unsupportive partner

[crazydil]

I'm not sure how to start this. My father passed away over a year ago and I'm feeling so let down by my partner. Tbh i think if we didn't have kids I would've ended things. I know I'm not being unreasonable in wanting his support. But he makes me feel as though im asking him to move mountains.

I'd love to know how your partners have supported you whilst you grieve and endure such a horrible horrible time. And if they haven't given you that support...how did it affect your relationship?

Sorry to read of more on this group. I was here nearly 3 years ago.

Someone asked if the grief gets easier. Yes it does get less raw. Someone told me it would and I didn’t believe them, and didn’t want to believe them (how could I ever feel anything but sad, angry at losing my sibling in their early 30s). But like the experts say, although the grief doesn’t massively lessen, life around it gets bigger. Other issues come to the fore and you naturally get back into living in the moment a bit more.

There are some sad exceptions to this - people who dont/can’t move on even after years.

I will always hold sadness in my heart.

Relationship wise, my DH has improved in terms of understanding the grief - maybe because the grief is less intense.

That said, we have other relationship issues, probably unrelated to my bereavement but we’ll never know.

A major bereavement changes you to the core, and when it involves your blood relative (not your partners) then inevitably those changes only really affect you.

to all those who’ve suffered loss and have partners not making things any easier. Try to ride it out with minimal damage to your relationship if you can and see how things are in a few months.

Thanks Gertrude

What you say makes sense about life around the loss getting bigger and making it less intense as time passes. I know this from a previous traumatic loss.

Your advice about trying to ride it out and see how the relationship stands in a few months very useful. I just need to tolerate the building resentment and disappointment for now as have no capacity and have been so clear about what support I need.

I think with the benefit of hindsight, although it is unbelievably hurtful and sad when it feels like your partner is not there for you in your time of need, a major bereavement is (hopefully) not a regular occurrence. So if the relationship was previously good, and is basically sound then this is what I meant about damage limitation. Try not to let it be something that you can’t come back from.

That all said, I have since had another life event where I felt my partner did not understand or give the support I needed. So if it is a theme, and depending on the overall picture then it is a major problem. Not least, because it also represents a communication problem if you have specified what support you need and voiced your issues.

That said, I think some people are just wired up different, and especially if they haven’t experienced a bereavement themselves, then they are just clueless. And it’s not malice, but just pure ignorance. Which isn’t great either.

Sorry, lots of contrary points there. Illustrating that there are usually 2 sides to any relationship issue.

Good luck

I stumbled on the site, because jest a few hrs ago u had an argument(discussion) w/my husband. My mother of just 60 passed away a year ago this past January and her birthday was yesterday. My husband not only asked when he sees me crying what's wrong but forgot her 1 yr passing and that her birthday was yesterday when I mentioned it to him the day before. Not only that, but his daughters b-day is today the day after my mothers. This is my husband of 11 yrs. His parents are both alive and doing well despite the age (well into the 80's). I constantly make it part of my life to remember every detail of his fam. Because I consider them my fam., I just feel that my husband is I dont know. I just felt since so many are describing my very situation. Am I crazy am I asking for to much of him. My husband is a kind and generous man very loving towards me, but just me (our world) but he always expects for me to be kind and loving with his fam which I am because I want to and what he loves I love shouldn't it be the same for me. Just though I put it out there in the www. Advice from perhaps those who are more experience than I. I mean this man is the type that when his parents leave the country his like I kiss my mom after less than a few hrs. I would never see mine again. Really some consideration.

Ps to all that read sorry for the misspelling. Just feeling so overwhelmed.

The lack of support from my husband has been mind blowing. My father passed away suddenly and my husband wasn't there for me. We were newly weds that were having issues in our marriage. We were trying to make things work and in the midst of all that my father passed away. My father was a supporter of our marriage but want very pleased with my husband the few months. Unfortunately my husband and I got physical and were seperated yet trying to figure things out. Once my father was buried my husband dropped me back to my father's place and said he will contact me a few days later. I had to lean on my mother and brother and family to wrap my mind around my father's death. I decided to avoid my husband got ten days to process my reality. Because of this my husband felt abandoned by me he felt Disrespected. How does a man flip around a situation like this is messed up. I decided to move across Canada to be with my mom and mourn which he was very hurt by. He has no remorse for his behaviour and thinks I should be with him because now he wants to support me. I don't know if I even should stay married to someone who dropped the ball so early in the marriage...

