How to support DH through the next steps

[Ihatelittlefriendsusan]

Dh had a 16 year old son who tragically passed away earlier this year. The details are outing but suffice to say it should not have happened, huge amount of negligence involved, in particular by his son, exw and son's medical team.

Dh has had some bereavement counselling and his next run should start in a few weeks. However, his sons birthday and the inquest hearing are all due before then and I am really worried about how DH is going to handle this. And then we get slammed with first Christmas and then the 1 year anniversary.

I am struggling under the pressure of being DH's only real outlet. His parents and Sister have basically left it all to me and then added the weight of their grief when we have seen them.

I am not sure how to help him get through the next firsts.

I have no one to ask because I don't know anyone who has lost a child...I mean it isn't supposed to happen!
I am so sorry to anyone who has been through this, but if you have do you have any tips or things to avoid maybe?

I had tried to get him to reach out but he hasn't.

I sent them quite a desperate email last night and they have sent me a ton of info so i have told him he needs to act on it if he wants our marriage to survive

@BigDahliaFan my husband hasn't turned into someone awful to live with, we've had dark days, he's had really dark days, but he tries to live his life the way his son would have wanted him to. He's had to be incredibly strong.

You can't be the metaphorical cat he kicks when he needs to lash out. That's not fair.

I know.

This is more recent behaviour.

The inquest got delayed and yet again the liaison woman contacted dsc mum and forgot about dh. He had to chase for info and he is just so hurt and angry. If it had been from day 1 I think he'd be under the patio by now!

My mate who is basically my brother heard it at the weekend and rang me to check i was ok. He is an ex strongest man competitor so I don't fancy dh's chances if he decides to step it 🤣

I know dh is never gonna be the same. I can deal with sad and hurt but this anger is killing me

It’s the injustice. Nothing hurts like injustice, it just cuts so very deep I don’t know how anyone manages to survive it and live well again. Very sorry for all that you’re going through xx

I don't think there is anything you can do. When you lose a child you have to make a choice. He's chosen. All you can do is look after yourself and keep yourself sane.

Different details but I too lost a kid this year in quite a brutal way. Upcoming inquest with a jury, trawling through thousands of pages of files and reports. No outside help at all, the liaison officer hasn't been in touch since July. You just get left to it. I will say that they're always only contacted me. Her dad hasn't had any contact at all. It's the coroners office who's been the most helpful. Could he ring their office direct?

I had to make that choice. Nobody warns you. It would have been so easy to hit self distruct and wreck my marriage. I've had to make my world extremely small to shoulder it and all the upcoming firsts.

I don't know what you can do to help him. It has to come from him and it's hard. Alcohol is at an absolute minimum in the house because it's easy to go down that slide.

What I have done though, being the person who everyone offloads on and talked too about problems. Those doors are shut for now. I do not want to hear about anybodies problems AT ALL and any attempt will be ignored. Maybe it's something you can do for yourself while you're dealing with things.

I'm.sorry man. It sucks.

Thank you @gamerchick, although your post has made me cry!

I have locked down. It has cost me friendships but inhave been very clear that I do not have capacity to deal with anything else but dh.

He has clearly thought on it and has agreed to try other avenues for talking to men like andys man club so hopefully it has been abit of a wake up call.

I might show him your post. Thank you ❤️

Ah sorry man, I didn't want to make you cry.

You do see everyone around you in a different light and some of those people surprise you in not a good way. There's no going back. It changes you this sort of stuff.

He needs to make the choice. Nobody warns you that living afterwards is the hard choice. It feels like nobody else gets it and some of the thoughts you have are quite frightening. I could have easily ended up at the bottom of a whiskey bottle. I chose weightlifting instead as an anchor, finding something to anchor you while you're being thrown around the choppy seas is so important. Or you're at the mercy of it.

I hope he finds something. There will be something out there that is a kinder path than the one he's on. The grieving will always be there to come out of the blue, even if it does get wider apart. But having that anchor to hold on to when it does makes it feel less scary and overwhelming.

