Audio
===
Emily: [00:00:00] Hey, hey, and welcome to episode number 80 of the brave widow show. And Hey, it is official. We are in the new year. It's 2024.
That year as a child seemed so futuristic and crazy to think about 2024. Like I just seemed impossible when we were, as my kids say back in the 1900s, which It makes me feel super old, and Whitney Benko is going to share her story, which I think will inspire and encourage you.
And I'm excited to share her story with you. And I just want to remind you, this is the start of a new year. It's the start of a new chapter as part of your story. And this year is full of so much potential and possibility. [00:01:00] And I hope that you grab a hold of this opportunity and help make this year the best year for you ever, ever, whether you are hurting and you're grieving and you're just trying to make it through the day without crying and you want to heal.
Or maybe you're kind of figuring out this new life, and you're not sure what the future looks like, but your curiosity is piqued, you're interested, you want to know, well, maybe this could be possible, I don't exactly know how, but maybe it is possible, or maybe you are at that stage of widowhood where you are embracing a new thing.
Gratitude, you're embracing hope and you're filled with excitement and you see possibility and potential everywhere, regardless of what stage you're in. Let's embrace this year and the opportunities it brings [00:02:00] to get you closer to the place you want to be, to, to achieve the things that you believe is possible, or you want to believe is possible.
And there's no better way to do that than by joining us in the Brave Widow membership community. I have been so incredibly blessed and encouraged and inspired. By the women who are part of this community and who celebrate each other and who share in sorrow together and who build dreams and new lives together and.
I had a member tell me not too long ago that she used to hate the word widow. She used to not want that title at all and to think so poorly of it. And now she just, like, she's so proud to say that she's a widow. Of course, not that she's happy that any of that has happened to her, [00:03:00] but it means something.
Now, it means that she's resilient and adaptable, and she's overcome so much. And she's now able to embrace this new identity and embrace this journey as she moves forward. And that just made my heart so happy. And I resonated with it so much because I feel the same way, like. I used to just really want to reject that label of being a widow.
Like widows were sad old ladies that were shut up in their house and were like 80 years old, but you know, that's not the case. The average age of a widow is 59, which is crazy to think about. And the older I get, the closer 59 seems to be to my own age. So. Yeah, crazy to think about how young widows actually can be or are.
[00:04:00] And I have learned so much about widowhood and what it means to be a widow and what it means to rebuild life again, that I'm so proud to be part of this amazing community of widows who are so generous and loving and who are no longer naive to death and whose priorities. Are so sharpened that they want to give to others, they want to help others, even when they're so early on in their journey.
They love helping the people that are behind them. They love elevating and lifting up people who are below where they are to bring them up out of that muck and mire. And. Pit of despair as we sometimes call it. So I just really want to encourage you now that we are in the new year It's not too late It's okay.
If you have no new year's resolutions, I personally don't do [00:05:00] new year's resolution. That could be a whole nother podcast and probably will be by the time you hear this, but you should have goals that you're working towards. You should have dreams you're working towards. And even if you are in the earliest stages of being a widow and you're just trying to survive and make it through the day and you're trying not to drown.
That's okay. You can have one tiny goal. You can have one thing that lifts your eyes up and helps you to move forward one step at a time. So again, I would love to see you in the brave widow membership community. You can join us by going to brave widow. com slash join. I hope to see you there. Okay. Let's dive in now to Whitney's story. ​
Emily Jones: Welcome to The Brave Widow Podcast. I'm your host, [00:06:00] Emily Jones. We help young widows heal their heart, find hope, and dream again for the future.
​
Emily: Hey, Hey, welcome back to another episode of the brave widow show today. I have a special guest with me, Whitney Benko, and I'm really excited for you to hear her story and her insights. So Whitney, thank you so much for joining me on the show today and welcome. Thank you. I'm excited to be here. Yeah, I'm excited to have you here too.
