My husband just speaks and I want to put my fingers in my ears

[ilovetoloveyoubaby]

First off, I respect people's right to voicing their opinion but sometimes I wonder why people voice certain opinions.

I've just had a conversation that turned into a rather heated debate around people grieving.

His words were "people grieve for far too long for people"

I countered with the fact that I think it's a ridiculous statement and you cannot put a time limit on someone's grief. He conceded that grieving for a child is different but other wise people need to pull their socks up and get on with life. I'm now sitting watching television wondering what and who I married.

AIBU to think what he said is just plain strange and horrible.

I think DH is along the same line, mainly because this the way he has been brought up and how he sees life. One of the things he told me quite quickly after I met him was that he wasn't expecting his parents to live very old, they had a hard life and that's how things are. Very 'clinical' outlook in some ways. I think he would struggle to understand why someone would grieve for a very long time because that's not how he sees life. It's more of a death is part of life and it's normal type of things so why make a big fuss about it? He isn't uncaring though and would accept that people react differently. I'm not sure he would understand iyswim.

^^ this

I have lost my parents and recently my best friend. I supported them all to the end, sat at bedsides, held hands, played their favourite music, and for my friend and DM carried out some personal care with toilet and showering. Loving them and caring for them - and yes, now missing them, does not go hand in hand for me with outward displays of grief or an inability to carry on with my life. That's not who I am, it's not how I was brought up. Life, for me, goes on, death is a part of it, it's not an extraordinary event.

I have been well and truly pissed off by people telling me that it will hit me at some point or that my responses are somehow abnormal, that I'm in some sort of denial of my grief (!) people seem to assume that a "normal" reaction is to be devastated by a death. Well it's not, it's one kind of reaction. OPs dh and I have a different way of reacting. Neither reactions tell you anything about the depth of relationship a person had with the deceased.

It does sound very heartless and I don't have that opinion, even though I have never lost anyone close to me, apart from aged grandparents who were in their 80s-101.

I think it's just lack of experience and I wouldn't be too quick to judge. Some people lack empathy and are not good at imagining how they might feel in a situation, or how people are different in how they deal with things.

My mum died two years ago and it is the little unexpected things- she will never know I had DS and she would love him to bits, so would my dad, DS will never know her or my dad, or I just suddenly focus on a photo of them or remember something we did. But you just have to get on with it. It is what it is.

I8 months on and I still miss my Dad and cry quite often.
He would have agreed with your DH though, being of the stiff upper lip, just get on with life, no blubbing, kind of upbringing.

Ah I cross posted with you there badders. Your Dad sounds wonderful. Like mine. One of the good ones, like you say .

I have now lost all my "grown ups" My grandparents, my parents and my husband. My husband was the same age as me so that was scary that someone my age would die (illness). My grandparents and parents as they got older became less able physically but they were clear headed and therefore could give advice.
As each one died I still had a lot to do with the remaining people (person). It was not until the last of them died that the grief hit me. It is awful, I am an adult but I feel I want to go back in time. I have responsibilities which I am committed to but I just wish ...... I know all my dead relatives had to go, some were really old, all were really ill. I hope they are at a better place and free of the confines of illness. I am here, I am trying to live without anyone I can depend on,
The last thing I would want would be someone who would think or say that I am taking too long. It took many years for all this to happen and I will grieve as long as I need. I doubt if your DH has experienced grief or perhaps he is unloving. Not everyone is like him. Me for one.

Life...I'm sorry for your losses X
But...you aren't telling others they should "get over it" are you?
You are dealing with your grief your way.
Which, really, as long as we are not hurting anyone, is all any of us can do.
I do think we have a very disconnected view of death and grief in the uk though...why is that I wonder?
I used to work with a woman who had dogs. Lots of dogs. One of the, sa,Dh died - she took 3 days off work bereavement leave and then made a complaint when one of our colleagues did the same for her sister.
Some people are just....odd.
As an aside, my Dh was given half a day off work for my fathers funeral.

I don't think it makes him heartless or horrible.

He could of well been brought up with the you just get on with it attitude.

I think how you deal with feeling of grief is to do with childhood if when family member/friend die your parents show no emotion in front of you and have the get on with it attitude you grow up with that attitude because in a way nobody has shown them it's ok to grieve.

Or maybe he's never lost somebody he was that close too so he's never experienced that utter heart break feeling

Do some people assume that if people are carrying on as usual and not showing outward signs of grief or sadness, that they have moved on?
I almost feel as if people are speaking slightly at cross purposes here.

Although not the nicest thing for him to say I don't think it makes him heartless or horrible.