You must look after yourself though. You need to be able to decompress. You can't pour from an empty cup.

Honestly it's fine, I think it's just one of those days! And the fact that you have used the same wording i have with him. That he has a choice, he either carries on with life and chooses to find the good or he chooses to curl up and die. I can support but I cannot fix it or make the choice for him.

Thank you for your words and I am deeply sorry for your loss.

You can't fix. We can support those who haven't hit self distruct. But you can't fix. You also have to think of your own mental health.

Waiting for inquests doesn't help either. You're in a limbo because it's hanging over your head. Treading water is harder when you're at the bottom of a bottle though. It just makes things harder physically as well as mentally.

Thankyou, I really feel for you all. It's horrible

I think the fact he had psyched himself up to deal with the inquest only to find out the ambulance service have dropped a massive boll9ck hasn't helped.

Everything has just been the result of other people's incompetence

The full story is massively outing, but basically it has transpired since he died that both him and his mum were actively avoiding engaging with the hospital. The hospital missed opportunities to intervene, they should have done safeguarding referrals as should school.

His mum did a moonlight flit when dss was 4. Took dh a long time to find where she had gone and longer tonrebuikd his relationship with his son. She has made it immensely hard for dh and their son to maintain contact etc.

He was in diabetic crisis for at least 48 hours, he wasn't wearing his pump, she apparently had no idea what hypo or hyper looked like so did nothing until he hit the deck in cardiac arrest and even then she told 999 and the ambulances that turned up that he had probably taken an overdose, never once mentioned his was a type 1 diabetic. So instead of treating him for what was actually wrong they gave him that stuff to counteract an overdose and it did more harm. Some ventilation equipment in the abulance failed sonthey had tonwiat for a second unit but it was too little too late and he died.

Dh has spent years fighting with his exw over it, to just be shot down and then all contact stopped. She has defied so many court orders and no one has done anything.

We begged her to talk tonhis medical team about his agresssion and his worsening symptoms , she said she had but all the paperwork sent through ready before the inquest says she just kept telling the hospital it was all fine and no issues and when they raised questions she refused to respond.

she deliberately left dh off all dss's school and medical info so no one would speak to him directly.

until dss died i spent so long defending her to both dh and dss. More fool me!!

Soooo many opportunities to save him missed by incompetence and now the ambulance service have forgotten to send the equipment off for testing despite the fact this happened in February so it has delayed the inquest.

He has absolutely justifiable reasons for being angry. And indonknow that it's not me he is angry at, but I am his anchor i suppose

Gosh, that's a hard story to read let alone live through, your poor DH. I can empathise with his spiralling after that. How that boy's mother can sleep at night..... I'm type 2 diabetic and there are days when I'm so fucked off with not being able to eat bread or what everyone else is, but it's my life and it is what it is. To think of her not guiding him - it's abusive and it's neglectful. Given your update, I really think you need to push him towards a professional. I'm not sure how you can ever come to terms with such a thing, but he has to at least try for your sake and your DD if not his own.

I'm so sorry you're all going through this

He absolutely does. His anger is completely understandable, as well as the guilt, because we still feel guilt for not doing more, even though we probably did all we could. Desperate to turn back the clock while trying to get though days with these waves of despair washing over us.

He definitely needs someone else to talk to. It's a lot for you to take on alone and he might get feelings of misplaced anger and take it out on you. I've said some horrible things to my husband. It wasn't fair.

It's outrageous the inquest has been delayed due to something like that, I feel fear that ours might be. You're all revved up just waiting for it and it interferes with the natural grieving process.

He does need some extra support it sounds like. You do as well.

He is having counselling but obviously nhs is massively overloaded and it just isn't enough.

He has agreed to attend a local Andy's Man Club group, so am really hopeful that it will be more of a support.

