To think you don’t send a sorry for your loss card to just the dad when both parents are married and their child dies

[Reflectingbackonthis]

Like who the hell does that

send a card then write inside a long message
say dear mr reflecting so sorry for the loss of your son

then card in question is from your mother In law friends

oddly two friend that don’t live together decided to send a joint card
which is odd in itself

and both friends did this
they both write dear mr reflecting

a few years later I asked the mil about it, told her that the joint card two of her friends sent, had messages inside and were only addressed inside to dh and she blankly and unresponsively
replied ill ask them ….

never came back about it
never made any comments

aibu thinkng this is off

reason I’ve been stired up about it
is sadly a friend has also just lost a child
they parents have done a joint fb post to inform people and a couple of people have said just to the dad sorry for your loss …

we didn’t have fb at the time
but it’s just stirred it all up for me

aibu in thinking mil friends were being off and even mil was also out of order for at least saying oh they didn’t did they or some other kind of reaction

other than blankly ill ask them. Deadpan then never mentioning it again

And for context one of the mil friends actually came to our wedding at mil request

And we’d been married 12 years at this point

It just sounds like they are odd and maybe lacking in actual compassion, I know it must be grating on you but they don't actually matter.

I would let it go.

If they only know one parent well it makes sense they would address it to them.

It might be more polite to address it to both but not everyone would realise that.

If for some reason I only knew one of the couple and didn’t know the other whatsoever I might address a card to only the person I know because I wouldn’t necessarily know the religion or sensitivities of the person I didn’t know or even if they were still together, but I would at least acknowledge them and say that my thoughts were with both or something like that. If I had ever met both then I would address to both.

I remember at the time, everytime I saw that card in the window it made me feel really shit, so I ripped it up in to as many pieces as I possibly could and binned it
kept all the other though

just so bloddy odd and now seeing this, this weekend has stirred it all up for me

You're right, that is weird. Two separate friends sending a joint card is fine but only addressing it to one bereaved parent is crackers.

Is it that they didn't know you, only knew your husband through your mother in law? Or didn't know your name? Though they could have asked., it's hardly rocket science is it.

I'm so sorry your child died. That must be so painful.

My friend who just lost her son, I’ve never even meet her dh as we were work friends
been friends years
but I’d never dream of sending a card to just her what the heck

One of them came to our wedding 12 years prior

I’m sorry for your loss, OP. I think you’re projecting understandable grief and anger onto something unimportant. No, I wouldn’t do this, and I can see why you found it upsetting, but it’s not MIL’s fault two of her friends did something insensitive, and asking her about it a few years later is quite odd. It was probably as silly and basic a reason as them forgetting your name because they’re friends of MIL and know your DH better.

Crassly thoughtless. Who sends sympathy cards to one half of a grieving couple who've lost their child, even if they have a closer connection with one of them?

It's not a lack of politeness, it's just utter thoughtlessness.

Don't give these women any more of your headspace, OP.

I can fully understand why you're so upset about this to this day. How unutterably thoughtless and cruel of them. Some people are just emotionally illiterate, although I suspect your MIL just felt in between a rock and a hard place, and I suspect never mentioned anything to the friends (she was also grieving, so not in the place for tactfully raising issues with friends). I hope you can forget this interaction as time moves on, and my sympathies to your friend and their family.

Strange, but they’re his side not yours, and probably don’t even know him that we’ll do they? Also bereavement cards are awkward at the best of times. They might have thought you would be like who are these people and be annoyed to be referenced by them. It’s just all difficult and awkward and the absolute most likely thing is that these people don’t know you well enough to be purposely trying to hurt you.

as for the Facebook posts, if I knew someone and they wrote that their son had suffered a loss, I might write oh how awful for Barry. Because I know Barry’s mum. I might possibly add ‘and his partner’ - but it’s a post about my facebook friend’s son to me. That’s the relevance to my life.

if they wrote specifically that their son AND dil had suffered this loss, I’d say how awful for them.

basically my point is the Facebook posters are talking to their friend about THEIR son, bot sending condolences directly to the couple.

with sincere compassion, it seems as though this card hit a nerve for whatever reason, and it became a thing to focus on and a place to direct some anger to at an awful time.

edited to add that I’m not quite sure what your mil was supposed to do - surely you don’t actually expect her to go to her friends and question them over a card they sent years ago. Their intention was to send a message of condolence, rather than to hurt you in a strange way, surely? So she’d be pretty rude and strange to do this. It’s probably nice she didn’t shut your feelings down directly and fibbed saying she’d ask but hoping you’d forget about it.