So I know our audience always loves to know a little bit about our guest speaker and your background and, uh, part of your story. So if you wouldn't mind to share that, I know they would love to hear it.
Whitney Benco: Yeah, absolutely. So I am a mom of four. My husband passed away in 2020. From alcoholism. Um, we met back in 2014.[00:07:00]
We Have, we had two Children together. I was pregnant when he passed away. I was 14 weeks pregnant with our second child, um, a little boy. So that was really difficult to be pregnant and have my husband pass away at the same time. But during our marriage it was pretty good except for anytime he would relapse it would be pretty rocky during those couple weeks.
For the most part, we had a really good marriage and things were really good. Um, he was a bass guitarist, so we had lots of music in the house. Um, He was really great at playing guitar, bass and acoustic. So that was really fun. We, we just did a lot of music. We traveled a lot. He helped raise my other two boys who are, um, older than our two young kids.
So my oldest is 16. I have a 12 year old, a five year old and a three year old. So we basically started over once we got married. And we have a little girl and a little boy [00:08:00] together and, um, in 2000, 2019, around December, he just decided that he had given up and he just, um, unfortunately had to leave the house because he had relapsed with on alcohol for the last time.
And unfortunately. We, were able, he had to go to a hotel and unfortunately within a month he had drank himself to death. Um, so that was really, really difficult. Um, so I was able, after he passed away, I was able to take a couple years off and just spend, you know, that time with the kids, have the baby.
So that was a really healing time period for us. Uh, so it was really nice to have that two years with my kids until I went back to work last July in 2022.
Emily Jones: So I have to imagine that it's a very helpless and also frustrating feeling to see someone that you love so much [00:09:00] struggle with addiction, struggle with, , Something that, you know, ultimately could hurt them or lead to this of what, what was that like for you during that time when he was kind of back and forth, up and down with his alcoholism,
Whitney Benco: it was extremely difficult.
I actually have a bachelor's degree in psychology and was a substance use case manager. So and I was that before we had met. So being a case manager for substance use and then my husband being so deeply affected by it was extremely hard because I couldn't help him. There was no way to help him and I that's what I did all day at work was help others know so not being able to help him was just, it was the worst feeling in the world I was, I felt so helpless.
Emily Jones: Yeah, I, I can't really imagine, um, I've had a very close friend that struggled with addiction and they really became Uh, theirs was, you know, [00:10:00] drug use and I can't imagine what it's like to be that addicted to something that it causes you really to just become almost another person and do things that you normally wouldn't do.
But I know that for people to struggle with that, that it really has to be something just very overpowering. And one thing that I had to acknowledge is that. I couldn't want to help that person more than they wanted it, and it didn't matter what I would do for them until they were ready. Uh, really, they had to make that choice for themselves.
Given your experience, would you say that's similar for other people that may be struggling with that right now with their spouse?
Whitney Benco: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And that's one of the hardest pieces is you can't help them unless they want to help themselves. But you deeply want to,
Emily Jones: and you probably want to just strangle them at times too, I'm sure like, you know, why, why are you doing this?
Why are you putting me in this situation? But, [00:11:00] um, so it's just incredible to me to think about, you know, you as a mother and here you are pregnant and, you know, you're. Several weeks along, and then he goes to stay in a hotel and what should be a very like exciting time, uh, a time that you're looking forward to now you're facing the rest of your pregnancy and then that delivery, knowing that he's not going to be by your side and you're not going to have that same probably level of support.
Um, how. Challenging or what was your mindset, you know, over those next several months, as you move through your pregnancy and you were trying to help support your kids and, uh, all of that. That was, it was
Whitney Benco: extremely hard. I actually almost lost the baby. Um, because you know, those first few months you can't eat, you can't, you feel like you can't breathe, you can't function.
And so I am almost lost the baby because I was in unable to eat. [00:12:00] They were putting me in the hospital. Um, For the baby was failure to thrive. Um, I wasn't gaining the weight I needed to gain. So it was all just really emotional and leading up to the birth. Um, I wasn't due for another week or two and I came to the doctor and I said, you have to get this baby out of me right now.