But @gamerchick you are right, he feels guilty. And he has no reason to, there absolutely is no more he could have done, but that doesn't change the what ifs.

@Patienceinshortsupply i wish that was the full story but it is a very edited highlight. When it all first happened and i went back to work, my Director asked a few questions and when i told him everything we knew then he went white and couldnt speak for fear of crying. To be fair both our employers have been utterly amazing. I genuinely pray that the inquest finds his mum negligent. She has told soooooo many lies. She told the chef superintendent who met us at the morgue the night he died that he was very diligent at managing his condition. They took dss's phone, so inhad to disclose to the police that her statement was bullshit and I had messages from dss that he wasn't using his meds, was playing Russian roulette and had tried to kill himself. His consultant happened to be the on call peads consultant that night, his face i was talking just said straight away that they knew his mum was talking crap. I really wanted to believe she was just in denial but she has kept it up for the last 10 months.

She was so vile to dh over the funeral, basically excluded him from the whole planning thing, everything he asked for she did the opposite...she demanded that dss friends carried his coffin just weeks before they were to sit their gcse's and could not see why we didn't want that and why the school and funeral company were against it. It got to the point the school didn't send any representatives because they were so against her behaviour.¹

i am not sure how we have survived it. The full story is even more harrowing, but would be fully outing to tell on here unfortunately.

I have had a massive heart to heart with 2 of my best mates today which has helped. I have also had a good cry in the car on my way home.

In some ways i think me losing my shit at him has made him realise how much he had slipped into that depressive funk. I am not sure he expected me to threaten divorce as we only got married in the summer. So I think it has jolted him enough to make him realise he has to be active in this process.

He has contacted a couple of the support groups that Andys Man Club suggested as more bespoke to his situation. Which is a good step.

My quasi kid brother has been up for his tea tonight so we had a hug and he has said he will try and get dh to go out for a walk with him at the weekend and he will try and have a chat bloke to bloke.

I feel a lot better so thank you all so much for being there when I was showing cracks this week.

Just to update because I think I would have blown my marriage up if not for you amazing people...

Dh's mood seems to have plateaued. He is still angry but he is handling it a lot better.

I sent him some links that people here shared and also some that the lovely lovely lady from Andy's Man Club gave me. He has taken some baby steps and has sent some emails and had a call with a lady from Compassionate Friends. He is going to a meeting with other local Bereaved parents in a town a few miles away on Saturday and going to the Andy's Man Club meeting on Monday.

He also has his NHS counselling session on Monday.

I think he is starting the rose tinted glasses about his son have started to slip. When he was alive dh would chastise him. Come to me for advice and then do the opposite (my dd's dad has 2 older kids who I have helped raise to 19 and 21 even after we have split). But he would try and make dss take responsibility for his own poor choices. Now he is dead it is like dh is afraid to admit that his son had a part tonplaybin his own death. He was a type 1 diabetic who didn't take his meds and relied on his pump to do all the work for him. He knew the consequences. He was told repeatedly it could kill him. He knew what eating shit would do. But like all teens he thought he was invincible. I think dh is very conflicted that he feels angry at his son for being a twat and then feels guilty for being angry and blaming him.

I have ried to say its ok to be cross. You got cross at him when he was alive without issue sonwhy cant you be angry and tell he was a twat just because he died. Doesnt mean you dont love him same as it didnt when he was alive.

Maybe its a bloke thing...

and theybsay women are the overly emotion sex/gender.

But his son was a bugger. He was a grumpy, grunting Kevin the teenager on steroids. He was just starting to find his way in the world. He was finding out who he was. He rang me a few weeks before he died, him and dh had had a row about him skipping school, failing his mocks and never turning in his homework. He wanted to rant about DH so we chatted and we laughed and we talked about his wedding speech. He asked if he could bring a friend to the wedding and if "he" could stay in dss room. I told him he could bring whomever he wanted to the wedding as his plus 1 but he was not sharing a room with his partner regardless of what gender they were...he was too young and not emotionally ready.

