agonyaunt | (no subject)

Dear Annie: I have been with my girlfriend for 2 1/2 years now. She just lost her middle son to a drug overdose exactly one month ago tomorrow. She is really struggling with this. He was her best friend and, out of all her kids, the one most similar to her.

Since his passing, she has become isolated and more depressed. She barely eats and can't sleep, and her health wasn't the greatest before all this. She is having panic attacks and has been prescribed medication to help with everything. She is in therapy as of two weeks now.

The problem is she has completely shut me out. I just moved in with her in July, and things were strong between us before this. Now she doesn't want me going anywhere with her and her other son. She doesn't want me sleeping in the same bed. She doesn't call me on my way to work anymore unless she has a question. She doesn't even respond to my text when I check in on her from work. I just feel completely shut out and wonder why I'm even still here.

Will she ever get past this? She stated she will never be happy again. If that's true, why am I here? I know it's recent, but her whole focus day and night is strictly about her lost son. She has zero interest in doing anything -- no watching TV, leaving the house or even knowing when she can go back to work. She has lost interest in all hobbies and interests.

I completely understand she's grieving, but we are both in our 40s, and at some point, I do want to start living again. Preferably with her. Can you give me advice on how to handle this better and even a time frame on expecting anything to return to somewhat normal? I know completely normal is never possible. I am in a family therapy group that meets twice a week for grief and loss of loved ones. I'm just really worried after hearing stories that we may never get back to where we were. Thanks for any help. -- At a Loss

Dear At a Loss: My heart goes out to you, your girlfriend and your entire family. Losing a child is an unimaginable tragedy, and it makes perfect sense that your girlfriend is far from recovered after only one month. It is going to take a lot of time and a lot of effort for her to get through this.

Right now, your girlfriend's priority is not you or your relationship; it is her lost son, her living son and her immense grief. You need to have patience and grace for her as she processes this loss and learns to live a life without her son.

Eventually -- with the help of time, therapy, and her loving and supportive boyfriend -- she will be able to see some hope in her life again. At that time, you two should enter couples therapy to make sure you are still making your relationship a priority.

https://www.arcamax.com/healthandspirit/lifeadvice/dearannie/s-2732062

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IT HAS ONLY BEEN ONE MONTH!

Like, I just... I can't.

I had to go back and reread that because I was like, he could not possibly have said one month.

JFTDC, LW!

"Oh, woe is me, one month after what's considered one of the worst losses that can happen to someone, my girlfriend still isn't back to treating me like the center of her world. When is she going to forget that she lost her child and get back to paying attention to MEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEME?"

Break up with her, LW. In the short term it'll be another big loss; in the long term she'll be free to find someone who actually gives a shit about her.

Oh god, the LW's poor girlfriend...what a horrible loss. One of my dad's sisters lost a child to a drug overdose in 2011 and it's something she still struggles with - how could you not?

At the same time, I do also have some empathy for the letter writer, and this is entirely related to personal experience. I lost my father in late July 2020 - it was fairly sudden and unexpected (he was going through treatments for pancreatic cancer but his prognosis was good - unfortunately he had a preexisting condition that was impacted by his treatments). My mother, siblings, and I were all obviously very upset. But a month and a half after, my siblings and I were also really struggling with our mother's grief; she expected all of us to provide her with emotional support (note: the 5 of us are scattered to various parts of the country), sent messages almost daily about how hard life was with Dad, etc and meanwhile we're all like...I am at work right now, his life ended but ours did not, please get a fucking therapist because we cannot carry your grief for you.

It was hard enough for us without living with our mother; I can't imagine what it's like to live in a house where you're partner may as well be a ghost. I have empathy for both sides here

I'm sure you managed to sound a bit less self-centered when you told your mother to get a therapist than this dude did in this letter.

Actually, his girlfriend is already seeing a therapist and getting medication, which with luck should help, because it *does* sound like her grief is entering "serious mental illness" territory.

Unfortunately, I don't think we did =x although a lot of it on our ends was because my mother would send an entire string of texts/photos/etc in the middle of the day while we were all working, and we all had to be like "can you PLEASE pay attention to time of day, we understand that you are grieving, we are grieving too, but I can't be receiving this shit when I'm supposed to be client-facing." Of course, our mother is also very likely a narcissist and needed to make herself the center of attention for our father's illness as well, sooooo yeah.

In any case, it sounds like he's having the complete opposite problem - my siblings and I had someone who was being too communicative and trying to claim too much support, and from what he says in his letter his GF is icing him out almost completely. I can understand his frustration, because it's hard to see someone you love in pain, but it's even harder when they won't open up to you.

LW doesn't cover themselves in glory here but I think this advice is also just not advice or much insight? One thing I think I would mention is the isolation and almost preciousness of grief. When you are grieving, interacting with other people can be excruciating, no matter how sympathetic they are. People tend to think what is needed is the shoulder to cry on (& it's not that that's not needed but...). In reality, you feel unimaginably awful, everyone says the wrong thing because there is no right thing to say and... you know withdrawing is 'bad' but being around people is impossible and unnerving.

I agree. This advice is extremely unhelpful.

When my friend's teenage daughter died, a mutual acquaintance who was a therapist came over to the house where we were making food and holding our friend while she screamed and screamed and screamed and calling everyone in her address book to tell them, and told her husband (of one year, her daughter's stepdad): you need to understand that NORMAL INTENSE GRIEVING for a child is TWO YEARS. you should expect the intense grieving phase for this to last that long. Therapy might help her FUNCTION better during normal intense grieving but it will not change the length of that phase.

I feel a lot like LW has only dealt with things like grandparents or friends dying, where normal intense grieving lasts a MUCH shorter time. If my spouse had been acting like this a month after his grandmother died, for example, I would be Very Worried, and if that kind of death is what LW has experience with, he needs WAY more information that the columnist absolutely failed to provide about how grief for a child is different.

Edited 2022-10-07 14:16 (UTC)

It's been eight years since my brother died and my mother still hasn't really recovered.

One month is nothing.

Something like 80-90% of couples who lose a child break up, because the grief is that incredibly intense. If he’s in the fence after one month, he’s not going to make it for the long haul.

My dad and stepmother stayed together after her daughter was killed, but it fractured our family and 27 years later she is still not the same.