To be expecting more from my grieving husband?

[watermelon55]

I’m really trying to find out whether I’m being unfair, or expecting too much of my husband. Over the last year both of my husband’s parents have died, one of them after a short illness, and the other suddenly a few months later. My husband had a good relationship with them and has obviously been devastated. During the illness he talked quite openly about how he felt, we were both very sad and I felt that it would be hard but that we would help each other, and our kids, through it. I have experienced the loss of a close family member so I understand how painful grief is.

However, he has not been able to talk about how he feels at all. He started off by saying that he feels numb, and I felt that he was still processing the shock and had buried all the pain, but a bit more time has passed and I had thought that he may start to find it easier to express how he feels, or at least attempt to put this into words. However, it still seems just as hard as when they had both just died. He says he thinks about them but doesn’t get upset.

I feel like he has shut all his emotions away, as he also finds it difficult to relate to anyone else’s emotions. If I talk to him about how I feel he doesn’t really respond, I find this hard, as it’s difficult to talk about for me, and so when I get nothing back in response I just wish I’d not said anything. He can’t really understand how our children are feeling either. Getting him to discuss anything where emotions are involved is really difficult, it’s almost like it’s a foreign language to him.

We both work, we have children and so our lives are busy, days and weeks will go past without there being the opportunity to talk about anything more than who’s picking up who and who’s paid the bills, etc. I completely get that that is the reality of family life. But I love him and care about him and feel that I should try to help him, and try to get him to deal with things and talk about things. I also feel that I should be trying to help our relationship and so I will bring the subject up after a bit of time has passed. This is always really hard, as he is defensive and will deflect my questions or focus on small details that are not really important. I always end up regretting that I’ve tried, and it just reminds me that he’s got everything so bottled up and he hasn’t really begun to deal with what has happened to him.

I understand that everyone deals with grief differently and if I felt that the way he was dealing with it was enabling him to gradually move forward then I would respect that, but I feel he is stuck and it is seriously affecting our relationship. He says he feels ‘flat’, and when he describes how he feels it sounds like depression. He can’t get enthusiastic or excited about things. We have no sex life and this as well as getting no emotional input from him, has made me feel lonely and un-loved.

I want to help him, but feel like I'm not, and am losing hope.

Our first DC was born 4 weeks after my DH's husband died. He checked out of everything for the first year of our DS's life - he dealt with it in his own way and I let him have the space to do so even though I need the support coping with our DC. He emerged from it eventually and when our DC started walking and communicating it helped to bring him out of it. It's the toughest thing but he needs your strength and stability to keep things normal so that he can feel that not everything is changing. Get some support from RL family and friends and let him cope in his own way for now. It won't always be like this.

I understand that everyone deals with grief differently

You don't, leave him alone.

I cried in the hospital before my dad died, I never cried again and don't get upset when I think about him. It sounds like a perfectly normal reaction, it's his grief and it's up to him how he deals with it.

You are doing well OP, I think it shiws how much you care. You say that they were in the past year. That is no time - it's two and a half since my dad died and i am still struggling to articulate to husbad how monumental it has been. On the first anniversary i woke up furious and had to spend the next few months dealing with that emotion. He didn't even have time to process the first one and then another happened. I'm not surprised that in some ways he shut down. It is so hard, so painful,. He will get there but I think it is goibg to take longer than you expect. It nay even be a few years.
Sometimes talking makes it more real too. My bf's father died 3 months before mine and we talked more than dh and i did.
He'll get there. Just don't force it and try not to worry to much.

DH's mother not husband!

I understand where your husband is coming from, I lost somebody very close indeed in July this year and it still doesn't seem real. He'll grieve in his own way and in his own time. It can take a couple of years for some people but he'll get there eventually.

I'm so sorry, losing both parents within a short space of time must have been dreadful.

Leave him alone, the poor man and mentioning your sex life, can you perhaps just take yourself and your needs out of the equation? Don't expect anything from him.

DH has had an appalling shock. He's reacting normally. You haven't = you're not in a state. It's still very early days, so don't pressure him to talk and for sex, etc.

That won't help. Let him grieve and support him - that's your job.

OP, you say you've lost a close family member. If it isn't a parent, then you don't know the singular kind of grief that the death of a parent can cause. Let alone two in quick succession.

From a therapeutic perspective, losing a parent is a rite of passage - and it can be a devastating one. It can shake everything: one's sense of identity, one's sense of belonging and purpose.

As gently as possible, I found your post selfish. It's a well-intentioned selfishness, in that you want your husband to come around to your way of doing things, but it is selfish nonetheless.

Give him all the space you can; and if you can't, then consider getting yourself into therapy to deal with his grief, which can also become yours if you're not careful.

You don't say how his behaviour was before the bereavements. If he has always been so emotionally disconnected or unable to process emotions? I think what you are describing is worrying to me and definitely showing signs of depression. I would at the very least be talking to him about bereavement support counselling which you can often go to together. I personally don't think sounds fair or right that he is also shutting you out emotionally. My husband lost his father earlier this year and he didn't distance himself from me, he looked to me for support and lvoe. I feel for you as it sounds like life is tough right now for you both. I don't think you are being unreasonable in hoping for a better outcome for him and for yourself. X

YABVVU. You really have no right to dictate his grief like this. That’s just not fair on him. I never really spoke about my feelings after my parent passed away (also very suddenly). It wouldn’t have been helpful to anyone. I got over it on my own. Obviously I took time but being forced to relive it over and over again would have been torture.

If you feel like your emotional needs are not being met that is different. I would recommend that you seek counselling first (given that he is having a hard time already with additional pressure). Of you cannot resolve the issue on your end (fair enough if you can’t), then speak to him about it and suggest couples counselling or counselling for him and see how he feels about it or whether he has any different ideas.

