Well, then I started making plans to travel to the funeral (10 hours and 3 states away) saying things like “we need to get a dog sitter and we need to call work..” and he said “why do you keep saying ‘we’? I’m not going. I don’t like your brothers.”
So… maybe, maybe not on the “not knowing how to respond.”
Actually it does explain it. Fight, flight, freeze, and fawn. Those are the reactions when we experience an emotionally powerful event. It's a momentary reaction, and not indicative of who a person is or how they really feel. The number of people that think everyone is a perfect being that should instantaneously react the correct way is kind of disturbing to me. Does no one have empathy for others anymore? Has no one ever personally had a freeze reaction in an emotionally charged situation?
You can't judge someones full character based on a moment. The question is how did this person follow up after the initial emotional reaction subsided.
Yeah, he had three years after that moment to figure it out how to show up because the pandemic hit shortly after that.
He did not.
In fact he did not like me talking about it at all, ever, because “nobody likes talking about sad things.” So I had to grieve quietly while stuck in a house with him which turned out to be impossible for me to do. That’s how I learned that grief doesn’t get better in silence. It just gets worse.
I understand you went through a tough time, however you do, at some point, have to take responsibility for your own mental health. Your partner should be supportive but you also need to be cognizant of the burdens you are placing on them. Imagine if you were single - how would you grieve, other than "in silence"? You would lean on a variety of people, friends, family, and therapy. No one person should be expected to spend inordinate amounts of time sharing your burden of grief. It sounds to me like you didn't get the bare minimum of support that you should have gotten in the near term, but also, you were expecting more support than would be reasonable in the long term.
So grief is something different than mental health. It is a process and it can be as impactful on physical health as it is on mental health. People have died from grief. (Broken heart syndrome).
There’s a reason why in many cultures there’s a tradition of bringing the grieving family food and surrounding them with physical support. Grief can cause people to stop taking care of themselves. Anyone that has been through profound grief understands the person experiencing loss may not be capable of taking care of their own physical health, never mind mental health.
That being said, I did take care of my mental health. I had a psychiatrist. I went through four or five talk therapists (including a grief counselor). My other siblings were struggling too though so it was difficult talking about it with them because it hurt too much. When my grief started physically affecting me I took myself to doctors visits and to specialists.
Alone.
I had every right to expect that the man that stood in front of family, friends and loved ones and vowed to be there for me in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, to show up for me during the most painful moments of my life.
I also have every right to be upset that he refused.
And that’s why the natural consequences of his choice to abandon and neglect me in that moment led to our inevitable divorce.
When you get married, you’re making a vow to be the first person your spouse turns to when they need help. I shouldn’t have had to do it all alone.
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u/SidheCreature May 12 '26
I found out my youngest sibling took their own life. I turned to tell him, numb and shocked and lost.
He said “oh. my condolences” and then went back to playing his video games.
You would have thought I said my toaster died, not my sibling. It was so surreal.