Bereavement and relationship

[Maryfromthedairy47]

Myself and my partner are both going through the TUPE process with our jobs. His is more uncertain than mine in that he doesn’t know where he will be moved to with his “new” job. I know I will be in the same office as I am currently working unless I am made redundant, which could happen.

I live in my partner’s house and pay rent. I have my own property where my adult son lives and he and his partner pay me rent (reduced to help them out). The log term goal is for me to sell my place and buy in with my partner. I won’t make my son homeless to reach this goal though.

my best friend passed away this week, after a very long battle with cancer. Heartbreaking.

my partner has never liked my best friend. She never said she didn’t like him, but I don’t think she did. I purposely didn’t push any get togethers more often than I did because I knew there was a tension.

I want to support my friend’s husband. My partner has said he likes him and I know it’s mutual.

I have arranged for me and my partner to go and see my friend’s husband today, to say hello and keep him company, he suggested maybe dinner and a beer, kind of see how things go.

my partner had a bad day yesterday, everything went wrong for him. He gets stressed very quickly. When I got home from work he basically spent the evening talking about his problems, money is tight, his adult daughters are constantly tapping him for money. His youngest daughter had asked him for more money yesterday. He also spent a lot of time talking about how poorly my friend treated me. Looking back I have allowed her to mistreat me, but because she was so poorly, I made allowances for her. Her husband is not the same, and there are no bad feelings there.

my partner doesn’t want to go to see my friend’s husband today (after I had mentioned dinner) saying he doesn’t have the money. This is despite him buying three LPs recently to the value of around £80 (in total not for each vinyl).

we are careful with money. We don’t overspend and rarely go out. This isn’t a problem.

I don’t know what I’m asking here. I am totally fed up with my partner constantly moaning about his life. We have been together five years and living together three years. Part of me wants to leave. I can’t take this anymore, but I have no where to go.

I think I just need to off load. I know I need to speak to my partner.

I don’t think I am being unreasonable in asking him to come with me to support my friend’s husband. He has just lost his wife of 25 years. My best friend of 20 years.

thank you for taking the time to read my post.

you’re not being unreasonable but I’d go to see your best friends husband without him. He’s clearly not in a good frame of mind and the best place for him isn’t in the company of a recently bereaved man ….. also, it reads as though you want him to get on with your friends husband and spend time with him to kind of ‘make up’ for the fact that he didn’t really get on with your best friend? That’s not necessarily going to fly and you might need to face the uncomfortable truth that your friends’ feelings about your partner aren’t positive, worse, they might be right.

Leave your partner at home - he is obviously not in the right frame of mind for socialising with anyone bereaved or otherwise.
If you are having doubts about your future with your partner then don't sell your property - you will need it and you may need to let your son know that things could be changing and that you'll need to move back to your house. You cannot allow yourself to be homeless when you have somewhere to live even if it is kipping on the sofa or an airbed.
You are both in a precarious situation work wise (been there and done that!) but your partner should not be spending frivolously and then complaining he's not got any money. By all means he can spend his money as he chooses and support his kids - but if he can't afford to give his kids cash then they need to find a job and stop cadging off him particularly when he gets stressed about it. But they are not your problem they are his problem - you have enough to deal with of your own.
You don't sound very happy right now and it is not surprising - you have been bereaved too which your partner is not being very sympathetic about. But neither will you be in the right frame of mind to be making life changing decisions so you need to take time to deal with the bereavement and then deal with everything else in due course - your job, your future with your partner, your house and most importantly what you want from your life going forward.

Thank you x

Thank you for replying.

both my partner and my friend’s husband have expressed their like for each other in the past and recently and there is a mutual respect too. I’m not pushing a friendship, if one forms then great but if not, then that’s fine too.

I think we are all going through very stressful times for one reason or another and feelings are raw.

I have chatted with my partner this morning since posting, and we understand where we are each coming from.

life ain’t easy! X