Researchers have been looking at how men and women experience grieve after the loss of a loved one. I suppose it should not be surprising there are differences:

Research increasingly suggests that men and women experience grief in different ways, and the realization has bolstered a nascent movement of bereavement groups geared to men throughout the country.

Concern about reaching men in grief has gained new urgency with shifting demographics. The number of men ages 65 and older increased by 21 percent from 2000 to 2010, nearly double the 11.2 percent growth rate for women in that age group, according to census figures. As the gender gap in life span narrows, experts suggest that many more men will be facing the loss of loved ones, particularly spouses. Many will be not be prepared for the experience.

While women who lose their husbands often speak of feeling abandoned or deserted, widowers tend to experience the loss “as one of dismemberment, as if they had lost something that kept them organized and whole,” said Michael Caserta, chair of the Center for Healthy Aging at the University of Utah. http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/0...erience-grief/

We all have or will experience loss. Learning more about the process of grieving seems to be helpful. Even so, nothing could prepare me for the loss of my Dad.

[protector1973]

grief is difficult, i lost my brother and then had a nervous breakdown within a year, me i just wanted to go away to country or seaside and get away to be on my own , i never managed to escape to anywhere. big regret of mine, needed time to adjust.

[Purple Heart]

I experience grief through feeling sadness and as I got older turning to friends to help me through. But I think i'm atypical of how most men deal with grief.

[pachyderm]

"Men" don't experience grief in any particular way.

[Mediator]

I am woman and I experience my grief. My ex-husband and me are divorced 14 years. He died seven years ago. It has to be funny if somebody reads it but it is true.
My divorce was for me chance to be friend with my husband, he was something what I felt as back up if something will getting wrong. If he died I was so devastated but I did not grief enough. I started to do meditation and I go trough it and I feel what I lost. I confirm what is in post
quote "feeling abandoned or deserted"
I suppose that women are more able to live by them self and what they look for relationship to have a help when is needed. Men are usually looking for somebody who will look after them. I understand that after they miss to be organized.