Bereavement

[Cs53]

My mum died 5 months ago after a stroke which left her paralysed on her left side .. basically she gave up she stopped eating and drinking as she told me she didnt want to be a burden .. I had given up work the year before to care for her as she had had open heart surgery .. this has devastated me watching her starving herself to death .. my dad died 12 years ago so I am left with no one apart from my sister .. my partner is at the moment not being very supportive and thinks I should just get a job to take my kind off things.. I literally cannot think of anything worse at the moment I can't even think straight I have brain fog? My mind cannot absorb any information I forget timings all the time and cannot concentrate on anything .. at the moment he has decided he is not going to talk to me or give me any money until i get a job!! I just cant handle this but i cant get through to him that I just need time and his help through this .. how can i get him to see i need time to grieve?

Oh darling

I’m so sorry for the loss of your Mum, it sounds like you did the best you could for her. How is your relationship with your sister? And have you had any counselling?

Sorry to read of your loss, your DH is being very mean & selfish regards the situation.

Obviously talking about the situation has not worked. Can you write him a letter to read regards how you feel and get yourself councilling.

I totally know how you feel having lost my mum 20yrs ago following a short illness. Time is a great healer

Hugs to you 💐

Finding yourself orphaned, even as an adult, can be completely world-shifting. You're clearly struggling with the way that your mum chose to die, as well as the aftermath. It obvs doesn't help to have a partner who wants you to just get over it.

You need to speak about what has happened. To work through your feelings. Saying things out loud allows us to process what has happened in a different way than if its just going round our heads in a loop.

Can you afford counselling? There may be a low-cost service where you live. If that isn't an option, you could try writing things down in a note book. Give it a name, for instance 'How I feel about mum's death'. Decide on chapters and give them names. Draw pictures in it if you're a visual processor. Stick in photos. Whatever helps you to get your story in order about what has happened to you.

Good luck

So sorry for your loss. I don't have experience of such bereavement, so whilst I understand it must be horrific I'm not going to pretend I can understand how you feel.

Would I be right to assume your partner has never suffered such significant loss either? I am wondering if because of this they aren't grasping at all just how bereft you feel and how you are struggling to deal with it. I'm not for one minute saying 5 months is a long time in terms of getting over the loss of a parent that you were clearly very close to, but perhaps, due to a lack of understanding they are thinking due to passage of time that you "should" be getting on now and think they are being helpful in a sort of passive aggressive way by trying to force you into work, misguidedly thinking it's the best for you and you'll thank them later?

Have you looked into any sort of counselling or grief support? It must have been harrowing to see your mum slowly give up on life like that. That in itself must be hugely traumatic to deal with.

Again, admittedly I have no experience here, but perhaps some counselling or a grief support group locally would help? And what are your days like if you aren't working? Perhaps slowly adding some structure might help if you don't have that at the moment? Commit to walking/exercising/going to the shops/taking photos in the local area etc for one hour a day, or perhaps just meeting a friend twice a week for coffee and ask them to tell you what's going on with them so you can at least try and take your mind off things for an hour every now and then? I can only imagine your mind must be whirring constantly?

Sorry if this isn't helpful. And again, so sorry for the awful times you are facing.

Give you any money?? Is it his to 'give'? Do you not share finances?

Get your GP on board with this. You are currently ill. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it isn't debilitating. Your GP needs to speak to your husband to make it clear you are ill with grief and unlikely to recover to full strength any time soon.

I'm so very sorry for your awful loss

Thank you all for replying.. I do go to counselling at St. Francis hospice as this was where my mum passed away so the counselling is free .. I go once a week and am finding it emotional but in s good way .. my partner does not believe in counselling so I am constantly telling him I need to go for longer .. I have been going 6 weeks .. i walk my dog twice a day and am finding this therapeutic and de-stressing .. our finances are separate so when I say he won't give me any money it's from his account .. he doesn't believe in having a joint account .. my two older boys .. who are not his .. pay me housekeeping which I use to pay my share of the bills but I do not have any spare cash for food gas electric petrol etc so am relying on him at the moment .. I'm finding this bullying tactic very stressful and tbh it's making me miss my mum even more!!
I did write him a letter explaining his I felt and his he could help me with my grief he tore it up and he said I'm making excuses and to stop wallowing in grief he said everyone dies at some point it's part of life!!

Oh blimey. Ok so I thought perhaps he just didn't get it but that sounds horrible, like he's not even trying to get it. How incredibly unsupportive. How were things before your mum passed away? Would you have thought this were how he could act? Were you guys happy? It's hideous that at the time you need him most (and I don't say that lightly, you are dealing with one of the most traumatic things) he appears to be failing you so spectacularly.