My PTSD hit really hard and I made them deliver the baby a week early because I was afraid that if the baby was born on the six month mark of his death, the baby would die. Yeah. So it was, it was extremely, the, the labor and delivery was, was the hardest part because I had felt like, you know, he wasn't there, so it was just, I need this baby out right now, and so thankfully they did listen to me and they did deliver the baby a week early, but being in the labor and delivery room by myself, you know, I had a couple friends with me, but without him was just, it was, it was really, really hard.
It was really hard.
Emily Jones: Yeah. And you already just [00:13:00] in a normalized state, there's a lot of emotions. There's a lot of things that come up when you're in that delivery room. And, and as you move forward over those, the next few days and weeks, um. I've, I've interviewed some other mamas that have gone through a similar situation where they're carrying a baby to term while they've lost their spouse and several of them express difficulty with being able to bond with the baby to feel like they, you know, are excited the baby's here and, um, They just share that it takes, it took them several months to really get to a point where they felt close to their child.
Did you have any of those challenges or struggles?
Whitney Benco: I didn't actually, um, because he had three girls before he had this boy. Um, I found out I was having a boy the day before he passed away. And so I kind of like, in my mind was like, Oh, this was the last gift he gave [00:14:00] me. And it was a boy. So I actually bonded with him a lot more than I did my other three children.
Emily Jones: Oh, what a beautiful way to look at that situation and to look at your son. Uh, I absolutely, I love that. I love that you were able to view that. Um, and I'm glad that your friends were there for you in the labor and delivery room. Did you feel like you had a lot of support and people that surrounded you after your husband passed and then after you had your baby as well?
Whitney Benco: after he passed, I definitely had a lot of support. Um, after the baby was born, I had a few supportive. I actually almost, um, didn't make it through the labor because I had a hemorrhage. So that was really scary. So everybody started to pop back in, you know, they disappeared for a while. And then after the baby was born, of course, they started to pop back in, you know, and surround me with support because it was such a scary time, after the baby was born.
Emily Jones: So what did you, what were some things that [00:15:00] you found the most helpful that people would do? I know a lot of times people really want to help. They want to show their support, but maybe they just don't really know exactly what would be helpful to a widow and to somebody who's newly had a baby.
Whitney Benco: I think cooking was really helpful when people would bring over some meals or that was really helpful or ask me, Hey, can I take the kids for a couple hours?
That was really helpful for me, just to give me some time to gather my thoughts, especially after he passed away. Um, it was nice to be able to have a couple hours just to gather my thoughts, try to figure things out. Because, you know, it's where our emotions are all over the place during that first few months.
So it was really nice to have people come and take the kids for a little bit. You know, the hardest part is, is they don't really know what to say or they don't really know what to do. So they kind of, they stop after a while because they don't know what to say. And so that that is the hardest [00:16:00] part is when they do stop coming around and then you kind of feel out of place.
I felt so out of place after everybody stopped coming around.
Emily Jones: Yeah, I know for a lot of widows, our whole typical social circle changes for a lot of different reasons, but it still is a weird shift and it still, I think, comes with a grief of its own. As you kind of rebuilt your social circle and people that were around you, did you find that you reached out more to friends and family that you already had?
Or did you find new friends and new people as you started to heal and move through that journey?
Whitney Benco: Um, I found a few new, um, and then some others I had just Reached out more to some that were in the past that I had kind of stopped talking to and I had reached out a little bit more to them and we became close again.
So it's kind of a mixture of both.
Emily Jones: Oh, I think that's fantastic. Um, I know some people [00:17:00] enjoy, like, people who've only known you as a widow and they don't really know the you before. But then of course, it's always nice to have like those true blue people that we can nurture a relationship with and they continue to show up for us, which is awesome.
