To be upset that my husband said he has 3 kids when he has 4?

[LaGauchiste]

I haven't spoke to my husband for 2 days He thinks I am being unfair, and making a big deal out of nothing. I keep thinking about it, and do not feel like I am being unfair at all.

Friday night, we went to the pub with his 2 new colleagues and their partners. We were just chatting, when one of the ladies asked him " So how many kids do you have?" He replied by saying that he had 3 sons. The woman proceeded to say " So all boys no girls?"
He laughed and said "yup".

At that point I wanted to cry and punch the table so badly. WE HAVE A DAUGHTER. My 20 yo daughter passed away in 2019. I am so angry and upset that he said that.

I confronted him at home , and he saw nothing wrong with it : " Well she's dead, we don't have 4 children anymore".

I grabbed my purse and went to my sister's house. Haven't talked to him since. He keeps messaging me telling me how much he loves me, that I need to get over my, OUR, daughter's death.

Aibu? I never want to see him again.

@Szyz2020

I think you and your husband need to discuss how you both communicate to the outside world about your DD. I think he’s been very blunt and cruel to you. His laughing and saying yep all boys no girls must have been like a knife in your heart. And I think that as a society we are utterly crap at knowing how to deal with people telling us difficult things in unexpected contexts so sometimes we end up making life so easy for others we hurt ourselves or those close to us.

Life can’t be sanitised however and it’s therefore sadly up to the giver of the news or “awkward” statement to work out how best to deal with it.

I totally understand that your husband doesn’t want to lob in the grenade of your awful loss at the beginning of an evening with people he doesn’t know well. BUT with a bit of forethought he can manage the conversation when people ask. He can start with the statement of 3 boys and a girl and leave it there. If someone asks more you have a prepared line or two - “our boys are x y and z ages. Sadly we lost our daughter two years ago, she was 20.” Cue stunned silence or empathetic responses or follow up questions or awkward shifting from your companion.

So you carry on with something like - “it’s been really hard but we’re doing our best and it’s lovely to see our boys thriving. Do you have children? How old are they?” Add other questions / divert and move on.

Sometimes the person you’ve told will tell you about their own loss. Sometimes they will be shit and make a terrible faux pas because they don’t know how to deal with what they’ve heard. Sometimes they dig for details because they are trying to be sympathetic or they forget instantly that this is real life and not a magazine article. But you can always be ready to divert and steer away and restore the good humour and jollity so people don’t feel they now have to sit in sad silence or be thought insensitive. You just have to prepare. That might be a kinder approach for you than the denial that your husband is employing.

That might be how you would handle it (though I doubt you would find it as straightforward as you describe IRL) but it wouldn’t be right for everyone.

I lost my DF as a child. I love talking about him to people who knew him or to close friends. However, when casual acquaintances ask me about him or ask me what I’m doing for Father’s Day etc, I usually just change the subject or deflect. The last thing I want to do is have to deal with their emotional reaction that results from me announcing that he died when I was 10. That creates an emotional burden on me. Anyone who tells me I am doing bereavement wrong can fuck right off.

The OP isn’t wrong to feel as she does, but she is wrong to try to dictate how her DH handles his grief.

@drawacircleroundit

He didn't want the conversation to become awkward. He knows that there is a time and a place. That's a skilled conversationalist. However, did he not say this to you afterwards?

No, he told her she doesn't have 4 kids cos one is dead and she needs to get over the death. That isn't a skilled conversationalist. It's a man in denial or a dick.

I agree that it’s a difficult thing to touch on during pub chat with new friends. Your dh was probably trying to avoid social awkwardness. I’m sorry you have been so upset by this.

My DD was stillborn. There are some people who know about her some people who don't. Just because I don't tell some people about her doesn't mean I don't love her. My husband does the same. Whoever has the relationship with the people we're talking to gets to make the decision about if they're told about DD.

We've both at times joked about not being able to handle more than one, when people only know about DS.

The main thing is to be kind to each other. Telling him you'd felt upset by what he'd said and listening to his reply would be more productive than confronting him.

@StrychnineInTheSandwiches

Him doing that won't make her less dead,

Wow, I bet the OP never knew that. How lucky she is you're here with your insight,

Logically, I'm sure she does. Emotionally, though, her reaction is hugely disproportionate to the her husband's "offence" of not volunteering the fact that they have a dead child to his (not her) colleagues. If you asked her what she hoped to accomplish by ultimatum-ing him into telling his colleagues about their daughter, I doubt she'd be able to answer you.

