Am I Expecting Too Much From My Grieving Husband?

[watermelon55]

I’m really trying to find out whether I’m being unfair, or expecting too much of my husband. Over the last year both of my husband’s parents have died, one of them after a short illness, and the other suddenly a few months later. My husband had a good relationship with them and has obviously been devastated. During the illness he talked quite openly about how he felt, we were both very sad and I felt that it would be hard but that we would help each other, and our kids, through it. I have experienced the loss of a close family member so I understand how painful grief is.

However, he has not been able to talk about how he feels at all. He started off by saying that he feels numb, and I felt that he was still processing the shock and had buried all the pain, but a bit more time has passed and I had thought that he may start to find it easier to express how he feels, or at least attempt to put this into words. However, it still seems just as hard as when they had both just died. He says he thinks about them but doesn’t get upset.

I feel like he has shut all his emotions away, as he also finds it difficult to relate to anyone else’s emotions. If I talk to him about how I feel he doesn’t really respond, I find this hard, as it’s difficult to talk about for me, and so when I get nothing back in response I just wish I’d not said anything. He can’t really understand how our children are feeling either. Getting him to discuss anything where emotions are involved is really difficult, it’s almost like it’s a foreign language to him.

We both work, we have children and so our lives are busy, days and weeks will go past without there being the opportunity to talk about anything more than who’s picking up who and who’s paid the bills, etc. I completely get that that is the reality of family life. But I love him and care about him and feel that I should try to help him, and try to get him to deal with things and talk about things. I also feel that I should be trying to help our relationship and so I will bring the subject up after a bit of time has passed. This is always really hard, as he is defensive and will deflect my questions or focus on small details that are not really important. I always end up regretting that I’ve tried, and it just reminds me that he’s got everything so bottled up and he hasn’t really begun to deal with what has happened to him.

I understand that everyone deals with grief differently and if I felt that the way he was dealing with it was enabling him to gradually move forward then I would respect that, but I feel he is stuck and it is seriously affecting our relationship. He says he feels ‘flat’, and when he describes how he feels it sounds like depression. He can’t get enthusiastic or excited about things. We have no sex life and this as well as getting no emotional input from him, has made me feel lonely and un-loved.

I want to help him, but feel like I'm not, and am losing hope.

If you haven't lost your parents I don't think you can understand the grief he's feeling. I haven't. But my husband has list his mum, and went through (and still goes through) his grief in a similar way to your husband. It is hard to live with I can't disagree, but ALL you can do is give him time and space.

The other option is to ask him to have some grief counselling but I wouldn't expect to see a rapid improvement. Its very early days.

Sorry for your family's loss.

I also wanted to say that my h (whose mum died 3 years ago) did get gradually better, happier, and more communicative as the time went on.

Please stop pestering him. Not everyone likes talking about their feelings and having someone endlessly plucking at your sleeve and nagging you about the importance of emotions can get really, really unpleasant. It's intrusive, self-righteous and unkind.

Yes to be honest I think you are expecting a bit too much. I lost my Mum in March 2018, and am still absolutely broken. I can talk, but not without absolute floods of tears. Opposite problem, but still makes communication difficult. Had I lost my father as well, I would be paralysed with grief.
Sounds as though you are supportive though. Although the not getting excited about things, I think that's totally standard? I feel as though I will never be truly excited about anything again, despite loving my husband and my children dearly. And I mostly can't have sex either.
Honestly know you are coming from a good place, but a spouse's love can't just make it okay and the thought of 'moving forwards' can be horrific.

My mum died suddenly last year. I still don't know how I feel about it and if someone kept asking me i would probably retreat into a shell of safety. My feelings change hour to hour. Let him talk when he wants to if he wants to. I often don't as although our relationship was ok it was also complicated. Some times I go for days/weeks not thinking about her other times it's like she's only just died.

Just give him time. It's really not for you to say how he should be grieving, which despite you saying otherwise, is exactly what you're doing.

Losing both parents within a year is heart breaking and not something that will pass quickly. Feeling numb could be a way of dealing with things for now, because dealing with it all at once is too much.

Give him love, give him time

It’s not something you wanted to talk about all the time, to put it simply. I’ve only had one parent die & it’s like my world crumbled, having both die in a short space of time must feel catastrophic. I think about my Dad loads & most of the time I don’t get upset, I think I stopped bursting in to tears at the mere thought of him about 3 or 4 days after he died. I can’t remember the last time I cried in front of my Dh. The only time he cried after his Mum died was immediately after her death & at the funeral. Everyone grieves differently & just because he doesn’t go in to it with you it doesn’t mean he’s not grieving in a completely normal way.

Yes, I think you are expecting too much. Sounds like it’s only been a year? They really is no time at all. I don’t think you’d be very impressed with how I am nearly 3 years on from losing my DH 😬

I think he needs more time and to grieve his own way. But I can see how it must be lonely. Hang on in there

I think you're expecting to much if HE isn't a person who talks about emotions.It's not helpful to pressure someone into talking if talking isn't what they want to do or isn't what they benefit from. What you call 'bottling up' is often people's way of working through things by themselves. We don't all want outside input and to share. It sounds like the only issue that his way of dealing with it causing you is that he isn't talking to you about his feelings and you want him to. Let it go and let him talk if he chooses or not if he doesn't. It's not about you.

I lost my wonderful dad in August. I haven't shed a single tear. I know it is all inside me waiting to come but I can't force it. I learned this when I lost my DD1 when she was 5. I didn't really understand why people were weeping and wailing and I felt nothing. I underwent a lot of counselling and learned there are many ways to grieve. Eventually I fell apart several years later after the birth of a subsequent child. I had held on to everything, shoving it all to the back of my. one until my mind could contain it no longer.

