To tell my friend (nicely and diplomatically) to get a grip re her divorce?

[JandamiHash]

My friend’s OH asked her for a divorce about 8 months ago. Reason being “I’m sorry but I’ve changed and just don’t love you anymore”. This had been said before and they agreed to try and make it work but after a year it just didnt. no kids (by choice) just dogs. I was obviously terribly sorry for her and it was a shock as i thought they'd worked things out. But her struggle to cope is absolutely off the scale.

She posts about 10 times a day on facebook about how heartbroken she is, or posts memories saying things like "To think we will never go here again". Her ex is still her facebook friend! She calls me a lot crying and or asking for help - she was by her own admission the damsel in distress type in their marriage and never learnt how to do things like get the car serviced or change a lightbulb because her ex always did those things. When she first moved out she called me constantly asking how to find the boiler, how to use a thermostat etc

I’ve helped her through it as best I can, but she resolutely doesn’t want to get over it (she’s said this). She will “never be over it” and “never be ready to move on”. Her ex initially said they could be friends and they have a custody arrangement with the dogs so see each other twice a week. She gets upset because ex won’t stay to watch films or have a glass of wine.

I strongly suspect the ex has a new woman (this all coincided with taking up a particular hobby that has lots of women involved) but my friend refuses to believe this is possible.

Met friend for lunch at the weekend, and she spent 3 hours talking about her ex, crying and saying how she will never ever be over their marriage.

I did try and update her about my life - she initially asked how my kids were and I started updating her about my DS who has a chronic condition that’s thankfully been getting a bit better (I hope!). But she so clearly was desperate to stop talking about it and start talking about her ex.

Her other friends and family have attempted to tell her to move on and she’s fallen out with them or put a status on Facebook saying how upset she is (annoyingly to scores of people telling her she has shit friends if they expect her to just move on and she should take as long as she needs).

Now I love her but I’m getting fed up at her lack of self awareness. I get she’s heartbroken but come on - to be so resolutely sure that you always want to be wallowing in misery, and consuming your friends with your grief, is not ok in my book.

WIBU to politely tell her to get a grip and that next time we meet we limit the conversation about her ex? I don’t want to upset her but equally it’s not fair on me for her to be this way

Or am I an insensitive cow who should be a better friend?

When people say she'll never get over it I don't think they mean that she will be grieving forever. I read that as meaning that you move on, but that your sense of the loss of that person remains with you forever, even if you are not always aware of it. That makes logical sense to me.

How did she react? Did she take it on board?

It’s a shame no one who called me an arsehole or said I haven’t done enough have returned to explain further.

I also agree with @NotOneOfTheInCrowd - my friend is not yet 40 and I do think it’s ridiculous to still be pining when she’s elderly, I just think most people do move on eventually. I’ve known people to be left for another person when they have kids and all parties have been fine within a couple of years. I just don’t know why you’d want to do anything but get over an ex

Also re various people saying “tell her to get therapy” - as I’ve already said, she’s on a waiting list. But therapy isn’t always the solution and it isn’t for everyone. I paid privately for a v expensive and highly recommend therapist to deal with my grief and I can honestly say it was a total waste of money.

So if she does get therapy and it doesn’t work - then what?

I can't imagine she hopes to get him back, because she would be doing a terrible job of wooing.
If he's the type to go around telling anyone about his 'crazy ex', she's playing right into that stereotype. Or at the very least, helping him prove why he had to leave - exhausted by all the emotional dumping.
She needs someone to tell her to pull herself together- at least on SM. She can grieve in private, not one FB and not to a man who has left you twice.

OP, it sounds as if you're measuring your friend's loss by how you reacted to your own loss and by others' losses, like when you said you didn't need to talk to friends when your dad died and you mentioned other marital break-ups where the person has been fine within a couple of years. But everyone is different. And everyone reacts to different kinds of losses differently. I was utterly traumatised and completely lost in a fog of horror for a very long time when my mother died, and my dad's death is nothing like as bad. And I was very sad for a very long time when my husband left me. My mum and husband have been my two worst losses, and for me, for both, eight months was nothing. It sounds as if you were very resilient when your dad died, but that's really got nothing to do with your friend's reaction to the loss of her marriage.

It's clear that you need to step back a bit, though, for your own sanity. She is experiencing the end of her marriage as a trauma, not just a marital break-up, and it seems that you can't relate to that. (No judgement, just a fact.)

Could you float the idea to a family member that they buy her a new puppy? Sounds as if she could really use something like that to bring her into the present. And she's an experienced dog owner.