It definitely is. Yeah, so what, what advice would you share with, someone, let's say who's in a similar situation and maybe they're still within the first few months and it's raw and it's painful, maybe they have a Guilt about what happened with their spouse, or they feel like there's something they could have done differently, or they're just wrestling with all these emotions of things that are happening.
What are maybe some words of encouragement or a bit of advice that you would share with those people?
Whitney Benco: Um, so I experienced the guilt and the, I could have done so much better. Um, so the, the biggest thing is. Um, just to just to [00:18:00] keep, you know, everybody tells us to keep going and I know that's so cliche, but it's the truth.
We just have to keep going and allow yourself that time to grieve, allow yourself that time to heal because, you know, um, sometimes we move on too fast. We, um, don't properly grieve. We get so endowed in raising our Children and trying to do it all on our own. We forget about ourselves. So just a reminder, like, don't forget about you and your healing journey as well.
Emily Jones: Yeah, I love that. Um, one of the best things that I think I learned through the grief recovery method, and there's a book out there, uh, people are interested, is that There are so many different ways that we feel guilty about what did or didn't happen with our spouse, regardless of the situation. And guilt is a really heavy because it implies that we did something wrong, or it implies that we had that malicious [00:19:00] intent.
So I always just try to remind people, you know, if you're struggling with guilt or that's something that's weighing heavy on you, instead of thinking, well, I'm guilty or I was guilty of this or that. Think about it more along the lines of, I wish there were things that were better, more, or different.
Because at the end of the day, that's really what it is. Like, you wish that there were different interactions that you had with your person, or maybe there was something you could do more, or there was better interaction, but there's nothing that you did as an individual to intentionally cause this to happen.
So I just want to really encourage people that are hurting and wrestling with that guilt that to reframe it and to release. The guilt that weighs so heavy and to look back and say, you know, I wish things were different or better. But I'm not guilty because I didn't do anything with malicious intent or anything wrong.
And I know for [00:20:00] me, that really helped me with all of the, I could have made this phone call. I could have called this doctor sooner. I could have intervened in another way. And I'm guessing you probably get to see that even in your work, uh, when you're dealing with family members or friends of people that are struggling with this.
Is that a fair assumption?
Whitney Benco: Yeah, yeah, it is.
Emily Jones: Yeah. So I think that's really great advice to not necessarily consider yourself, um, burden with guilt and to give yourself like just the grace and time to heal. And I love that you got to take time off with your family, um, there, you know, shortly after he passed, what do you feel like were some of the key things you guys did as a family as you are trying to heal and create your new normal?
Whitney Benco: So, um, right before he passed away or right after he passed away, COVID hit, so that was extremely hard. We couldn't get into [00:21:00] therapy like I had wanted to because everything was closed down here where we are. Um, so we just did a lot of, self work. I tried to, you know, work with the kids on. Processing grief and we just did a lot of self work.
We, um, did a little bit of traveling just out into nature and kind of grounded ourselves a little bit. We did things together more rather than, you know, my teenagers going out and doing their own thing, you know, I kind of said, Hey, you know this, we have to plan this time for all of all of us to be together.
So I kind of just built more of a family unit, then I had previously so before we had always you know had dinner every night together before my husband passed away but it was more of, you know, we're going to do these things together so it was just more of building that. New normal. However, you know, you find your new normal, um, which takes years.
It's [00:22:00] three years later and I'm still trying to find my new normal. But we just did a lot of self work. Um, I had the kids working on in children's grief books. Um, I, you know, help them help my daughter process because she was only two when he passed away, but she had remembered every little thing about her dad and she still does.
And so we, you know, make sure that his memory stays alive and just a lot of work with her on trying to process. So we're still working on it. It's still a work in progress, but we're still, but we did a lot of self work back over the last
Emily Jones: three years. Oh, that's awesome. And I'm, I'm glad you shared some examples of like working through the books and really just talking a lot about it.
