DH never really knew his father, he died when he was young

[Kingcryolophosaurus]

and he has been very seriously affected by this, he talks about it all the time, every problem issue, failure seems to stem from this

I realise I'm opening myself up here
But seriously need thoughts and opinions

He has calculated to the day how old he was when his father died and is now comparing that to DS.
Who is precisely the same age

While I can sympathise to an extent, is this a bit odd and morbid?
I understand that everyone is different re bereavement, people cope in different ways
This was 40 years ago, his mother has told him he has to get past it

Dh somewhat depressed and stressed, but has always been like this on the subject of his father

Often says things like "well you had a father"
Wait and see how you feel when your father dies

(that sounds like I'm blaming his mother, which was not my intention)

DH was very much like this, he cried for his dad and the lost years with him at least once a week, practically had a breakdown when he turned 40 as this was the age he died.

He is better now, but mourns for him still, and that he didn't get to see him as an adult, meet me, know our children etc.

I'm sorry I can't help much here, just you have my sympathy I know it's hard. Has he got family (aunts uncles cousins) who he can talk about his Dad with, who knew him well?

Haven't read all the reponses but wanted to get this down. I never knew my father - he died when i was very young. I have struggled with processing this for most of my life. For me the difficulty has been grieving for a man I never knew, for a significant part of my life that I dont understand. I dont know what a Dad does, what it feels like to have one, what that bond feels like. And yet I feel like there is something missing which I have tried to fill with alsorts of random things - boyfriends, male attention etc as a teenager. In my case this wasn't helped by nobody talking about my Dad. My mother was abusive and lied to me repeatedly about what my dad was like and when he had died and how. I had no contact with that side of my family and no-one on mums side would tell me anything. I can remember at 15 sat in my bedroom listening to a song. It was about a son losing his father in a great battle and it suddenly hit me that the words "my Dad died" actually meant that the man who had fathered me was dead. the full understanding of that hit me and mum found me hours later sobbing on the floor. This was the beginning of getting closure for me.

It was only a year ago when i tracked down his brother via FB and discovered that he had been an alcoholic, abusive, taken drugs and killed himself via an overdose that ive been able to move on. I finally know who he was, what sort of person he was and how he died. This has enabled me to know what sort of feelings I should have, grieve for the pain and destructive life he had and move on.

It is not advisable to tell your DH to "move on" until he has actually dealt with this. I think some bereavement counselling would be a good idea and encouraging him to talk about what he knows of his father. He needs to talk to his mum and get her to tell him what she remembers of him as a man - what did he enjoy doing, what sort of person was he. The more of an image of his father that your DH has the easier it will become to grieve and the pain will pass. Its such a complex journey to take and i really empathise with the way he feels now. Its something I battled for a long time. All the best to him and I hope in time he's able to get the closure he needs.

He might need some professional help maybe? I do find it a bit odd that he's fixated on it, he needs to stop using it as an excuse for everything though.

I've mentioned this before but my dad was killed 6 weeks after I was born. He was 23. I've often thought about him, and went through a spell of being so so angry that he was taken from me. Luckily I've had the best (step)dad I could wish for. It will be weird when I turn 23, but it's just something you have to come to terms with.

Kingcryolophosaurus I have reported Swallowedafly's post for troll hunting.

I can't understand the reasoning behind reading this thread, and then searching on the OP's name to try to find "evidence" of trolling. The OP is hardly far fetched is it?

Why on earth would you?

shouldn't this be in relationships maybe? You can get it moved.

no searching required - i happened to be on the other thread and commenting on it and then saw this one and realised it was by the same person.

i never mentioned the word troll auf.

What exactly were you implying then Swallow?

"hmm. seems odd to me OP. you're hear asking about your dh's emotional probs and over there talking about his potential cheating at the same time without mentioning the other in either thread? and these are your only posts on your history?"

Sounds like you're accusing her of making it up / doubting her credentials. That's troll-hunting. You don't need to actually use the word troll.

My mother's father died in front of her when she was six, so over fifty years ago. She has never been able to move on from this. She expects us,vas a family, to be extremely close to the exclusion of friends, because she had this kind of relationship with her mother and sister as a result of being 'fatherless'. As she has got older it has manifested as extreme anxiety especially about health matters. She did have some counselling last year, after I made her talk to her GP about it, but she didn't find it helpful. It has got to the point where it is ruining her relationship with my father, sister and me but she simply can't deal with it.

I think she actually doesn't want to try to move on from it, even after all these years, because it might feel to her like forgetting or letting go of the memories that she does have. Her sister who was only two at the time doesn't have any of the same issues. OP Maybe it's to do with the age he was when he died? My mum also uses the 'I didn't have a father around' line.

I lost my father when I was a teenager and it affects me every day, more than thirty years later. It affected me when my children reached the age when I was bereaved - brought a lot of stuff up including a surprising amount of anger at how my mother handled it (she did her best of course but we were expected to just 'get on with it' and got no emotional support - that was quite normal in those days). My aunt was surprised that we were not in school the day he died!

I would suggest he gets bereavement counselling. I don't know what your other relationship issues are but is there any way you can just make some space for him to deal with this first?

My father died when i was five years old. that's 47 years ago. I hardly ever talk about it although I have had odd moments of grief over the years. why would I mention it? What could anyone do about it? What's the point in distressing my family? Sure it would have been great if my dad had been at my wedding or met my son but he wasn't and he hasn't and that's just how it is. Sorry to say but some people wallow.

How old was he? Was it a health problem or an accident? I feel that it must have been handled badly at the time. My DS's father died when he was a baby and so he never knew him but he has always had a lot of contact with his father's family, even after I remarried.
It is normal to think about them. I was in my 20s when my father died, I still think about him often- and my first DH.
I would think that he needs some professional help to work through it.