If this is true, how long into her forever pain do you leave her to make a fool of herself on FB? How long do you listen to monologues before enough is enough?

I don’t think so, I don’t really know her ex well enough TBH to know what might be getting spread. My friend still gushes that Alex is the world’s nicest person and would never do anything to hurt her

Or measuring at all it is others who is saying it’s just like having someone die, and accused me of having no experience of that, which I do. But yes it’s a kind of grief I accept that, and I know everyone is different, but I don’t think being friends into your eternal grieving is ever fair or acceptable - and I did learn to be resilient as I had no choice. I was pregnant with DD and she was born soon after dad died I had to buck up my ideas and focus on her.

I like the puppy idea, although personally I’m staying away from puppies at the moment as all the cuteness is making me want to bring one home 😂 I very nearly got a poodle puppy last month so DH has banned me from being around them 🤣

@JandamiHash I ended my marriage at the end of 2022 - my ex was an abusive twat so I was glad to be finally shot of him - but my BFF still heard all about him non stop for months after the split. I never posted anything on social media thank God 🥴 but there were definitely times when she told me firmly but kindly “you need to talk about this with your therapist” - both because she knew it would be beneficial and because it is a polite way of setting boundaries and telling someone to STFU 😂

Even over that time I was able to have some self awareness and listen to stuff that was going on in her life, work issues etc without immediately bringing it back to Bastard Ex Husband so it’s definitely not unreasonable of you that have that expectation of your friend. The damsel shit is wearying.

I am sorry about your dad. Mine died late last year and although I knew it was coming - he had had cancer for years - it completely
floored me. Much much much harder to process than divorce! Even though it was awful to watch cancer rob my beloved, funny energetic Dad of life, at least we were around him at the very end. I can’t imagine how hard it would be to deal with a sudden death of a much loved parent. It must have turned your world on its axis. ❤️

I can empathise with her Ex

She sounds incredibly needy

I have known people cope with bereavement better than her

If that were me, i would back away from her and i suspect she will lose friends due to her behaviour

I dont think its fair to project grief upon friends

By all means talk about it, but dont talk about that and nothing else

Don't post on SM all your woes

You can still be a good friend to others and offer support back to someone

She sounds draining

So sorry to hear about your dad ❤️

I’ve processed A LOT of thoughts about how my dad died and had at one point come to the conclusion that in a way it’s a blessing that he never deteriorated and I have had to sit by his bedside explaining who I am or watch him slowly worsen so felt lucky in that sense - but actually the truth is it’s hard no matter what you have to go through. I heard something recently that I think the Queen once said: “Grief is the price of e pay for loving someone” and it’s so profoundly true. It’s a privilege and a curse at the same time

Whoa, hang on. That's not what I meant at all, and I'm very sorry that I expressed myself in a way that that's what you understood.

So, the depth and seriousness of your grief I do not underestimate at all. I've been there and I know what it's like, and how long it lasts. I assure you I had no intention to diminish that.

I was trying to address a difference in the way that we - not just you and I, but everyone - does the give-and-take accounting in a friendship.

Because you'd said 'what - eight months?', I was trying to say that we all do the totting up of 'is this equitable?' on a different timescale. Mine apparently is quite lengthy. Yours, I was suggesting, is shorter. And I'm sorry I expressed that facetiously - I was trying to tie it back to my first post, which suggested that your timescale for getting things balanced was probably the most practical, and that it should be made part of the relationship.

So, this wasn't about depth or length of feeling - especially not about your mourning - but about the dynamics of friendship. That's what I intended. I apologise that I was not clear about that.

It amazes me how people think that one minute you are going through a devastating situation like an unwanted divorce and the next you should be floating around like you are on cloud 9. Of course she needs to get a grip of her life and try and build up her happiness and capability with the boiler etc and move forward but you don’t get over someone you love in a few minutes. It’s a grieving process like anything else. It takes the time it takes I’m afraid and that’s kind of it.

I’m watching friends separate, which was initiated by one of them following an argument.

dogs and property are involved, thankfully no children, but it’s on going. The initiator is way forward in where she is mentally at, the partner not so. Compounded by unfortunate behaviour over ‘who gets what’ it’s really never over until everything has been signed off…

i understand your position and it’s wearing you down. As you say turn off notifications (I wouldn’t unfollow because that just leads to more insecurity for your friend at a time when she is questioning and possibly over analysing what the former is doing). But please do realise it didn’t end 8 months ago for her….

is going to the movies together where neither of you talk but still keep each other company a solution?