Cause I think people would be really curious about, you know, what are the things they can do on their own if they can't find a therapist or a coach, or, you know, it's really just not a viable option for them. Um, so I think working through those books is great. And [00:23:00] I, I find also that a lot of widows choose to travel and to make new memories.
And I found that was something really important for me too, is, you know, get out to places that maybe you never been before. Go spend time outside because the more new memories your brain makes, the less painful it is in existing in the old memories, because all of those places have the memory of that person there.
But you start over time to make those new memories. Even maybe some new traditions about how, you know, you want to do things. So is there anything that any advice or anything that you would share from your transition and your healing of, you know, life is pointless. I'm depressed. Um, my life feels like it's over too.
Okay. I can. Start to see a glimmer of hope I could start, maybe one day I can laugh again. Maybe one day I [00:24:00] can still have a great future for myself. Any other key things that you can think of that help people kind of get through that transition to thinking about rebuilding a life for themselves in the future.
Whitney Benco: I did a lot of
reading. I did a lot of, um, there's a grief and trauma workbook. Um, I got from my work, but it's also on Amazon and it was, um, a complete workbook on how to, you know, process and then it also like showed you, you know, how to, to find new. Things to do. And I wrote a lot. I wrote down, um, whenever I was upset, you know, about my husband, I wrote every day in a, in a book to him.
I still do. And, um, that helped me process a lot. And whenever I would get angry and feel that way, like, you know, life is pointless. I'm depressed. I don't want to go on. I would write him a letter. And I don't know some way that made me feel a little bit better, just to be able to [00:25:00] have my person to talk to about it, even though it was, you know, communicating in a different way.
It kind of just made me feel like I was connecting with him. And then I would feel better about, life is pointless. I know he wouldn't want me to feel that way. I know that, you know, this was never the plan that he had for us. So just remembering those things and a lot of just a lot of self work, you know, it takes the work you have to put in the work to process the grief and even though that's not what we want to do in the beginning.
It is really good for us to process the grief and work through it. It's never going to be. You know, gone, but it can get a little bit better.
Emily Jones: Yeah, I completely agree. And I love that you, you know, we're proactive and you're healing by looking for resources by reading by it's almost like journaling, you know, as you're writing those letters and you're getting all of those feelings out, that's amazing.
[00:26:00] Um, one thing I liked about the grief recovery method too, is at the end of the. You know, six to eight weeks, that's one of her exercises is in a very specific way to write a letter to your person and just the way all of that was structured really helped me feel like all of those things that were left unsaid got said, those unresolved loops, those open circles got closed and I felt so much lighter and better.
And so. You know, even to your point, as things come up where, you know, maybe you're mad and you're frustrated, like, why did you do this to me? Or you're thinking about, I really wish you could be here to see, you know, your son walk for the first time or say his first word that you're able to. Sit down, write the letter, get all of those thoughts and emotions out there and probably feel a little bit better, a little bit lighter as you're, as you're going through that.
I [00:27:00] think that's awesome.
Whitney Benco: Yeah, and that's exactly what it felt like was lighter and better and I did I wrote, I wrote days when I was mad and there wasn't so many nice things in that letter or I wrote days, you know, our son was born, he started walking or special holidays. If the bears want to be a football game I wrote that down.
Just things that he liked, I would write that down. Just so you know, if I needed to, I could go back and read it. I've chosen not to read any of it. But still just putting it down on paper did make me feel lighter.
Emily Jones: Yeah, that's awesome. So I know some would share that if they have a spouse that dies to suicide or substance abuse, things like that, that.
Um, maybe people aren't as supportive or they might comments or, you know, they feel a little, um, suffering in the shadows is the phrase that was used the other day when I [00:28:00] was talking to someone, have you noticed or felt any of that as you've moved through the process of people maybe not being as sympathetic as normal because of the circumstances and how he died?
Whitney Benco: Um, I honestly haven't. Um, well, I actually have. Um, I dated somebody about two years later and he had no, um, care about it. He thought I shouldn't be grieving it. Um, he made me feel like I shouldn't be grieving it. So I kind of just blocked everything out for a few months. So I have experienced that by somebody I was dating previously, um, but everybody else has been really supportive.
