To tell my friend (nicely and diplomatically) to get a grip re her divorce?

If this is true, how long into her forever pain do you leave her to make a fool of herself on FB? How long do you listen to monologues before enough is enough?

OP, it sounds as if you're measuring your friend's loss by how you reacted to your own loss and by others' losses, like when you said you didn't need to talk to friends when your dad died and you mentioned other marital break-ups where the person has been fine within a couple of years. But everyone is different. And everyone reacts to different kinds of losses differently. I was utterly traumatised and completely lost in a fog of horror for a very long time when my mother died, and my dad's death is nothing like as bad. And I was very sad for a very long time when my husband left me. My mum and husband have been my two worst losses, and for me, for both, eight months was nothing. It sounds as if you were very resilient when your dad died, but that's really got nothing to do with your friend's reaction to the loss of her marriage.

It's clear that you need to step back a bit, though, for your own sanity. She is experiencing the end of her marriage as a trauma, not just a marital break-up, and it seems that you can't relate to that. (No judgement, just a fact.)

Could you float the idea to a family member that they buy her a new puppy? Sounds as if she could really use something like that to bring her into the present. And she's an experienced dog owner.

I can't imagine she hopes to get him back, because she would be doing a terrible job of wooing.
If he's the type to go around telling anyone about his 'crazy ex', she's playing right into that stereotype. Or at the very least, helping him prove why he had to leave - exhausted by all the emotional dumping.
She needs someone to tell her to pull herself together- at least on SM. She can grieve in private, not one FB and not to a man who has left you twice.

How did she react? Did she take it on board?

When people say she'll never get over it I don't think they mean that she will be grieving forever. I read that as meaning that you move on, but that your sense of the loss of that person remains with you forever, even if you are not always aware of it. That makes logical sense to me.

Find her a new man and set them up. You know what they say, best way to get over a man is to get under another one 😉

That fact that posters on here say things like she'll never get over it and OP should continue letting friend grieve to this level saddens me as it means they too would let a break up "ruin their life" so to speak.

Fair point op but I still think that encouraging her to get professional help is a win win for both of you.

Telling people to get a grip when they are in this sort of state ie proper mental distress is counter-productive.

Supporting her to find and see a good therapist says two things; I support you but I am not going to be doing the supporting forever.

And therapy isn’t a softly softly solution. If carried out properly it should challenge how you perceive and approach life and how you handle distressing situations.

I’m not remotely qualified to do so, but I would guess that your friend either has some sort of dependent personality issue or is suffering from some form of traumatic grief.

TBH I think that people need to be told to get a grip more often rather than this softly softly there-there approach that society has now. It’s little wonder that people have 0 resilience now and therapists are raking it in.

I’m not talking about the day/week/month the divorce happens, but 8 months in posting on facebook ten times a day it’s clear the woman is actually getting something from wallowing like this. Attention maybe? The knowledge that nobody dare say anything to her for fear of upsetting her? The only person she’s affecting by wallowing this way is herself, and not in a good way. Sometimes therapy can help, but more often than not it just prolongs the suffering, when actually what needs to happen is that people need to move on.

So she’s divorced. She’s not the first and she won’t be the last. And he’s not coming back, so she needs t move forward, otherwise she’s not only going to have lost her partner but any friends she ever had, because it wears a bit thin after a while. And nobody is going to want to make friends with a woman whose life consists of being miserable.

Take no notice. You will many see people on other threads saying ‘I haven’t a friend in the world’ none whatsoever. What happened?

These could be the same people.

Just stay in your own lane. You are a good friend, I think you know that she probably needs professional help now and it’s getting more obvious now the more you to keep listening to her. Point her towards counselling. If she had an Employee Assistance Program at work, that’s free.
Her ex husband might pay for some counselling also.
You are not qualified past a certain point. She sounds a bit helpless.

I hope your son will be ok. Look after your own house and feel no guilt for stepping back. You are a good friend.

Obviously you should expect more from a life partner than a friend. However I think the problem here is that all of the time you are spending with this friend has centred around her for the last eight months. If that happened in your marriage, you would feel drained too.
I think the best you can do is suggest to your friend that she has counselling. If she refuses, I think you need to step away a bit.

The thing is, your friends are meant to make you feel good. It’s important to support them through hard times (which the OP has done) but you should enjoy their company.

If a friend messages you to ask to meet up, you should feel glad they got in touch. If seeing their message makes your heart sink and think “Oh God, what is the matter now?” then it’s a sign that you need to speak up (or take some time away).

I just don't think I’ve got the god given right that just because I feel something I impose it indefinitely on my friends

That's my perspective on it too. I know my friends would be there for me no matter what, but I have too much love and respect for them to inflict my misery on them until I'm over it. They have their own lives and their own problems. And "over it" isn't even a thing. It always stays with you. You just get to a place where it doesn't consume your every thought.

It is bizarre to imply that someone is a worse friend because they don't want to impose on others for years on end.

I think that our expectations of friendship are about the same - there should be an approximate equality of give and take.

We differ only over the timescale across which that should even out. For me, it could be years.

For you, it’s starter and entree, tops.

And I have some sympathy with that - hence my first post.

Aw it's normal to have those moments of self-pity. Something awful has happened, you're allowed to feel sorry for yourself. But, yeah, that is not supposed to last forever. You eventually regain perspective.
But there are people who just don't get that problems are relative and that theirs isn't worse or more important than anyone else's. I see it a lot on MN.

OP: "My husband beats me, starves our children, killed our dog..."

Poster: "At least you have a husband. Mine died 10 years ago. I would do anything to have him back. Count your blessings, OP."

😱

Well, my big relationship trauma fucked me up for at least five years, and caused me to run roughshod over two or three lovely and unsuspecting people who got involved with me during that time. For the first two years, I was probably very boring to be around, as I was either monomaniacally morose or just manically aflame.

A lot of friends stuck with me through that, for which I am very grateful. I’ve been able to reciprocate in some cases. And I’ve tried to help some other people too.

Stick with her. If you’re really lucky, you’ll never need her to do the same for you.