My mil died recently after a very short illness

[chocoholic05]

It happened just over a fortnight ago. My dh was very close to his mum. On the outside he is carrying on as normal. He tells everyone he is fine and he seems fine. However at home he is not sleeping. In the evenings he sits on the settee stating into space in silence not speaking at all. When ask him if he's ok he says he's fine. At weekends or when our boys are around he snaps at them and gets very angry easily. I want to help him with his grief but I don't know how. He says he's ok. He even said everyone's got to die at some point! He is not fine to me! Not that I'd expect him to be but he seems to expect himself to be. Has anyone got any advice? :'(

He sounds like he's having a hard time processing it. I don't know what you can do about it, other than making him aware you're there for him.

Bereavement like this takes a lot to process. He's in shock.

Have you had the funeral yet?

It's very early days and it sounds as if he's in shock.

Yes we have. It will actually be three weeks on Wednesday since she died and the funeral was the following week.

it takes time. we have had a couple of deaths in the family in the last two years. the first one took dh a long time to get over. Space is the only thing that really worked. Men particularly process things differently to women so he will be in shock still. Just let him know you are there for him if/when he needs you. x

Sounds like my DH when he lost his dad.

I left it a while and made allowances for his grief but it got to the stage where it was affecting his relationship with our DD and I had no choice but to step in before it became irrepairable.

I went with him to the doctor who put him on snti depressants and told him to refer himself to crus for bereavement counseling.

The pills helped, he's still not right and has had the initial assessment but still not had his first proper session.

It was painfully slow even to get to this stage. Dad died June last year. DH went to the docs first week in January and he only had his assessment 6 weeks ago and still no sign of counseling starting.

It's early days for your DH and he is understandably struggling.

When I spoke to DH I grabbed him, hugged him, told him I loved him so much but that I could see how much he was hurting and that I knew he wasn't coping because of how he was treating us which wasn't like him at all. I told him we understood but that it was time to seek help and id be with him all the way.

I wish I'd done that sooner as neither of us appreciated that 7 months on and counseling still hadn't started. Doc said this was quicker than the Italk route.

It takes ages. Three weeks is nothing. Imagine if it was your mother. This is the woman that cared for your H. He needs time. All you can do is be there for him and listen when he wants to talk. ot doesn't get any easier with times just the "misses" become less frequent.