I agree with a lot of what has been said here.

You say you know people grieve differently and you lost a family member, your post doesn't show that at all. You clearly don't understand that people grieve differently or you would be understanding that this is just how he is choosing to cope. Also a close family member isn't a parent. There is a HUGE difference between the 2, and to have lost both parents is devestating.

My gran died over the summer, she was my best friend in the world, my confidant, my partner in crime. I was and am utterly devestated, with the exception of during the reading I was asked to do at the funeral I haven't cried. Not at a single tear. Internally I want to every time I think about her, but for some reason I just can't. I also haven't spoken about her or her death to anyone. I have surprised myself to be honest, when my grandad (her husband) died I sobbed for weeks. He was my hero.

Different circumstances bring out different reactions.

I think you need to stop pushing him before you push him away. Allow him time to grieve,allow him to do it in his own way. Of you need to talk about it to help your own grieving process you might be better placed to speak to a friend of family member who isn't your dh. He clearly can't support you whilst dealing with his own feelings.

I think he does need to step up to support your children more, but he may not be capable yet. It might be too soon. There are other avenues of support for your kids, a lot of schools run internal programmes to support the emotional welfare, private counselling is available or prepping a friend of the family to talk to them maybe.

I do think you are expecting too much, it's 12 months... My dp is still processing losing his mum (only parent as his Speen donor buggered off when he was 3 and never been back) 13 years on.

He’s lost both his parents in a short space of time. He might benefit from reading the thoughts of other people who’ve been through the same even if he doesn’t want to engage with support groups. Losing your parents brings out all kinds of stuff and slaps you in the face with your own mortality. Don’t push him if he’s not ready.

This is how thing should work

I do disagree with a lot of the posts here putting this all back on you. Yes your husband is grieving but he is also in a relationship, he is a husband and a father. And he has a responsibility for that too.

OP it is 4 years since my mother very unexpectedly died and I still cant openly talk about how it makes me feel to know she is gone. I just can not find the words to express it. I know she is gone and I can talk of her how she was etc I don't collapse in tears. However that loss inside me the hole.. I don't know the words to cover it.

It's ok that he doesn't want to talk about it.

it took me about 15 months before something lifted. I can not tell you what but there was an awareness that it was not quite so awful as it had been and I began to notice life not just exist on a day to day basis.

i had weeks of just being numb and then walking into a shop and thinking that would suit Mum - would hurt like hell.

I could hear a song one day and be fine and the next day would bawl my eyes out in private.

I just needed my friends and family to be there - not necessarily to talk but the knwledge that they were meant the world.

Both of his parents died in the same year and because he’s not grieving in the way you think he should you think he's being unreasonable.

Wow.

You sound utterly selfish OP, and bringing your sex life into it too, urgh.

If he has always been so emotionally disconnected or unable to process emotions? You have no idea whether he is processing emotions or not. Many many people process things by keeping them to themselves and not discussing them. Some folk do not name their emotions and therefore don't "process" them in the way others do, they just let the physical sensations of the emotion occur and then move on.

It's so dismissive and disrespectful to frame his way of coping as somehow dysfunctional or wrong.

I think what you are describing is worrying to me and definitely showing signs of depression. Of course he's experiencing depression. He's bereaved. That's more than normal. Depression isn't always or even usually a disease, it's normal way to feel when you're in pain for months on end. The "he sounds depressed, get him help" thing is a really common way of saying "he's not grieving the way I want him to" and it doesn't help. Time, gentleness, acknowledgement, and patience is what will help.

OP, get yourself some counselling. Please don't try to drag him to counselling with you, that's the worst idea I've heard today for sure. YOU need support to cope with changes in your family due to a death. HE is doing what he needs to do. Don't try to get him to be the support, he doesn't have that in him right now and it's cruel to expect it.

I think you're trying to help, working under the assumption that what would help you will help him. However, as you've said, people are very different. I think you just have to leave it alone and if he never talks about them again that's up to him and you really ought to respect that.

Everybody deals with grief differently and every loss is different depending on the relationship.

I think you just need to let him know that you are there for him and pick up any slack with running the house, paying bills, caring for dc etc. He may be feeling numb now and not able to talk or not able to face his feelings as yet. Give him time.

My mum died suddenly a few years ago and it took me a long time to adjust. My brother and I talked a lot about mum and how we were feeling and we both dealt with it very differently to each other. I did talk about her to everybody around me but only because that is my nature. Dh, friends and family simply let me be and listened when I wanted to talk, hugged me if necessary and were just there.

For now though you could get help for the dc if they need it, talk to them about loss, and also get help for yourself if you are struggling. Just be there for dh and keep an eye on him so you can help him as the need arises.

I think you are expecting too much of him. He doesn't have to process things to your timeline and your satisfaction. You may have lost a close family member previously, but until you have lost both parents, you cannot understand what he is feeling or going though. I lost my last remaining parent earlier this year and it has shaken me to my core in a way I could not have predicted. If my husband kept bringing this up and expecting me to talk about it (which he doesn't) I would turn my rage in the universe onto him. You say both these losses have happened over the last year - this is still so recent, and he may well be depressed about it but that is part of his grieving process. I'm sorry you are feeling 'lonely' but I guarantee you are not as feeling as lonely as he is right now without his parents in the world.

I know you love and care about him and you want to help him but you can’t ‘fix’ this and if you keep trying to you’re adding pressure on top of grief.

Samosaurus, perfectly said. My dad died a long time ago but losing mum, my last parent, has shaken me to the core. It felt as though all my roots had turned to sand...