Customer Reviews

Widower: When Men Are Left Alone (Death, Value and Meaning Series)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(0)
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This booked helped me look at different ways men handled grieving and seen myself in some of the men. I seen that I wasn't crazy to have all these emotions and knew that I wasn't the only one going through this. It really is a great book for widowers to read and understand what they are going through.

Each widower should read this book in which the authors list interviews with twenty bereaved men and analyze the results. A friend of mine gave it to me three months after my wife died. I was depressed and had just started couselling sessions with a therapist. The book provied me with a great deal of insight on how other men were dealing with the most devastating loss of their lives. I recommend it highly

I've just completed this great book on the grieving plight of men who have lost their spouse. I'm currently walking that same path, only having lost my beloved wife a mere 13 1/2 weeks ago. I've read three books that deal with death/heaven, and so far this has been the best of the three. I plan on re-reading this again, particularly the stories about the men who are around my age (36) and how younger men deal with their grief.

A must read for any man in my (or our) situation.

I've read many books since my wife died on June 18th, most I thought would be helpful to a woman, but were of no use to me. I really thought this was a helpful book. Several of the stories really hit home with me. I think I most related to Bill, but I related to Hank, Mark, and Randy also. Some people I could not relate to at all. (Peter, George, Jan, etc.) It was really good that I bought this book. The one thing I didn't like was the fact that nearly all these interviews were conducted several years after the fact, and not in the first critical year. Maybe a few were I don't know. For example Hank's was done 50 months afterwards, and they had to clean it up to make it readable, but what condition was he in the third month? Most of the people want help right when it happens and not a thing that they look for it 4 years after and all. But this is the only thing I've seen that really deals with the men's perspective, and it had a number of different men, it was just a great book. The commentary was fantastic, and was very helpful. I was very thankful that I could buy a book (although insanely expensive - I paid nearly $60) and find that there were other men that I could relate to. That was a great thing and it was worth every penny for me.

When my wife passed away I went to a support group to alleviate the grief.
The support group recommended this book since it is aimed at the man's lose.
Had a hard time finding it since it is no longer in print. I have shared this book with other men and they thanked my for sharing.

I lost my wonderful, beautiful wife of 33 years to cancer. I found a great deal of comfort in reading spiritual and afterlife books and internet websites. However I wanted to find a book about being a widower. There are dozens of books for widows, but very few are written for the man grieving over the loss of his wife. This book had all 5 star ratings, so I purchased it from Amazon. Having read it, I now add my 5 star rating to the others. This is a wonderful book. The real life stories of nearly 20 widowers of varying ages gave me both validation of how I was handling my own life, as well insight into ways that I might try or even avoid. It was like being in a "Grief Group" with all of these widowers without even having to attend a meeting. The reflections and analysis by the authors after each man's story were also critically important. It is an invaluable source for the man who is trying to make sense of the life he finds himself at sea in.

There are so few resources to help us males who grieve, or to help those who would help us through our grief understand what it is that makes dealing with grief so difficult. Every member of my grief group that has read this has found himself in one or more of the twenty grief experiences analyzed. We males are not special, but we are certainly different. I would further recommend Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys by Kindlon and Thompson for an even deeper understanding of why it is the we males have a hard time "getting over it" and finding a normalcy in our lives.

Most books seems to be written for and about widows, with perhaps a few pages about how the experience might differ for men. But this book is ALL about men -- their words, their stories, and commentary by the authors. A particularly helpful list of resources in the Appendix.

If you are a widower, just buy the book. Even though it appears to be overpriced (they could sell it for a lot less than the $47 I paid), it still is worth every cent. The insights into the 20 men featured in the book were extemely helpful to me in understanding my own grief. To much of what I had seen prior was aimed at a widow instead of at a man.

I strongly suspect after reading this book you will feel it was helpful in finding your way down your personal path folowing the loss of a spouse. It is not a fun path to be on, but this book should help you recognize some of the issues you may face.

This book is one of the few studies of men in grief. It considers interviews with several men with commentaries following each interview and a summary commentary at the end. It is too bad that there is not a wider circulation, as the book is rare and expensive. It is worth the price though.