OP I would say to be kind to your DH and leave him to process things in his own time. One day a song, a smell or something else will trigger memories and he will feel a wall of pain descend. Until then you can only treat him gently and with love.

My dad died 21 years ago. In the right/wrong circumstances it can still feel as raw as it did when my mum called to tell me it had happened. I lost my mum a couple of years ago.
Losing both close together would have been dreadful. I'm afraid you can't know how it feels until it is you. At the risk of using a melodramatic term, I was orphaned at 50. Grown up. Own house. Good job. Kids of my own. Still, when I wasn't being a grown up, felt orphaned .
You don't feel better with time but you get better at grieving.

Not everyone grieves in the same way, and not everyone wants to talk about it. Don't push him into grieving in a way you think he should be. Let him process it however he needs to.

You’re pushing him away by keeping on at him.

My mum died in March and we had a complex relationship and to be honest I don’t really feel anything about it at all. If anything I just feel acutely aware of death itself rather than the fact my Mums died and any grief about that as such. I’m certainly not crying all the time - not that there’s anything wrong with anyone that does- but for me I just think what’s the point, I have to get on with things. I have no relationship with my dad and no other relatives.

What kind of relationship did your dh have with them? That says a lot really.

You need to give him space.

My DH died at the end of July. I have appreciated the friends and family who have just been there, not pushed it at all, but when I have wanted to talk, bawl, scream or shout they have been there, but to be honest, between organising his funeral, keeping children entertained and work there hasn’t been many quiet moments to grieve. I haven’t pushed my children to talk either, they will in time as will your DH.

I could be your husband. I lost my mother in the spring and I’ve felt really flat since. I’ve also noticed I get angry/annoyed with people more easily than before.

I don’t really see the point in talking about it though, as what is there to say other than its shit and I really miss her? There’s only so many times you can say that, and it’s not like anyone can say anything to make you feel better about it.

Sorry to me, me, me, just hoping to help you possibly understand your husband a bit better.

My dh lost both his parents within six months of each other. I met him over a year later and he was still very unable to talk about them, very depressed, and very raw about it. He'd had to manage the majority of tying up their very complex estate and support his younger sister alone through her grief, and really, at 12 months after his second parent died, he still hadn't begun to grieve for himself and his loss. It's taken a long time for him to process it all, we now have pictures up in the house of his parents, and he can talk about them with warmth and remember happy times, but he still wont talk about how he feels about losing them, really, and they passed away 5 years ago now.

Everyone grieves differently, give him time and as much love and support as you can, and dont push him too hard.

I have experienced the loss of a close family member so I understand how painful grief is

Yes, you understand how painful your grief can be when it relates to the loss of your relative. However, grief for everyone is completely different so you can't actually understand how he feels, no.

The loss of one's parent is a huge thing, and grief is cumulative so the loss of both parents in such a short space of time is very destabilising and will hit him hard.

If I felt that the way he was dealing with it was enabling him to gradually move forward then I would respect that despite what mny people think, sadly grief really is not a process, nor a journey, or any of that crap and whilst the days of raw grief at the beginng do get better, it's really not as simple as "moving forward".

Getting him to discuss anything where emotions are involved is really difficult, it’s almost like it’s a foreign language to him.
It's not clear whether this relates to his grief or sharing emotions generally?

What ever you do, don't tell him he should be over it by now. My husband said that to me and it fucked with my head even more. Plus he tried to tell me , he knew how I felt because his granddad had died.
My dad died suddenly after being in hospital for 3 days. I spent weeks feeling flat, I even went out the first couple of Saturdays after he died, so that no one could ring me up and tell me he'd was dying.
14 years later there are still things I can't watch or listen to.
I did do grief counselling but ended up bitching about my mother and sister. I found that writing down how I felt was easier because then the thought were out of my head, so I didn't need to ruminate on them anymore.
The only thing you can do, as I see it, is wait for him to come out the other side.

I think you need to stop pestering him about it too. Some people don't want to talk about things the way other people do. I don't like too and I'd be really pissed off if someone else was bothering me about it. It almost sound like you are blaming him for not being happier because he won't grieve how you think he should. Perhaps this is what he feels too.

It can be devastating to some people when their parents die. It's not necessarily something you can ever get over.

@Fairylea he had a really good relationship with them, they were great parents and he was a great son …… that's actually a pretty difficult thing to write.

@Brittany2019 yes, you could be! thank you, that's exactly the kind of thing he says, 'what is there to say, they're gone'. That does help. I'm sorry for your loss, wishing you strength x

@Gingaaarghpussy I don't believe anyone is ever 'over it', for me it's just a case of becoming more used to living with the pain of loss, so no, I won't ever say that.

Thanks for all your posts, it's clear I need to give him a lot more space, I will do my very best to do that.

I have a lot of experience with personal grief. I lost my DF this month and can honestly say the pain is of a level I have never encountered before. Support him, don't judge him.

I'm sorry that your family is going through such a sad time.

DH's dad died 3 years ago and honestly, in the past 6 months I've noticed that DH seems to be coming back to the man he was before his grief, which, at the time, was compounded by the rekindling of a strained, nearly NC relationship with his incredibly difficult mother- divorced from DH's dad for decades and living at the other side of the world.

It is hard. And although I am familiar myself with the grief that comes with the loss of a parent, our journeys are unique and all sorts of little cans of worms and old wounds can open up along the way. Relationships with those around us become closer, then can seemingly unravel, then tighten back up again. You will ebb and flow with your DH. But you'll find a united joy again.
It's like MC Escher stairs, grief is.

Grief can hit a marriage hard. Look after yourselves and try to stay close and compassionate, while giving him quiet space. Let him talk about it on his watch. I learned with DH that I just needed to stop asking, stop wondering, stop putting my own constraints on his grief.