Do you live together?

He sounds nasty. Sorry op.

Sometimes when these massive life events happen they can be the catalyst for a fresh look at a our lives and relationships in them.

Your DP sounds like a selfish cock. Your grief is making him uncomfortable so he wants it to stop. Like magic. Was he like this before your mum died?

Sorry for your loss

To put things into perspective
If you were employed, company policy is to normally give 5 days leave for a close relative. Some companies/managers may give a bit longer if it is a sudden event. Any longer would you would need to use holiday
Everyone grieves differently
5 months is a quite a long time

The routine of volunteer or part time job may help you

your partner sounds horrendous!

I am single and I imagine I will feel more supported when my mum goes.

what about your friends?

What is the £ situation in the family, is your partner having a hard time at work and can't give it up etc? I'm just trying to think what might be behind his attitude. I appreciate it must be awful being the sole breadwinner.

The things you say about the passing - I wonder sometimes if dad pretended he couldn't eat in order to speed things up (he had cancer). It is awful and it takes a long time to process. I think it's different if you were already in a job though, actually seeking one out and learning new things would be bit weird in that state of general awfulness when you are recovering.

Hey OP, I’m so sorry for your loss. It rocks you to the core to lose your mother. Mine died under fairly similar circumstances when I was 22. She starved and wasted away until she was skeletal and then died, she’d been drinking herself to death. I still miss her. I buried her on the Friday and had to get back to work on the Monday as I’d used my bereavement leave for the week she was dying.

I don’t think your partner is being very sensitive about this, but I do see his view that it would probably be a good idea for you to start looking into work again, not necessarily anything taxing but even just a few days per week in a shop or cafe to bring a bit of money in and get back out with some routine and structure meeting people. If you’d been working you’d have got maybe a couple of weeks max before going back to work, which is what most people use, a few might take an extra month signed off sick but it’s not typical to be not working five months after a loss. I guess from your partner’s perspective he supported you financially to be able to care for your mum and have the luxury of time being with her many hours per day while she was dying, that’s something I’d have killed for as I was torn often working eight hours and then racing to see her for a few hours and then back to work in the morning after kipping on a hospital chair next to her bed. He’s probably wondering when you’ll be making steps towards working again and worrying that if after five months there’s no sign when will it end. I don’t agree with how he’s going about it but I can understand his frustration and need for you to contribute again financially and take steps to continue on with your life while also grieving. It’s just not realistic for everyone who’s bereaved to get half a year of not working while being supported to focus 100% on grieving and I don’t think it’s healthy either, inactivity can contribute to depression and lead to mental health problems on top of grief.

Tearing up the letter is horrible and unforgivable btw. But he’s not wrong that death is a part of life and everyone will go through grief and it’s a normal natural part of life, and from experience I feel it’s helpful to normalise it instead of allowing it to become the sole focus of your every single day. A friend of mine lost her toddler to a horrific accident and was of course utterly destroyed, however she returned to work after three months as she knew she needed to support her family and it helped her mental health to be back in the real world seeing how life moves forward along with the grief and building social relationships again and giving her time every day spent thinking about something a bit different (not that her child was ever out of her mind). I hope this post helps put things into perspective for you from someone who’s been there, albeit much younger. Everyone deals with grief differently but I do encourage you to listen to your partner’s message (even if his delivery is shit... but he’s probably exasperated as I’m sure it’s been a long difficult time for the two of you including her illness), I don’t know your mum but I doubt she’d have wanted you to allow your entire life to grind to a halt and for you to get stuck in grief. You’re not dishonouring your mum by getting a part time job, you’re just doing what the vast majority of people have to do after a loss.

Lovely message @EmeraldRubyShark and a very interesting perspective on it which seems fair and balanced.

Thanks Needsomebottle. I hope the OP reads it.

Your partner is an insensitive brute and no one needs an uncaring oaf like that in their lives. I'm curious to hear if he's ever lost anyone important to him? His behavior makes me wonder if anyone would miss him when he's gone

Your partner is being insensitive but you do need for your sake to make steps towards moving on as cliched as that sounds, the hurt doesn't go away but we learn to manage that grief and having other things to do is part of that - could you look for something part time that's not particularly in need of lots of thinking? We do grieve at different speeds I suppose, and counselling helps but even volunteering gives another focus to the week and can really help many people. Not sure if your partner has lost parents - but he needs to understand we are all different