This is just Awful. Should I apologise?

[Runie1989]

I went to visit my friend I met recently. She lives in a beautiful coastal area and also has a house where I live.
I stayed with her for three days and she took me on a few vists to her favourite place.

I asked her if she could take me to a bridge which is quite famous actually and I wanted to look out of the view so she agree. We walked across it and went along a coastal path and stood on the rocks underneath.

I took out a picnic and we sat and looked at the view. I really enjoyed it eventhough it was a little cold!

When I got back to my
House I told our mutual friend about our trips and she's went as white a son a sheet.

It turns out the friend I visited had witnessed her brothers suicide from that bridge and his body was found on the rocks where we were sat having our picnic. It was 11 years ago now but was extremely
Traumatic for her as she witnessed the whole thing and saw his body on the rocks.

She obviously doesn't want to say anything and that's understandable so maybe I shouldn't?

I spent the whole time saying how beautiful the bridge is, the gorgeous views, how amazing a spot we had for our picnic.

I am feeling absolutely terrible and worse.

She knows I do not
Know about the death, she has never mentioned it to me.

My other friend says she regrets saying anything now and it's best I leave it.

I just hate the idea of making her feel bad and uncomfortable.
Would I be unreasonable to say nothing?

I think she would have told you if she wanted you to know, or made an excuse about why you couldn't go there.

Someone close to me committed suicide 18yrs ago, for the first few years I avoided the location / found it tricky but recently I don't even think twice about going past/going in. Newer friends won't know that building has significance to me as I've never thought to mention it.

Oh no! That is awful and I'd feel dreadful too, OP, but you absolutely can't say anything.

It's obviously a very private memory for her and she may be very upset to think that you and your mutual friend had discussed it. She would have come up with an excuse not to go or to have dropped you off without her if she really couldn't face it.

Your mutual friend advised you not to mention it so she won't tell your friend she has told you.
Your friend will most likely feel embarrassed if she knows you have found out because she obviously didn't want the outing to make you retrospectively feel uncomfortable.
When you asked to see the bridge she would have known that was the time to tell you if she was going to tell you and she chose not to.
She also chose to take you to see the bridge when it could have been very easy to have fobbed you off.
Just thank her in the normal way and let her know you appreciate her efforts to show you the sights etc.

I've read something like this before.

I think leave it because knowing the other friend had betrayed her confidence adds to the trauma of the whole thing.

Your mutual friend sounds like a drama-llama. Leave well alone. Let first friend deal with her loss the way she chooses.

Your friend you visited must really care about you and enjoy your company to go with you to that spot.

It's possible she actually wanted to go with yiu for her own personal reasons and visiting with you was a safe way for her to do it.

I would be asked for this thread to be pulled. if the friend who lost her brother reads this she may be very upset that the whole world is reading about something so private, and may consider a huge betrayal that you are discussing it on a public forum.

The details are so unusual and specific she would recognise herself immediately here.

Quite, Mindtrope. All this hand wringing about being sensitive towards a friend yet splashing her story all over a public forum. A public forum that frequently ends up in the media, at that.

Thanks for the advice. I'm not going to say anything. I hope this won't make it too difficult for her to tell me about the deaths later in our friendship.

But that is her choice.

Please do not say anything. I lost my dad in pretty terrible circumstances that meant that for years I could NOT get close, see or hear the sea.
I can now.
If someone had asked me to go to the sea when I was NOT ready I would have said something, i would have explained.
If someone asks me now I go and secretly talk to my dad through the sea.

I would not want someone interfering with this or making it about them or asking. Please dont.

If she wants to talk about it she will.

11 years is a good time for her to be comfortable with the bridge.
If she didnt want to go she would have said.

Please dont say a thing

And maybe pull the thread too. I read about my dad's dead on the news and was awful and caused someone in my family to have a stroke.

I think you're right not to mention anything and perhaps take heart that if it was still very traumatic for her then she would have found a way to avoid it. Perhaps she feels close to him there, now sees its beauty and has formed pleasant new memories with you there that she's found comforting. I do hope so. You can't have known.

honestly, if by some miracle she saw this thread, she is the kind of person that would understand me and why I wrote it.

Sometimes we need advice and I couldn't speak to my wider network.

She would know that I had to give personal details as how else can I write.

People seem to think I'm very stupid. I thought about the fact she could see it before I even wrote the thread, I'm not an idiot. I am aware she has never even heard of mumsnet and would never ever read the daily mail. If I had thought for a minute it would have caused upset I wouldn't have wrote it. So please stop patronising me with the 'this should be pulled' comments. I am capable of making my own decisions.

If mums et choose to delete it that is fine.

I know people only mean well but it's annoying. I am able to make my own decisions Regarding my own post.

Glad you know your friend so well. Except for the deceased brother, of course. Up to you.

I know she would not be upset or offended by this thread.

Telling me about her brother is different. She took years to tell our mutual friend and actually she has no duty to.

I wouldn't have written the post if I thought she would be upset by it and I just don't know why people don't presume I've already thought of that. Just so everyone knows, I have, and ha e made he decision not to pull the thread.

How could you know those things about your friend? Just curious. I don't know if my very close friends read Mumsnet, what newspapers they read, etc. - let alone the friends I've 'met recently', as you describe your friend? I am missing something?

You really need to leave if it she hasn't shared with you. Otherwise it would be clear that you have been talking about her behind her back and that your other friend has broken her trust.

Wow! So advising you to pull the thread because I experienced this and was awful and my aunt had a stroke is annoying???
No I dont think you are stupid, I think you are someone that havent lost someone in this kind of circumstances and I was trying to help.
If you didnt want advice then dont post.
I actually gave quite a bit of myself trying to help you as I dont usually talk about these things.
Lesson learnt.
As per " she is the kind of person that would understand me and why I wrote it." I would say you might not have a clue. You said she was a new friend and you didnt even know about her brother so you dont know her as well as you think.
A bit self absorbed OP.

I just do Claus. She quite vocal about never having heard of a parenting website and can't stand the daily mail. She says it's just gossip. So yup, won't be reading the dailmail anytime soon.

And I
Even if she did see this thread, she's not going to care.

She would be greatful I took the time to try and work out what was best.

Gosh, OP, you know an awful lot about how a friend feels on something she hasn't confided in you about.

Grief is complex. There is no right way to do it. It is also often - not very everybody but is suspect for your friend, as she didn't tell you and you're so close and all - intensely private.

That should read - not for everybody but I suspect for your friend.

Please don't go round thinking that you understand somebody else's grief even though they haven't even confided in you about the person they lost. And prepare yourself that if you ever tell her about this thread, gratitude is unlikely to be how she feels about it.

And if she did see this thread, she's not going to care

But you wonder if you should tell her or not? That doesn't make any sense at all. And "she would be grateful I took the time to try and work out what was best"? It's not about you, though, is it? You found out something by accident by a person who has asked you not to repeat it. No brainer.