I never really understood real grief until a few years ago when I lost a family member I had been very close to my whole life. It was only then I realised why people can grief forever for somebody.

No I don't assume if people carry on as normal they have moved on I assume maybe they are like me private people and like to grieve alone.

I'm not sure, toast.
I know that people will ask how I am, how mum is, but of course they don't want to really know.
They don't want to know that mum cries herself to sleep most nights, that she is frail and lonely or that I will never forgive myself for failing dad.
So you just say "we are fine, Thank you"
What can they do?
What would they say?
you get on with it, you live with it, but you never forget
The more I think about it, the more sense Victorian mourning periods make it me! The wearing of black, the black armband...people would never be so callous to tell a grieving Victorian to "Buck up"!
Maybe that's part of the problem...my own grief surprises me at times...I'm sure it would others too.

I have dealt with the death of parents and siblings and was not too bad.

When my best friend died, however, I was devastated. I would find myself howling in despair when something reminded me of her. Four years later I still can't believe the world carries on without her in it.

Grief can surprise us all, but he doesn't know that yet, I thought I was like him, turns out I'm not.

No I don't assume if people carry on and don't show signs of grief that they have moved on. I would assume they are private people and at the end of the day you never know what is going on in somebody's head.

I am a private person and my DD was stillborn at 32 a few years ago and I think friends when they came to visit thought I would want to cry in them and I did feel like they were looking for that in a way but I think the only person I ever cried on was DH. I love my DD and it effects me every day even now but I have alway been private and that didn't change when I was grieveing.

I think the point everyone is missing here is firstly people have different experiences of grief some people it helps to express things some people not. In fact your DH might find it difficult to cope with grief and societal expectations. The worst thing can be how should I behave, Not how does this make me feel.

It's very easy to judge people but maybe at a later point you could tease out what he ment by this. Other people's grief can actually be quite hard to cope with if you are struggling with the impact of loss or the fear of it perhaps he needs space away from someone who is also struggling

I think it would also be wiser to seek counsel from a relative or friend about this rather than post here as some of the responses are less than helpful. It doesn't matter if his comment creates am unreasonable response in you but it does matter if this is a cry for help from your DH and you judge him.

I think you are being incredibly harsh, and quite hypocritical.

Everyone should be able to deal with death in their own way. Apart from him apparently. He's doing it wrong

If he'd burst into a bereavement group and said this, or if you'd just lost someone, or he was talking to someone who HAD just lost someone, he would be very unreasonable.
But he didn't. He was just chatting to his wife.

I don't agree with his viewpoint but I know it's one that many share and I think you're wrong to come on here and slag him off for it.

Weller
he.isn't dealing with grief!
He is calling those who he feels "take too long"
fuck him

And as for the op - this is a support forum, yes?
It is that only for things you approve of?
If my dh had said those things I would beupset too

I agree though, he's not said anything to anyone that's grieving, just to his wife in the privacy of his home.

Yes
And she is upset by it and asking how others would feel
As posters do every day on mn

I didn't say he was dealing with grief. I know he's not dealing with grief. I said dealing with death.

I also said I didn't agree with him. But I do think it's hypocritical to say that people can deal with death in their own ways, and then to say that no, actually, some are wrong.

It's worth remembering that he didn't start this thread. He wasn't pushing his ideas on the general public, just chatting with his wife.

Yes and I've told her what I think.

'Support forum' does not mean that everyone has to agree of be vilified.

The OPs DH by the sounds of things has no experience of major bereavements so why is he judging other people's reactions? In which case we're certainly entitled to judge back, since the question has been asked.

The reality is, in the UK I have never met any bereaved person who was anything other than stoical, dry-eyed, upbeat and "getting on with it" (barring at the funeral itself, and even then sometimes), as that is the expectation and cultural norm. People get pretty uncomfortable with anything else.
So I don't really know what the guys is even talking about, and frankly I'm not sure he does. It seems he has made up a bit of a straw-man argument.

wellErrr I've been quite clear that my husband can deal with his grief, if it ever arrives at his door step, how he likes. However, to want to put a time limit on other people's grief seems wrong to me.

Hardly slagging him off given some of the comments I see on here about people's husbands.

Anyway I've seen your posts on MN before....I might have known you'd disagree.

Shall I pop him in the bath and hose him down with cold water? That seemed to be right up your street if I remember correctly.

Haha, yes, 'hosed down with cold water' - that's exactly right, no embellishments there....!

Well have it your way. I politely disagreed with you but it seems to have angered you. So in light of that I'll change my plea to -

Omg he sounds awful hun. I literally couldn't share a room with him. YANBU.

• and leave the room