advice / thoughts please

Hi Suzita,

I’m so sorry for your loss.  Dealing with the death of a partner, especially when a young child is involved, is so difficult.  It would be very odd if you WEREN’T angry!

It sounds like a neutral third party, a therapist or social worker, me be help as a sounding board, and to help you make decisions on how to keep the solitude you crave, but allow your child (and you) not to ‘disappear from the radar’ of your extended family.

Soon you won’t have so much anger, but you’ll always have the grief, and families can really help with the grief.  Families, however, generally aren’t great at dealing with anger stuff, it’s wise of you to try to separate yourself a bit.  And wise not to want to separate completely from family.

Best of luck working through this.

thanks for the reply and thanks for seeing that I don't want to hurt them or cut ties - I think you're right, it might be time to see a counsellor - I've been putting it off as I'm not sure I can talk about it yet.

thank you x

Hi Suzita

I don’t know whether it’s a normal part of grief or not but I know i really  struggled seeing my close family for quite a while afterwards- I could handle friends but not family. 

I think for me it was because it I just simply couldn’t handle anyone else’s emotions- I was dealing with my own grief as well as carrying my children & when my mum (particularly) would try to talk to me about how she felt too I just wanted to run away- I felt angry that I was having to also take on someone else’s hurt too. I don’t know if it’s true for you too but it’s just a thought , I didn’t know if it sounded similar... 

thinking of you & hoping that talking to someone who’s not involved helps you to gain some insight & some peace 

Sarah xx

Hi Sarah

thank you for saying your experience.  I am also finding it much easier to see friends - like you say, it's handling other people's grief that is really, really hard.

thanks x

I'm so sorry for your loss.

Everyone handles things differently and nothing is wrong. You have to do what you feel is right. As you say without adding to everyone's grief.

My children were 18 and 12 when my husband, their Dad died. Having someone for them to talk to would have been great. My family live over 400 miles from us. I like that you realise your child needs this contact. 

Take care x

Dear suits

I'm so sorry to hear your news deepest sympathies.  My experience  is different again as I lost my Dad months before my husband died. Sharing experiences with my mum who was with us when my husband died has been a hard journey. I understand your side but your wider family may need you. Hope things work out xxx

Apologies  for spelling Suzita  xxx

Hi Suzita

I too put a wall up between myself and my relatives while my husband was dying, and to some extent afterwards for a bit. I have thought long and hard about this. I came to the same conclusion as the others on this thread - that other people's pain was impossible to bear on top of my own.

I had a particular problem with my husband's sister, who was of course devastated about what was happening to him. However, she was spilling her emotional stuff all over me which was just too much. She also seemed to be competing over who was the most important woman in his life, although I might have been over-interpreting this in my own extremely distressed state.

Anyway, two years down the line things have calmed down a lot and we're all much closer again. We have all forgiven one another for stuff that was perhaps unkind or insensitive, but we were all suffering of course and very few people behave like saints when things are so hard.

Something that might be useful is the idea of 'lean in, reach out' (I might not have got the terms quite right). Essentially the idea is that everyone affected by grief needs support, but there are people it's appropriate to get that from, and someone who is even more impacted by you is not the right person.

So right at the centre is the one most affected at a day to day level. That's usually the spouse and children of the person who dies, or the parents of a young person. A little further out might be siblings, and a little further out again might be friends. You can visualise this as a series of concentric rings. There is no right answer to this as of course everyone's relationships are different. But if, say, your spouse's sibling needs support for their grief, they need to seek that from someone further out, so they reach out to their friends or their partner or whatever. You, as the person in the middle, can reach out to anyone. Likewise, anyone further out can lean in to support you, but shouldn't heap their own stuff on you, or on anyone closer to the centre.

I hope this helps and maybe sheds some light on what you're feeling.