As I removed my dead wife’s favourite novels from the bookshelf, a photo of her fell to the ground and a wave of guilt swamped me.

The photo was of my wife with her sister in the 1980s. They were toddlers. My wife’s eyes, wide and bright, and her hair, blond and shaggy, looked just like our four-year-old son. But I felt no joy in seeing her beauty and genes passed on. I felt as though I was suddenly drowning.

I couldn’t breathe. My muscles locked. Nausea from panic rose in my stomach, and I almost vomited. In removing her books and discovering her photo, it was as though her ghost had seen me committing a heinous crime. A simple act that, in my grieving mind, demanded I go on trial. That I be held to account before a jury for the terrible, selfish act of moving her books to the far end of the house to make way for my new ones.

I’ve talked with other widowers and widows about paralysing guilt. It can be the result of doing small, everyday things to better enjoy life after a spouse has died. Some have told me of crying when grocery shopping alone, or when going on beach holidays by themselves. Of being overwhelmed with emotion on tentative first dates, years after the loss. Or still feeling heartbroken in a new home after moving cities for work.

There has been a growing understanding of the ways guilt shapes life after the death of a partner. Studies show that grief is natural and inevitable after significant loss, and it often comes with........

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