No, he told her she doesn't have 4 kids cos one is dead and she needs to get over the death. That isn't a skilled conversationalist. It's a man in denial or a dick.

She threatened to divorce him for doing what any normal person would do in that situation. If he's a dick for saying something insensitive in response, that makes her something much, much worse.

What you’ve been through is horrendous and your daughter will always be part of your family. But not everyone deals with grief in the same way.

I don’t think in a pub with new colleagues is not the place to say that your daughter died. He maybe didn’t want to make them feel awkward (and it probably would have done).

Also you may both be moving on at different paces. No one’s pace is right or wrong so I think it’s unfair to be mad with him. He can’t help that he’s moved on quicker than you, just as you can’t help how you feel.

With kindness I think you’re judging him very harshly. It’s ok to deal with your grief differently.

@123ZYX

My DD was stillborn. There are some people who know about her some people who don't. Just because I don't tell some people about her doesn't mean I don't love her. My husband does the same. Whoever has the relationship with the people we're talking to gets to make the decision about if they're told about DD.

We've both at times joked about not being able to handle more than one, when people only know about DS.

The main thing is to be kind to each other. Telling him you'd felt upset by what he'd said and listening to his reply would be more productive than confronting him.

Just to add, despite feeling it right not to mention DD on some occasions, I still feel guilty about it. If your DH feels the same, he might have been more defensive about it if you added to the guilt

had he not been laughing then sending me texts " X She is dead, get over it[...] You need to stop making it a big deal[...]

If this is true, he is a sick man

YANBU but neither is your husband - and his nasty comment to you was possibly in response to you angrily confronting him.

DH's brother was killed when he was 15 (DH was 10) and if people ask him he often says he has no siblings. And FIL never mentions him. MIL talks about him. People deal with things differently

@PurpleOkapi

No, he told her she doesn't have 4 kids cos one is dead and she needs to get over the death. That isn't a skilled conversationalist. It's a man in denial or a dick.

She threatened to divorce him for doing what any normal person would do in that situation. If he's a dick for saying something insensitive in response, that makes her something much, much worse.

You've said your piece, no need to go on and on about how awful you think the OP is. Isn't there something else you could be doing on a Monday aside from being abrasive to a grieving woman?

I think this is why a lot of marriages do not survive the death of a child.

Both of you are dealing with this in different ways.

Everyone deals with it differently. I can imagine not wanting to go through the whole telling people you barely know that your child died so they can feign sympathy. I think YABU to punish him for how he's dealing with his bereavement but YANBU to be upset.

Oh op, my heart is bleeding for you. Your pain is palpable. the grief of a child is like no other, because you not only lose them but part of you too.
We lost our youngest DD in 2015. At first DH and I grieved the same and then all of a sudden he seemed to move on without me. It was another kind of pain on top of what I was already feeling. When I would tell anyone and everyone about DD, he would only talk about the ones that remained. Then one day, in a similar incident to yours, I asked him why. He said that those people didn’t matter enough to share our precious girl with. He neither needed their acknowledgment or their sympathy, because with that he runs the risk of being hurt or angered. If they said the wrong thing as people sometimes do, he wasn’t yet in a place to forgive them, and as he worked with them everyday, he needed things to be normal. Just to survive each day. I got it then.
We are 6 and a half years into our journey now, and we are walking at the same pace again, grieving her always but in a more gentle way. Some days still hurt like hell.
Don’t give up yet. He has handled his explanation clumsily and on the defensive. You have been with him along time, I’m willing to bet he was a good husband and father. I could be wrong, but if he was give it time.
Sending you a warm hug from one grieving mum to another

You've said your piece, no need to go on and on about how awful you think the OP is. Isn't there something else you could be doing on a Monday aside from being abrasive to a grieving woman?

No need to go on and on about how awful you think her grieving husband is for not wanting to share his grief with his new colleagues, either. I don't think either of them are dicks, and I didn't say anyone was. But the double standards some people are advocating are ridiculous.

Firstly I'm really sorry for your loss. However, I can see your husband's point of view as well. Perhaps he doesn't feel he can discuss something so personal in a pub with people he doesn't know well. I think if you are to stay together you have to resolve what you are going to do in these sorts of situations between you. As PP have said neither of you are right or wrong.

@PurpleOkapi

You've said your piece, no need to go on and on about how awful you think the OP is. Isn't there something else you could be doing on a Monday aside from being abrasive to a grieving woman?