Um, and since I started working my job, I started back in behavioral health back in July of 2022. That is actually where I have healed the most because I work with a directly with, I don't do substance abuse anymore, but I work directly with a substance abuse counselor and [00:29:00] she, um, has shown me, you know, so much more about addiction that I didn't know and showing me, you know, there is going to be a lot of people who don't believe that it's a problem.
They don't believe it's an actual mental illness. So she's shown me a lot. So where I can tell those people that do say something, you know, I can basically educate them in a nice way. So that way they don't upset me because it is upsetting when somebody acts like your, your suffering isn't. Any loss at all, especially because of addiction.
Emily Jones: Yeah, I, I agree. And I think 1st of all, I'm glad you're no longer hopefully with that person, or maybe they've been educated and understand. But yeah, I mean. I, I talked to someone recently who, um, she was feeling a certain way about, you know, her old boss actually that committed suicide and she had her own opinions about it and what would make people do that.
And, you know, she didn't [00:30:00] support it and she was just struggling. You know, my feedback and my response was, you know, this isn't about that person, which seems weird to say because it's that person's funeral and it's that person's memories and, and it's the ripple effect of everything that's happened because of them.
But I said, now we need to focus on the people that are left behind in the wreckage, picking up the pieces. And it doesn't matter. If they died to cancer, if they were in a car wreck, if they had the substance abuse, it doesn't matter, pain is pain and people need love and support and people to surround them to say, I know that you're hurting, I know that you need help, and I'm going to be here in the trenches with you and it really helped that person.
I think change their perspective. I think sometimes people just focus on the wrong thing because it doesn't matter. To me, what the situation was, there's still going to be a lot of [00:31:00] internal turmoil and pain of just losing your other half. I mean, you guys were together for a while. You had a very close relationship and that's, that's hurtful.
Mm hmm. Definitely. Yeah. Well, any final thoughts or words of encouragement, um, maybe for people who've been through a similar situation or people that are struggling or just kind of coming out of, um, the darkness and figuring out what their new normal is. Any final thoughts for those folks?
Whitney Benco: Um, just a reminder that it's okay to not be okay.
It's okay to give yourself the grace to grieve. It's okay to cry and scream, and it's okay to sometimes have no emotion at all. Um, just remember, just remember to give yourself that grace to give yourself any grieving that you need. And it take, it can take as long as you need to, and just to remember [00:32:00] that it will, it can take as long as you need it to.
There's no time frame on grief.
Emily Jones: Yeah, absolutely. And time on its own doesn't necessarily heal the pain. So I encourage, yeah, I encourage all of you just like Whitney has done with herself and her family to be proactive, read, join a support group, you know, seek out counseling or therapy or coaching, but in some way become proactive and healing, it takes, there is no timeline, you know, you're absolutely right, but.
Also being stagnant and living in the day to day pain doesn't magically heal the wounds either. So we'll just leave you with that encouragement. So Whitney, thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing your story so openly and, um, the words of, of insight that you have. I really appreciate it.
Whitney Benco: Thank you for having me.
​
[00:33:00]
Emily Jones: Hey guys. Thank you so much for listening to the Brave Widow Podcast. I would love to help you take your next step, whether that's healing your heart, finding hope, or achieving your dreams for the future.
Do you need a safe space to connect with other like-minded widows? Do you wish you had how-tos for getting through the next steps in your journey, organizing your life or moving through grief? What about live calls where you get answers to your burning questions? The Brave Widow Membership Community is just what you need.
Inside you'll find courses to help guide you, a community of other widows to connect with, live coaching and q and a calls, and small group coaching where you can work on what matters most to you. Learn how to heal your heart, find hope, reclaim joy, and dream again for the future. It is possible. Head on over to brave widow.com to learn more. [00:34:00]