Hello everyone, i didnt think there was anyone out there going through what i am going through i see i was wrong. About a month ago i lost my brother, and we do not have any answer as to why he died. I received a phone call from my little sister and all she said was he died, he died. I thought she was pulling some kind of sick prank (i wish it was a sick prank) and then i heard the shakiness of her voice and realized she wasnt lying. I come from a family of 4 sisters and 6 brothers all of them half-siblings but they might as well be full blood cause theyre my family just the same. My brother lets call him Joe was the oldest only 40 years old. I have never experienced a family member dying before so i had no idea what was coming. I immediately called Joes girlfriend (they lived in another state) and her mom answers the phone and starts to tell me what happened, during this time i can hear Joes girlfriend in the background screaming blood curtailing screams apparently this was happening right at that moment. Joe had been sick a couple days prior and was throwing up, he asked his girlfriend to grab him a pot from the kitchen to throw up into, and by the time she had came back merely mintues, he wasnt breathing. She immediately preformed CPR on him as did the paramedics obviously to no avail. Anyway they many test to find out what happened, they ruled out COVID immediately upon arrival in order to proceed they need to know if its COVID , heart attack, high blood pressure. So since there was no visual signs of why he died they would need to preform an autopsy. Sorry i just realized im writting a novel here. Anyway autopsy revealed nothing significant so now we wait for lab results, could take 6 weeks. As of right now we have no idea why he died and so suddenly. His death is a complete shot to the heart metaphorically speaking for me. He was my BEST friend, my big brother, my idol, basically my whole world. And now hes just suddenly gone WTF theres no way. So i turned to my boyfriend of 3 years for support and in that moment he was like im so sorry this and that, but after the next day he was more concerned about the dishes than my feelings. He has told me to get over it already, clean something, do something. He has a different outlook on death so he expects everyone else to. He has passed away before briefly from a motorcycle accident and has since has this view on death like a good thing; not that hes suicidal just that hes not scared of it cause he has experienced it before.

I know i have not even come close to accepting my brother death and I know that when it does hit me its hit me like a ton of bricks. I feel like i havent even had time to process all this because he(my bf) is always rushing through everything, he would rather hurry up and get things done rather than sit and think about things that includes mourning. I started a gofundme page and he donated to it and later felt that it was too much so he disputed it with his bank, and then after my poor brothers widow received an email about how gofundme is asking her to accept it and have the difference taken from her bank account or challenge it which required proof she obviously did not have,i ended up paying the difference 270$, he laughed at me and told me that, that was stupid the bank would of covered it and told me my family is lucky that he donated at all and im lucky he doesnt dispute all of the money.
This has been incredibly confusing and traumatizing to me, not only the passing so suddenly and unexpectedly of my brother, but also finding out i have an unsupportive partner during all of this i just feel like i cant cope. Thanks for listening

Hello, I have been reading these posts to try to comprehend why my husband is acting the way he is towards me. My husband and I got married after 2 months of dating and we have had a ton of strain since that day. When things were bad they were bad and when things were good they were good. On May 19th, only 3 days before my 23rd birthday I got a voicemail saying my dad did not check-in for work. He died very suddenly at the age of 54. The day after I hopped on a flight to my hometown and stayed for a month. There was a point I felt a huge drop in support, making me feel like he was just over it. I have two older brothers and my oldest was targeting me and putting his anger and aggression on me, telling people I was going to get addicted to hard drugs (which is not me at all), and made me feel like a grain of rice, which really took a hit. I finally broke and called my husband to just let out all of the emotions I had built up. I broke. Instead of showing me his love and support, he told me "Everything doesn't have to be your way". This was the second time in our relationship I felt like he would rather stick up for and support my brother rather than me. After this instance I simply told him, if that is how he is going to handle me grieving then I would rather him not, and asked him to maybe change the ways he has talked to me because it is truly defeating. Arguments continued after this where I would try to let him know why I am upset and instead of apologizing he would turn it on me.