No need to go on and on about how awful you think her grieving husband is for not wanting to share his grief with his new colleagues, either. I don't think either of them are dicks, and I didn't say anyone was. But the double standards some people are advocating are ridiculous.

I haven't made any mention of her husband. Because it's not a football match where you need to pick a side.

Have you both had counselling? This is something that came up in ours how do we answer the question how many child do you have.

Depending on who we are talking to dh and answer 3. We lost our son in pregnancy. So we have 4 but I don't feel comfortable getting asked follow up questions by people we don't know well.

In regards getting over it. Grief takes so many forms but something we also covered in counselling was the ability to move forward and not get stuck in it with bitterness and anger. That we also had to find away to make space for our son in our family but not allow his death to become the centre of it. Have you and your family been able to do this?

We also spoke alot about how we had to be able to go on and live our lifes for each other and our remaining children. So while I might not want to get up most days and stay in bed and cry I don't. I want to scream my head of most days and rage at the unfairness of it all.

We also covered how dh and I won't grieve the same way or feel exactly how the other person is at the same time and we have to give each other the time and space to let the other person be. The loss of child puts a huge strain on a marriage.

He isn't wrong and neither are you. When you have already lost so much is this something you want to lose your marriage over?

@Hermanfromguesswho

I think him saying he has 3 sons is probably much easier to cope with than him having to tell 2 very new colleagues about the sad loss of your daughter in a social situation. I can totally see why he did it. I can also see why you are upset but it’s absolutely not a kicking him out situation. More a chat to explain how both of you feel and then move on type situation

this.

I can see why you are upset, but in his shoes, i would not want to tell new colleagues about a loss either.

Be kind OP, to him and yourself

He said that those people didn’t matter enough to share our precious girl with. He neither needed their acknowledgment or their sympathy, because with that he runs the risk of being hurt or angered

That is well-put, and something I also feel about my father (not that I’m saying that losing a parent is comparable to losing a child). I think what some of the more naive PPs don’t get is that, when you tell people about a bereavement in a social context when they’re not expecting it, you end up dealing with their shock. And, as your DH noted, half the time they say something really tactless, which you then have to absorb mentally.

It’s not a question of sanitising death; it’s about not wanting to add to your grief by having to talk down a stranger whom you’ve just freaked out. It’s self-protective.

I believe you will always have 4 children OP, always.

However, not everyone sees it like that and I can't judge them for it.

I feel your pain through your posts so intensely. You are hurting and angry and I don't blame you.

I'm fairly sure your DH is hurting badly too, but he is dealing with it differently.

Don't lose your marriage over this.

Whoever has the relationship with the people we're talking to gets to make the decision about if they're told about DD.

This is the crux of the issue for me. This conversation was a casual "get to know you out of the office" chat over a beer in the pub, with the DHs new work colleague and their partners. What personal information the OPs DH chooses to share with the people he has to see every day at work should be his decision.

If that means that, at this moment in time, he chooses to tell those people that he has three sons, omitting the fact he has a daughter who passed away, then that is his right. Perhaps, further down the line when he knew them better he may have mentioned his daughter, and the fact she had passed away, but when (or if) he was comfortable sharing that information with his work colleagues is his decision to make, not the OPs.

I have a friend whose first son was stillborn, she has subsequently gone on to have 3 more children - two sons and a daughter. How she answers the question "how many children do you have?" depends entirely on the context of the conversation. When she tells the school mum making chit chat at the school gate that she has 3 children, it isn't with the intention of denying her eldest son's existence, its because she doesn't want a normally throwaway question to turn into a serious and uncomfortable situation.

@flowery

He wasn’t ready to talk about your daughter with new colleagues and their partners. That’s not something you introduce into a light conversation with people you don’t know well.

I lost my mum when I was small. I have a step mum. People close to me or who have known me a long time know that she’s my step mum and that I lost my mum. But with people I’ve recently met or don’t know well, if conversation turns naturally to parents, I wouldn’t clarify.

I understand why you’re upset though.

I could have written this post.

OP, not every conversation needs to end up being about grief. Of course you are not unreasonable to be grieving for your daughter still, but YABU about this.

I found, and still do, that sometimes no approach is right.
I would be offended and upset about different things within moments.
People talking about my daughter, people not talking about her, people saying the wrong thing, people saying anything or nothing.

It's too huge a thing to process; I can't even explain now what would be "right".

Perhaps your husband didn't want to have to answer any upsetting questions about how your daughter died.