It happened to me back in the late 90's while living and working abroad. Kids were very young and yes, it was a tough few years. Life inevitably does move on but the inner strength comes more from not wanting to let your kids down and not from any hand wringing or woe is me stuff. People have always paid great tribute to me over the years but I say that anyone in the same circumstances would do the same thing.. Afterall, what choice do you really have
This is the thing about most crappy bits of life - be it bereavement, illness, divorce or whatever. The option of crawling under the covers and dying doesn't really exist, so you have to sort of muddle through as best you can. I find people calling stuff like that brave or admirable quite irritating. It isn't brave for a drowning man to cling to the wreckage and swim to shore, is it? It's just what you have to do.
Where did I suggest not showing sympathy? I simply find the sort of fatuous, unthinking application of words like 'brave' to people who are just getting through the shït life throws at one deeply irritating. The one that really annoys me is all the stuff about people's 'brave fight' against cancer. A/ You don't fight cancer, the doctors do. You're just the battlefield. B/ It implies that someone who dies is really just a fücking quitter.