Upon my arrival home I came into a house that was messy. He had friends over the Friday prior and I found vomit on the floor, nothing was cleaned, and I was pissed. One day I finally had the energy to do something small so I finished the chore and meal board I was working on before my dad's passing. I asked him which chore he would like for the next day because his family was coming that Sunday. He told me since I am not working I should do the cleaning. I was baffled. Days passed and he still did not lift a finger. Even after I tried to explain to him why I feel extremely disrespected he still justified his actions and told me it was because of him feeling unsupported in the past, which is how we both felt. I tried to explain to him that my dad is gone and I feel physically weak and mentally exhausted and he continued to push. He even told me one night, "man, I guess I don't have empathy", and I thought we made a breakthrough. I guess we did not. He also told me we should go back to being friends for a little because there won't be expectations for him, and I cannot get over how much of a cop-out that is. I have expectations for my friends. If they did not reach out to me through all of this they probably are not meant to be my friend. My friends even sent me packages to help me relax.

I have been around his family every day this week and it is so tiring for me. I can't have my family together like that ever again but I pushed through to support him and be there with him. Last night I asked him to cuddle with me and he told me no, refused to tell me why, and then eventually told me its because I told him I currently lack respect and empathy for him. I thought we were trying to move forward with us supporting each other and being present and I was rejected because of words I said after I felt so disrespected and hurt by him. I feel like I am going insane and like I am just running in circles for something I'll never catch.

I am grateful I found this page. Thank you for taking the time to listen and build a community.

My partner is absolutely horrible. My grandfather passed away last week i was very close to him i adored him
Ive been really quite upset and my partner has been horrible. He constantly accises me of things constantly. He started again thos week nothing but arguments accusations shouting matches. Ruined my birthday again bit doesn't care its just a day he doeamt care. Jist now je came into my room and screamed at me threw my bag on the floor with such force that he busted the can all over the floor. He scared me. I wamt him out of my house. It is my house. I feel like a scared prisoner. I need help

Hi tinky. I am sorry to hear what you’re going through right now. Does he have a place that he could go to give you not some time away from each other?

Hi tadam
Je can stay in his mums or rent somewhere like he already threatened. I feel like a prisoner in my own home. He attacked me but has blamed me for getting angry in front of hia kids. But been homest 2.5 years of this has just taken its tole. He is just so cold and cruel. He shouted at me he called me names how else do you react say thats no problem have a good day?? Of course im going to scream back. I have had enough.
I tols him to leave. He seems to think this house is his.

The message i got was the kids are staying tonight , doesn't feel the need to speak to me or even ask me .

I understand. This can be extremely draining and can really effect your grieving process. I know it has for me. You deserve to scream back. You have a right to be angry in many ways. I think they just don’t have the ability to acknowledge what we are actually going through. Take some time to take care of yourself. I know it’s hard with kids but you deserve it for your own sanity.

Today I told my husband I don’t want to be with him. It’s weird because I don’t feel sad. I don’t feel like I have the capacity to be sad for us. It’s really weird and not easy to be completely done. I’m honestly really confused because all of the conversation got turned on me. The reason he acted the way he did is because I acted a certain way before my dad died. Before my dad died he wasn’t even the nicest to me and I was often left feeling unloved and unsupported but this ends up being my fault. I’m feeling really confused.

I stumbled across this thread whilst googling 'unsupportive partner' while grieving. I'm sorry to read about others' experiences of their partners being unsupportive while they're going through the grieving process. It makes it so much harder.

I lost my dad a few months ago after a horrible illness and my previously sometimes moody but mostly nice partner slipped into being not just unsupportive but unkind too.

I tried to talk to him about it several times. The first time he accused me of 'putting a guilt trip on him'. I couldn't believe he said that to me.