My father died when I was young and I don't remember him.

I have a terrible crushing sadness that I didn't get to grow up under his protective wing, and instead I had an abusive stepfather.

I did have the melancholy "I'm the age my mother was when she was widowed" and the "This is how old my dad was when he died", I think that's quite natural. I don't recall ever saying it to anyone else though.

I'm envious of my DH having his dad and glad he has him still, but I don't and would never bring it up in an argument as a stick to bash him with!

Agree some professional counselling would probably be helpful.

My dh lost his father when he was just one, he has never mentioned him much at all but i know he does wonder what he was like etc just through the odd comment nothing more.
My own mother died when i was a teenager and obviously it affected me but i just sort of got on, now i am the same age she was when she first got ill (29) though i suddenly feel an urgency to do things i want to and worry/anxiety about the future. I dont feel young anymore if that makes sense. Looking back on my life i think i have alwasy felt this perhaps why i had my children so young and close together who knows.

I found that my dad's death hit me more in my teens (I was 6 at the time it happened and as a lot of people have said there was the attitude that you just get on with it, my mum was actually told that kids bounce back and being soft on us was not a good idea). It seems to be a common theme. I think as you get older and your relationships with people change you realise what you've lost more and more. When others appear to take their father for granted it does grate and those who have not experienced childhood bereavement can never really understand the mark it leaves and the way it shapes your opinions and attitudes. Yes, some people "cope" more than others and possibly the OP's DH is not one of them but he needs help and support not anger. Thank goodness we are now enlightened and organisations such as Winston's wish exist to help children process their loss at the time rather than just denying that anything is wrong and trying to carry on.

I agree with DrCoconut that when you lose a parent young it is often later in life that you realise the full extent of what you have lost.

Even in my mid-forties a lot of my friends have both parents still living. When one of their parents does die I wistfully think of the years they had together and the way they are able to play a full role in the processes of death and mourning.

I also think that losing a spouse when you have dependent children is incredibly hard and how your DHs mother adapted to her situation will have also had an impact on him.

I lost my Dad just before my teens and can relate to your husband quite a bit. My eldest is the age I was when my Dad died and it's brought up a lot of memories and emotions for me. I look at her, and her life, and could weep for myself at that age, with no Father, moving 60 miles to be near relatives who turned out to be as useless as a chocolate kettle new school, friends; and this was after being told that my Dad was OK and had a mild illness (he had cancer and nobody told me this until several months after he died, cos they didn't want to worry us children). My Mother was consumed with her grief, had a breakdown and nobody spoke to us about our feelings. I'm nearly 40 and still have issues and sometimes wonder if it's too late for counselling.

I lost my mum aged 3 and I can identify with loads of this thread. Being the age your parent was, and then outliving them. Seeing your child at the age you were when you lost your parent. Realising how a dying parent must feel to face leaving their child. Seeing friends becoming bereaved as an adult and realising they actually know who they've lost in the first place.

If you can't remember the parent you've lost, things like dates, ages and anniversaries are the only tangible route you have to honour their memory. I can't reminisce about my mum but I can at least mark her birthday and anniversary.

Two recommendations for any orphans on this thread:
a book called Motherless Daughters
counselling from Cruse - I had this in my 30s and it truly changed my life

Best wishes to your husband, OP.

Thanks all for your responses, I appreciate that it's very painful for some of you
I really have only skim read, so apologies, will come back to this later. had horrible day of rows yesterday. long story

One strange thing he said, "if I died now, DS would turn out better than me, because you are a better parent than my mother"

he worships his mother, so that was really strange

His father wasn't in the best of health, but it was a heart attack that got him, so would have been sudden

swallowedAfly- I appreciate that the threads are different, but there's an awful lot going on here, this is just the tip of the iceberg!

Not so strange, King. When a child loses a parent they may become incredibly protective of their remaining parent and they may feel guilty about being a 'burden'.

But no mother is perfect but he may have buried difficult feelings about her because he was scared (at a subconscious level) that he'd lose her, too, and failed to confront these issues at the time. Perhaps he's scared of losing you?

Antway - not an expert here - just reflecting on my difficult and sometimes contradictory feelings about my mother.

I think the problem may well have been the mother handling it badly at the time. It was often done to protect, as in not letting them go to the funeral, not talking about the person, not grieving properly, wanting to cheer him up. This will lead to the contradictory feelings about the mother because he will know that it was done with the best of motives. I think that he needs the professional help. You could try Cruse as the first port of call.

him and his mother do have an unusual relationship
they are very close in some ways, but don't actually discuss anything in depth
and he laments that she lives far away, but she annoys the hell out of him when they are together

Not much experience about it, but my dad's dad died just before they were married at the relatively young age of (I think) 56.
At age 56 my df worried majorly about his health, almost as though he thought the age might be "jinxed" (he's not superstitious). Everything he was running off to the doctor, although he usually avoids them like the plague

Once he hit 57(!) he recovered quite quickly from his health scare!

I think the working out how old ds is, might be fear of leaving him feeling as bad as he feels about it.

How deeply scarred he is may be due to himself (personality or defining himself by it and using it as excuse/sympathy) or something else connected with it.

I think what effected my df was that it was very sudden, his dad went to bed and had a heart attack during the night with no warning.
A friend's dh was effected by his parent dying in that he was met from school by his aunt who said something along the lines of "your Ma's dead and I'm looking after you for now, now go and play with your cousin" I don't think (and nor does he) his aunt was being deliberately mean, just didn't know how to approach it in her own grief. But it effected him for a long time. (not surprisingly)