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.

Speak about death 🤦‍♀️

Neither of you is being unreasonable, you both just clearly deal with your loss in a different way.

I know you might find it upsetting, but honestly, maybe he just doesn't want to have to explain every time someone asks him about his kids. And that's understandable.

I'm so sorry OP.

I understand both of your feelings.

Completely different situation but my family was abusive and I moved to family members in a different country when I was young.

When people ask about my parents and siblings I won't give the story if it's just a casual chat with new people because it changes the atmosphere and takes me back to sad feelings and memories. Maybe DH was just trying to chat to colleagues without taking him back to that painful place.

Agree that you should talk and decide what to say in these situations, and if you want to do it in different ways maybe that is ok.

*Also as per your last update this really reminds me of my dad and what happened to me. He got angry at me for being sad, acted like I should just forget all about my birth family and that I was wrong for continuing to be sad.

I think it's a generational thing in part, the attitude of 'forget about it and move on', and it's not necessarily the healthiest.

He needs to allow you to grieve in your own way as well.

I do think counselling would be a good move.

Neither of you are wrong.
Saying he had 4 could have opened a difficult conversation and he sounds like he would rather not talk about it.. that's how he deals with the pain.
You are the opposite.
Both ways are okay. I think this is a huge incompatability though and you should rethink staying together.

For what it's worth though, I'm good at blocking out trauma but if I lost a child I would always include them in the number and try and keep their memory alive in all ways

The number of people stating as fact what they would do if they lost a child is unreal.

You have no idea what you would do because, luckily, you don’t know.

Thankfully most people never find out if they’d deal with it the way of the OP, the way of her DH or another entirely different way.

@JustLyra very true. One simply doesn’t know what one would do/not do or how one would feel until it’s reality.

@JustLyra

The number of people stating as fact what they would do if they lost a child is unreal.

You have no idea what you would do because, luckily, you don’t know.

Thankfully most people never find out if they’d deal with it the way of the OP, the way of her DH or another entirely different way.

Every comment I have made of this thread is sadly from the experience of losing a child in upsetting and traumatic circumstances.

@JustLyra and you don't know what peoples individual circumstances are either. A lot of people know how they deal with death/tragedy in general and a lot of people experience tragedy. I hope I am never unfortunate enough to have to deal with one of my children dying, but if I do I know for certain how I would talk about it to other people, because every death I have experienced from my close family and any pregnancy losses I have dealt with in a similar way. I have always answered honestly if people have asked me about my mum, my dad or why I had time off from work etc. That's how I am. So yeah I think it is possible to comment on that.

LaGauchiste I'm so sorry you're going through this. I don't think either of you are wrong, but I think he needs to be kinder to you. Do you have anyone else you can talk to about it, if he refuses to talk about it? It's not that long ago, I bet it's still a shock for you both.
My grandparents lost a (young) child and I'm not sure if they ever fought about it between them, but to anyone who wasn't around at the time of the accident, you would only know that they had 3 children, not 4. They never talked about it, not with the siblings anyway. It was just their way of coping. I don't think that's necessarily wrong. Maybe not healthy, but not wrong.
Unfortunately I think you cannot force him to deal with it, unless he wants to. Please make you have the support you need though, from other people.

@RandomLondoner

There’s no reason he couldn’t have said 4 children

There is, it's literally untrue.

I would not go out of my way to lie about this, even if I were married to a crazy/grammatically-challenged/logic-challenged woman who I knew was going to berate me for answering truthfully.

How on earth is saying they have 4 children untrue?!?!!? Just because their daughter passed away, doesn't mean she never existed in the first place!

Get off mumsnet @RandomLondoner FFS

If someone asked me about my grandparents now for example, I would say I have one

Gently and kindly
Everyone grieves differently
I understand why you feel this way
But I can also see his position
I’m very very sorry for your loss OP

@Hope478

If someone asked me about my grandparents now for example, I would say I have one

I agree with this. I really think that when anyone asks this kind of question, they are asking how many you currently have, and not how many you have ever had.

"How many grandparents/pets/jobs do you have?"
Would you really expect an answer to include past and present?

You insisting that he has 4 children OP is just as bad as people insisting that you have 3.

People deal with things differently, that's all.

I know what you mean about being upset I would be too, but I think your husband just didn’t want to mention your daughter in case they asked more questions, which he would find difficult, I can see both sides though

After losing DD is was part of a support group for other grieving parents, as it goes mostly but not exclusively mothers, most fathers decided it wasn’t for them.

It was like an AA meeting for the bereft, and the one place I felt understood. I say understood, yet not one person in that room grieved in the same way as anyone else.