He laughed at me. And told me his mum would have gone mad at him for it being a boy. I said I couldn't give a stuff if he was dating the coffee table as long as he was safe and happy. He asked what his dad would say. I told him the truth. That his dad only cares that he is safe and happy. And that he gets angry because he loves dss so much and hates to see him throwing his opportunities away.

He told me over text about 2 weeks before he died that he was sick of being angry all the time. We talked about his mismanagement of his diabetes and it being the likely cause of how he was feeling. He said his doctor and told him the same.

He said he hated being at home. He hated school, hated his life, hated his illness. He confessed to having messed with his meds to try and kill himself. I told dh who told his exw. She told us it was in hand and the psychologist at the hospital was dealing with it and told him to butt out. It was nothing to do with him or me.

Dss voiced he was considering colleges near us, but moving in with us over 200 miles away wasn't an option because then he wouldn't have his friends etc. I told him it was an option we could discuss after his exams and he could do college here but there would be rules and one non negotiable was he took his meds properly and started to manage his condition. The other was he would not be sitting on his arse all day and he would be attending college and working his butt off for his course. He laughed and said "God you're a proper mum aren't you" probably my proudest moment 🤣🤣

He shouldn't have died. It was so avoidable.

I want to find a way of making sure something good comes out of it.

When we got married we asked everyone to make a donation to diabetes UK in his name. Based on what people have told me since I reckon they got about 2k out of it.

I can't help wondering if doing something to fundraise or raise awareness would help dh come to terms with it a bit better.

Sorry I am rambling.

Oh god, OP, that's such an incredibly sad story. I am glad that your DH is reaching out for support, I wouldn't even know where to start with processing this.

With the diabetes, it's the unseen damage especially to the kidneys. That poor lad must have felt horrendous and as you said, it's all just so unnecessary. What a senseless waste of life

OP thanks for updating - you and your DP have had to deal with so much. It's great that your DP has accepted he needs to start seeking help, I hope you have some space and opportunity to get that too. You're both dealing with a huge trauma

Thanks both.

Dh has seemed a lot more stable this week. I think the initial over reaction to the inquest being postponed has subsided and he is able to process a bit clearer again. He is still walking on eggshells around me a bit but we are sort of back to the usual status quo.

So MASSIVE thanks to the lovely peeps who suggested Compassionate Friends. The group local to us meets every 6 or so weeks. Dh went along on Saturday and found it really helpful.

He hasn't told me what he said or what others have said, only that it was reassuring to know what he was feeling was normal.

He went to the Andys thing yesterday and found that useful too.

Baby steps but he finally seems to be being active in dealing with his grief.

Thank you for all your support

That's really good to hear OP. I think that compassionate friends and the child death helpline can both be so helpful because it's someone who's been there who can say you're not crazy or wrong or a bad person to feel how you feel, I get it or I've felt that too. Sending you both

I think that is what he found most helpful. Talking to people who have lost their child and actually get it.

My heart breaks for them all

Ah that's brilliant news OP. A few pair of hands holding you up so you can navigate your new legs sounds like it's just what he needs.

Hopefully the inquest won't be postponed again.

Thanks @gamerchick

The report from the ambulance service has been done and is due to be sent this week. We should get a copy I'm the next couple of weeks I believe.

That should mean it all.goes ahead in March as now planned, but I am.not holding my breath.

I ammslightly concerned that the inconsistent nature of his mums statement and conflicting dates with dh's over things like when they got married might mean further investigation is done by the police and delay things. But I also suspect that the coroner may rule that there needs to be a full.police enquiry before they can make a ruling.

Wouldn't that be done for criminal court though ?Coroners courts for specific stuff isn't it? There's no reason it couldn't be sent on. It might be worth emailing the coroners office and asking. Even if it's just so husband can prepare for that maybe happening.

Not according to the liason woman, but she is about as much use as a chocolate teapot!!