I read once, divorce or loss of a long term partner that has left you, when you were perfectly happy with them , is the same as a bereavement to them , & I guess what I read is correct….
She is not going to get through this without professional help ..
Her whole world has fallen apart and her grief is consuming her , so I’m afraid she will not care about what is going on in your life or anyone’s else’s life for a bit to come I’d say …
Is it possible for you & family members, other friends to come together at the same time , explain how ye are worried about her & there for her every step of the way , but she needs to seek counselling to help get her through this ? … …

Actually, this thread has just made me remember how a friend of mine was still posting self-pitying/warrior-ess memes on FB THREE YEARS after her husband left her. I definitely thought it was because of all the strokes she'd get. I got fed up with it.

It's true that her divorce was truly ugly, one of the worst you can imagine. And they live abroad, and he left her to cope with two young children who he didn't see overly much, but who he wouldn't give permission for to be taken back to the UK. So she was/is really stuck. I know that she went through complete hell with him, and I truly did sympathise. I still do. As she said, none of their lives will ever be the same.

But the public bids for sympathy three years later were too much for me. We all have our limits! What happened to her was really unfair and her husband is a complete arse, and she's lovely and in no way deserved all the terrible things he meted out to her, but the problem is, there's nothing her friends could really DO about it, beyond the initial months/couple of years of sympathising. I know that the losses she suffered through her particular circumstances changed her life forever, but I couldn't fix that.

The continual trawling for sympathy on Facebook three years later also irritated me because I was going through my own trauma of losing my mother, and I certainly never got the amount of sympathy she did over her divorce - probably because I didn't beg for it on FB. I did notice, though, by year three that she was getting noticeably fewer strokes.

It takes the time it takes I’m afraid and that’s kind of it.

Its one thing to be sad, which is of course understandable and takes the time it takes. Its another to be so self absorbed that it is taking all of your attention all day every day and demanding all of everyone elses too. Even at the worst of times, most people can understand that other people have lives too, and at least acknowledge that. To have someone demanding so much is not normal and OP should not have to put up with it.

Shared custody of the dogs? I've heard it all now, no wonder she can't move on seeing him each week.

Tell her to give him the dogs and get on with her life otherwise she will never get over him.

This has probably triggered deep seated problems for her. In my 20s I had very severe reactions to even the end of shitty relationships.

I paid for private counselling with a wonderful person I found myself. I still speak now with this person.

Some people have reasons that makes this so much harder to recover from.

What I would find difficult is the FB posts. That's self indulgent. With that I would say get a grip with not humiliating yourself. Get some balls come on and stop wallowing on FB. That I would say at this stage tbh.

She's so overwhelmed she can't hear your problems. I was like that often in my younger years. I now actually like listening to other problems tbh but I'm older.

You could see if she wants to go do something fun together and say to her let's not talk about him. You have 5 mins to offload about him then lets have fun. If she can't she can't and you can only distance a little. It's alot and it's ok to think you can't listen anymore.

This 👆 Of course the rejection and loss from a broken relationship produces grief and that grief can last a long time. However, after the early weeks, sometimes months, people move beyond the natural self-absorbed phase and can consider other people. The OPs friend has not moved on at all in 8 months. She is still posting many, many times a day about her feelings of loss. She still talks of nothing else. She never considers anyone else. This situation is not about the OP being willing to be a supportive friend, it’s about the expectation that she can sacrifice her own needs. It seems that being a supportive friend isn’t helping anyway, so what is the point in the OP sacrificing her own needs.

You are unreasonable to expect her to just get over it.

it’s been two years and a month since my own marriage blew up in my face. My husband had an affair and even though it ended and we still live together our relationship is not more than flat mates.

im in therapy twice a week and have had two stays in mental health wards. I’ve tried to kill myself once and self harmed really badly on multiple occasions. I’m covered in scars now because it feels like the only way to cope with the mental pain is to match it with physical pain.

I’ve lost friends because they didn’t want to deal with my depression. I learned just not to talk about it with friends, but it doesn’t change my emotional turmoil. I’m in hell and it’s not really better two years in. I e lost my best friend and partner and it feels like the whole world collapsed on me.

if it was easy to just get over it I would be doing just that. But it’s a slow and difficult process. Your friend should be told she needs to not talk about it constantly, but to distract herself and she ought to seek therapy too. But her feelings are valid.

OP, FWIW I didn’t read @PointsSouth’s post that way. I took the starter and entree reference to be about how long you were prepared to give your friend before expecting her to at least try to make the relationship more equal again (as in: we can talk about your stuff during the starter and entree, but then it’s time to move the conversation on…). So about friendship, not grief at all.