Occasionally a parent would express a thought or feeling which was so important to them, but would unintentionally cause another parent pain. Yet we each respected the right/need of others to express their grief in the way that they felt fit them best. There was non judgement and total acceptance of each other even when we couldn’t accept the loss of our child(ren).

It was that feeling of not being judged and accepted no matter how strange our thoughts might feel that made the group such a healing place.

One day I said that I when I visited DD’s grave I so desperately felt like I wanted to dig up DD, just to cuddle her one last time and then put her back. I said I didn’t care what she looked like, I’d love her anyway, I just wanted to hold her. It is not something I would have acted on, but my goodness I so longed to hold that little girl again. Sat at her graveside I felt so close yet so far.

I could never have said anything of the sort to the non bereft for fear of being locked up, but everyone in that room listened, and empathised, and not one person judged the ramblings of an empty armed mother.

Op would a group like this help you?

[quote Opalfeet]@JustLyra and you don't know what peoples individual circumstances are either. A lot of people know how they deal with death/tragedy in general and a lot of people experience tragedy. I hope I am never unfortunate enough to have to deal with one of my children dying, but if I do I know for certain how I would talk about it to other people, because every death I have experienced from my close family and any pregnancy losses I have dealt with in a similar way. I have always answered honestly if people have asked me about my mum, my dad or why I had time off from work etc. That's how I am. So yeah I think it is possible to comment on that.[/quote]
You don’t though.

You think you do. I lost my mother at 14. I had 9 miscarriages. I then lost both my grandparents, who had brought me up since the age of 7. I dealt with all of those in a very similar way.

Losing my son was vastly different and I dealt with it in a way that I’d never have imagined for a second I’d deal with any loss.

So yes, you can comment what you think you’d do. You cannot state as fact, which many people have done in this thread, what you’d do because you don’t (and hopefully never will) know.

@JustLyra I'm sorry to hear that, but with all due respect you don't know me or my personality. If I was unfortunate enough to experiencing my child dying I would be unable to cope, a complete wreck etc, but I can be sure that I would tell people that my child had died. That's okay, equally it's okay to want to say you still have a child. But the op has to realise that her husband is dealing with it differently and that is okay too. It wasn't okay for her husband to snap at her, but it wasn't okay for her to challenge her husband and expect him to feel the same way as her. For the person saying that they need to go their different ways- you dont know and that's not a fair thing to say about two people clearly struggling.

[quote Opalfeet]@JustLyra I'm sorry to hear that, but with all due respect you don't know me or my personality. If I was unfortunate enough to experiencing my child dying I would be unable to cope, a complete wreck etc, but I can be sure that I would tell people that my child had died. That's okay, equally it's okay to want to say you still have a child. But the op has to realise that her husband is dealing with it differently and that is okay too. It wasn't okay for her husband to snap at her, but it wasn't okay for her to challenge her husband and expect him to feel the same way as her. For the person saying that they need to go their different ways- you dont know and that's not a fair thing to say about two people clearly struggling.[/quote]
With all due respect you haven’t a clue what you’d do. And I hope you never do. You are assuming that the death of a child wouldn’t change your personality and it might. I went from being someone very open about my abusive childhood, comfortable talking about miscarriages and open about the loss of my grandparents to barely being able to talk about my son with my own husband.
My husband on the other hand is a quiet man, rarely talks about feelings, but is very open (in comparison) about our son.

You might be right. You might do as you think. However you might be someone who completely changes. You don’t know. That’s my point. No-one truly knows and thankfully few ever will.

That we agree on. The op confronting her husband was completely unfair. And they both need to understand that everyone is different and no two people do things exactly the same.

It is difficult to know how a conversation will develop from - I have 4 children, 3 boys 1 girl (if one is deceased). What if the follow up questions are the usual.....how old are they? What does your daughter like doing? How do you manage with 4 children or followed up with a future invite to a children's party etc

Talking about a deceased child in the present tense is lining up some conversations that could be very difficult and unintentionally distressing. It could be more sensitive to say 'We have 3 boys, our daughter sadly has died' or similar

Wondering if the boys say 'We have a sister' or 'We had a sister'

StoneofDestiny

Yes, they do. My sons know nothing about the argument, I don't want to involve them. I avoid talking about my sadness to them too.The oldest is the one struggling the most and talks about his sister all the time to me, and how he struggles with the fact that she is no longer there. The other two are more reserved, and only want to discuss their good memories , how much they love her but do not want to mention death. But none of them is denying her existence like my husband does.

He isn't denying her existence. He is allowed to talk about her in the past tense, it is not incorrect or insensitive.

Hont1986

Telling me to move on , and get over her death is denying her existence. He" can get over it", but I don't want to. She is not an object that I lost or can get again from somewhere. she is MY child.