:

“Daddy tried his best and loved us very much. But he was ill. We all tried our very best.”

He didn’t leave a note. So it was left to my imagination to make sense of it. Maybe he believed he was doing us a favor. Maybe he thought it was an act of sacrifice—that his presence would only hold us back from truly living. I kept hoping I’d find something. A letter. A message. Some final clue.

One night, missing him more than usual, I pulled a journal from the corner of a bookshelf. He hadn’t written in them regularly, but still—I thought maybe, just maybe, I’d find a few words meant for me.

Instead, I opened a Pandora’s box of secrets.

In it, he wrote about his struggles with infidelity. Regret. Guilt. Close calls—moments when I almost caught him. He wrote about how stupid he felt, risking everything. How much he wanted to be a good man, but how strong his inner demons were.

On the last page, dated a year before his death, there were only a few scribbles of despair.

No answers. No goodbyes. Just silence. 

The husband I thought I had didn’t exist.

I stared at the pages in disbelief. The life I’d known dissolved in an instant. I couldn’t find my footing. What had ever been real?

That’s when the deeper grief began—not just for the man I lost, but for the life I thought we had. Fifteen years, rewritten in an instant.

I closed the journal. And still, I had to tuck my son into bed as if nothing had happened. I kissed his forehead, pulled the blanket around him, held him close.

Inside, a hard truth settled in: this wasn’t just a betrayal of trust. It was a betrayal of reality itself. A slow, invisible unraveling I hadn’t seen, until it all fell apart.

How could he do this? Had any of it been real? Who was he?

I kept thinking about all the relationship work we’d done over the years—the hours spent talking through conflicts with nonviolent communication, sharing reflections on Tara Brach’s Radical Acceptance over dinner dates.

One of the last things he said to me was that he appreciated how I had shown him how to accept himself. We created safety for each other. We practiced vulnerability. We were—at least I thought we were—authentic.

Was it all an illusion?

And then the blame turned inward.

How could I be so stupid? So naive?

I replayed every moment, looking for the signs I had missed. The red flags. The gut feelings I brushed aside. I felt like a fool—for trusting, for loving, for believing we were in this together.

And then there were the humiliations I never saw coming.

After the funeral, a man I’d never met approached me to offer condolences. He said how much he admired my husband. Then added, almost laughing, “He introduced me to lots of girls. I mean, I was forty, a Harvard grad, and still hadn’t found the one.”

It wasn’t until later—after I read the journal—that I realized what he was really saying.

He knew.

It felt like he was taunting me. You were so clueless. So gullible.

This wasn’t just about private betrayal—it was public. Some people knew and even enabled it.

I felt humiliated.

He felt more like an ex-husband than a late one. But I couldn’t divorce him. I didn’t get to choose. I still had to call him my husband. Sometimes I thought: maybe I should marry a stranger just so I wouldn’t have to say that word anymore.

I didn’t choose this.

I didn’t choose to become a single mom. I didn’t choose to be betrayed. I didn’t choose to be left alone to raise our son, holding the pieces of a life I no longer recognized.

But I could choose how I would respond. And soon, something in me stirred—an awareness that this pain wasn’t unfamiliar. I had met it before. It was as if life had been quietly preparing me—not through comfort, but through difficulty. Each loss, each heartbreak, each healing effort laying the foundation of resilience. 

My first real lesson came in college, when my boyfriend cheated on me. Though devastated, I made a quiet vow: I wouldn’t let it harden me. I wouldn’t let betrayal turn me bitter. I would keep trusting. Keep loving. Keep believing in the goodness of people.

That promise stayed with me. It still does.

In college, I had a psychology professor who often reminded us: “Be slow to judge. Understand the story behind the behavior.”

That phrase stayed with me. It shaped how I saw people.

Beneath the betrayal, the lies, the harm, there’s usually something else. Unprocessed trauma. Unspoken shame. Pain that twists people away from who they really are.

Hurt people hurt people became a kind of mantra for me—not to excuse the hurt, but to see the woundedness behind the hurtful behavior.

I had already done a lot of inner work years before my husband died.

Coaching. Meditation. Somatic work. Books about trauma and healing. I journaled. I practiced self-compassion. I learned how to sit with discomfort, to soften around pain instead of running from it. Perhaps most of all, I learned how to surrender. 

Some pain was beyond tools. On those days, I could only lie down—sometimes literally, face down on the floor—and ask the Universe to hold me through it.

I hadn’t realized I was building emotional infrastructure—and weaving a circle of soul companions I could lean on when everything fell apart. So when the floor gave out, I didn’t collapse. I had something to stand on. And I wasn’t alone in the dark.

I began to imagine: What if, before this life, we had made a soul contract? That in this lifetime, we would be husband and wife not to fix each other, but to grow through our own darkness. To learn that humans are messy, contradictory, and still worthy of love.

I often think of Persephone. I descended into the underworld. I’ve seen what’s down there—the grief, the betrayal, the silence. And now I’ve come back up — changed. Not bitter, but clearer.

I no longer see people as simply good or bad. We are all both. And learning to accept even the darkest parts of him—and myself—was part of how I chose to heal.

I don’t see him as evil. I never have. He was deeply wounded. 

As Father Greg Boyle says, people are unshakably good. It’s the illness, the trauma, the pain that makes them act in hurtful ways—makes them forget who they really are.

I still believe in that goodness—no longer with blind trust, but with clear eyes.

So I began again. We’ve moved to a new country since then—to begin a different life.

And on days when I feel unsure or unsteady, I still think of the Black Widow—her confidence, her strength, her grit. All superheroes have scars.

Widow.

It still sounds strange sometimes. But it’s no longer a label I was handed. It’s a strength I’ve claimed.

Widow. Woman. Mother. Betrayed. Whole.

I carry them all. And I walk forward.

Disclaimer: The editor’s note was proofread and improved by Deepseek, while the Author’s writing was assisted by AI in a role of a writing coach.