How to Survive Losing a Loved One: A Practical Guide to Coping with Your Partner’s Terminal Illness and Death, and Building the Next Chapter in Your Life

A practical, empowering guide to navigating your partner’s diagnosis of a terminal or life-limiting illness, or death.

Receiving the news that your partner has a terminal or life-limiting illness, or has died unexpectedly, is among the worst experiences in life. At a time when you are least able to cope, you are faced with a multitude of difficult decisions, some of which must be made quickly. What you need is a friend who has experienced everything you are about to face, who can support you as you navigate some tough, important choices.

This book is that friend. There is plenty of information out there but where to start looking? What information is needed and how can it be accessed? What decisions are essential in the immediate term and what can be left until later? Throughout the book, the emphasis is on protecting and supporting those left behind by presenting almost every choice you may need to make and the possible implications of each decision.

You will learn:

• The importance of creating a will, arranging power of attorney, organising advanced decisions of treatment, and even getting married or entering a civil partnership

• What you are entitled to from the state, the NHS and your employer

• How to stabilise your finances and prepare to run a household alone

• Where your partner ought to be during treatment and/or palliative care, and how to go about achieving this

• Which decisions need to be made after death, from planning the funeral to accessing your partner’s estate

• How to navigate the grieving process and take control of a happy future

No matter where you are in the process, How to Survive Losing a Loved One is a comprehensive, practical and empowering guide to coping with your partner’s terminal illness and death, and building the next chapter in your life.