I have sat and sobbed in front of him and he doesn't respond at the time although after he does seem to make an effort but mostly by doing practical things. It lasts for a couple of weeks and then he reverts to being unpleasant again.

I am still processing my grief but instead of being to focus on that over the last few months I have been distracted by having to cope with an unkind partner. It has made the grieving process so much more difficult and I am finding it hard to forgive him for being so awful at a time in my life when I needed him the most.

I guess I'm not looking for advice but it feels good to be able to offload this. Family members I've told have said that he is probably feeling neglected because I've had to help my mum a lot. I don't buy that at all. His parents are around still, but with various health problems, so sadly it won't be too long until he goes through it himself and realises how distressing it can be.

My heart goes out to all of you , I am going through the grieving process , I lost my dear dad a month ago, suddenly after a couple of weeks in hospital trying to get better and then the diagnosis changed to nothing more we can do your dad is dying , poor dad did not want to go but didn’t suffer and went peacefully whilst we were with him , my partner was sympathetic and gave me enough time to be with dad whist he was in hospital but as soon as the funeral happened it was as though ‘ right back to normal ‘ for me the planning of the funeral was a distraction and the processing of life without dad is now kicking in, my partner try’s to be supportive but gets it completely wrong, talking about how he has thought of a lovely gift for me at Christmas etc and when I tell him gifts won’t really make me happy this Christmas as I will be missing dad he gets all upset and acts like a child saying all I’m trying to do is help , but the main reason I’ve really been upset with him is is his continual mutteringa about my teenage daughter and what she’s going ‘wrong’ and how I should be more strict with her, when all I want to do is have a harmonious peaceful time right now, teenagers messy bedrooms and tea spills near the kettle aren’t a big deal to me right now

Is this post still going?

My dad passed away just over 2 months ago, 2 months after finding out he had cancer. I'm grieving so bad but partner of 20 years doesn't seem to understand.

So much has happened, my dad was in hospital, my sister was visiting and collapsed had to have emergency surgery and ended up in intensive care. So I'm trying to split my time visiting my dad on one floor and going to see my sister on the floor above. My partner comes to the hospital to see my dad, leaves about 2pm to go to the pub, didn't hear off him until I rang him at 3am to see where he was still in the pub. I was not happy told him not to come home as I had more important things to deal with he didn't care, asked me to transfer money to his friends account so he could get a taxi home because he didn't have any money left! He came home 8am that morning and went to bed, I asked him to leave but he wouldnt, in the end I phoned his mother and she spoke to him and he left.
I have never forgiving him for what he has done but allowed him back home, perhaps my head was all over the place and couldn't think straight.
After he came back he was more supportive took time off work to look after our girls when my dad was really poorly towards the end.
About 2 months after my dad passed it was Christmas. Christmas Eve and Christmas day I really struggled, its hard putting a smile on your face when all you want to do is curl up in bed away from everyone. This is when it all started again, boxing day we go down my partners nans and see uncles aunts and cousins. When we pulled up I couldn't face going in so didn't, my partner and 2 girls went in, I new he wasn't very happy but I just couldn't do it, I would of had a breakdown as soon as someone said are you ok. I drove down the road and text my partner when your ready let me know and il come and pick you up. He didn't have the decency to tell me that he got his brother to pick him up. My daughter text and said they was on their way home. I was so hurt I came home and went straight to bed, and he slept on the sofa. The next morning my daughter had a cough, he came into the bedroom and said you want to start caring about the ones that are here and not the ones who aren't. He took our daughter to the doctor's then didn't come home he stayed down his mum's! He came home the next day but didn't speak to me for a few days, I don't know if he was trying to punish me. I finally gave in and asked him why he wasn't speaking to me and he just blamed everything on me. I'm grieving for my dad and he's just making me feel worse!

I have recently suffered a tragic loss my son suddenly passed away. And my husband of 25 yrs has not been there for me. He has shown me no affection, has offered no financial help, has not even been involved with the funeral arrangements. He decided to go on vacation to Florida and leave me to grieve alone.

So sorry. That is appalling behaviour from him.