If I only knew the man I would still refer to his wife and wrote something along the lines of …

Dear Derek, thinking of you and your wife at this time …

When my sister died, my mum got cards from people addressed just to her. She was more sociable than my dad and knew more people. People tended to express condolences to the whole family, but address it just to my mum, so ‘To Funnywondersmum, so sorry for your loss. Thinking of you and your family at this time.’ That sort of thing. It seemed reasonable enough. My dad certainly wasn’t bothered. But everyone feels differently on these occasions and that’s fine. Sometimes it’s hard for people to know what the correct thing to do is.

I’m really sorry this still upsets you. There are things about people’s behaviour at the time my sister died that still give me pain many many years later.

I cannot really begin to imagine what it feels like to lose a child. But I guess that you never get over it. How can you? I am also guessing that it is the grief that is stirred up, not anger over the memory of a card from a near stranger. I have every sympathy for you. So sorry for your loss.

I just don’t think this is the thing that would bother me in these kind of circumstances. Whatever. It’s a card from someone you don’t really know / care about. Forget it.

See in this situation I probably would send a card just to her. It would feel odd to send a card to someone I've never met. I would acknowledge her husband and family, say I'm thinking of them all, but I would address it to only her.

I have sent a card to just the person I knew in the couple too.
Because that’s who I knew and I thought it’d be really weird to receive a card from someone you don’t know.
I did put something in the card about both of them (something around ‘thinking of both of you’) because it was about recognising the fact they both lost their dd.

I know the card was appreciated.

In your situation, the difference is that the person had met your dh before, even if briefly. And they would have known you’re still together (because I’m sure MIL would have mentioned a divorce to her close friends!).

Thank I know you’re right and that they don’t deserve the head space
the in-laws weren’t that bothered as they still went in a long month holiday after this happened and we even waited till they came back for the funeral
they then proceeded to pretend like nothing had happened
they also left the funeral before it finished and our ds was even in the ground

seeing some of these messages has just really upset me
it’s not like it’s not something that effects you for the rest of your life
I know I’ll struggle with this for the rest of my life whilst simultaneously trying to make my dcs lives and mine and my dh life as best as possible
but I know I’ll find this difficult until the day I die
this has just really upset me

I just got think if they are that insensitive fuck them
fuck off go away
had noting whatsoever about thinking. About you all or you both
nothing

bollocks to them

I won’t be coming back to this now
as I’m trying to make the best of the rest of the day

thanks to anyone understanding that’s replied to me 🕊️

I’m so sorry for your loss. It’s hard to imagine other people being so useless, when you yourself are highly tuned to the complexity of grief.

Some people are simply blinkered- they are thinking about the tragedy suffered by boy they watched grow up, and forgetting about the ‘boy’s’ wife.

I’ve just reread the cards I received after my dad died and reflected again how thoughtful and kind those people were. It reminds me to make the effort when I’m not sure what to say.

OP I'm so sorry for your loss. No parents should have to go through what you have and it's a loss that you always carry with you. Grief takes all of us different ways and kindly, I wouldn't focus on these two people who I'm sure meant no harm or offence - they probably wrote the cards to your husband as they knew him well. Of course they could have worded it better and sent condolences to your whole family. But it is what it is and you can choose to let it go - they aren't people who matter to you. Don't allow yourself to get worked up about people who are insignificant in your life.

I lost my twin sons at birth 18 months ago. Burying your child is a grief you'll never get over, you just have to manage each day really and some of those days are so tough, you feel completely overwhelmed. People who haven't experienced that will never understand and it's unbelievably painful when people are so insensitive in regards to that loss. I hate the phrase, "people don't know what to say "... its such a cop out. I'm sorry your loss was disregarded this way.

I'm so sorry for your loss 🩵