So my life competence note to spouses and others who are part of a team with divided areas of responsibility is this: Long before you feel that dropping dead in your living room is even a remote possibility, take the time to make an “In the event of my demise” document (or video) for your loved one, domestic partner, business associate, or whoever it is who is dependent on you. Explain what you have been handling and will be able to handle no longer. List the whereabouts of safety deposit boxes, safes, filing cabinets, important documents, monthly deadlines, passwords and lingering problems your successors may not be aware of. And keep it up to date.
Before either of you bites the Big One first, have a conversation in which you go over everything that should be on the list. Grace used to say, “If I was bopped by a trolley tomorrow, you would have no idea how to do X.” But she never took the necessary next step of explaining how to do X because she didn’t want to think about that trolley, and I never pressed her to, because I didn’t want to do X, and I didn’t want to think about her being bopped by a trolley either.
So I am still in hell, after (let’s see..) 17 months, and it’s my own fault.
As an aside, this is one of those times I don’t miss a departed regular commenter. The one I’m thinking of never missed an opportunity to pounce on a “gotcha” opportunity and write some version of “you’re the asshole here, and you’re trying to get sympathy and blame someone else” as a comment. I know I’m ultimately responsible, that I enabled my wife and was willfully blind. Nobody has to tell me that. This post is genuinely intended as a cautionary one I am writing in the throes of disgust and panic so that others can benefit from my stupidity.
Being incompetent at what my father called “the vicissitudes of life” is a breach of ethics, because it causes harm that could have been avoided with sufficient attention and diligence. That commenter exited EA a few months ago when I concluded a response to his criticism with the sign-off, “Bite me!”
That’s something I don’t regret.
Ethics Alarms 
This is something many surviving spouses deal with, unfortunately, My late grandmother was left alone suddenly after my grandfather collapsed of a heart attack in the kitchen a few hours after a doctor’s appointment. She knew next to nothing about finances and the insurance issues were tangled up so badly my aunt went into debt to pay for the funeral.
She’d modeled briefly in the ’40s. Not professionally. She would model dresses in a department store so that people could see how the clothes fit without trying them on themselves. That was the only job she’d ever had and it did not continue into marriage. Yet, she found herself cleaning tables at McDonald’s a year after becoming a widow. It didn’t last long. She was too ornery for that job. But it really did send us a message about preparing for the long haul. I wish she’d learned the lesson, though. When she passed away a few years ago, there were insurance policies decades old that still listed my grandfather as the beneficiary.
Thanks for the reminder. I know this is a painful time for you.