Reply to Husband won't let me comfort him. I don't know what to do.

Forum Index » Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)

Reply to "Husband won't let me comfort him. I don't know what to do."

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Back off and let him grieve, OP. Plenty of people grieve his way. It takes time. A month is nothing. And it's a gradual process, with setbacks.

Every time you come at him you interfere and halt his process because you're being needy. You feel a need to comfort him and you feel a need to interact with him when what HE needs is time to just be left with his thoughts and feelings so he can move on in the grief process.

I understand his point of view, because my husband is needy like you. When I've had to grieve, I've had to keep escaping his attempts to "make me feel better" which were really about him feeling uncomfortable with my perfectly normal sadness and grief. [/quote]

Can you read?

Op has said more than once she has only done what HE asked her to do!

Op is also rightly concerned about her husband.

Stop projecting your marital issues on to her.[/quote]

They talked before the death.  You can plan as much as you want for an event or in this case a tragedy, but until you are in the moment, you can't know exactly how you'll feel and process.  His needs now are different that what he predicted a few weeks ago.  Yes, OP thought that since he had already experienced a death, that he would know, but clearly, since he was so very close to his mom, her death hit him harder than the other parent's (whether his dad or step-mom or whatever) death and what he actually needs now is different from what he predicted he would need a few weeks ago.

OP needs to be more empathetic to his current needs and adjust accordingly.  Her husband needs space and time to grieve.  Despite what he said weeks ago, he needs to be alone without interruptions from her.  Despite the fact that she feels rejected and helpless to help him, it's not about her.  If she needs help adjusting to that, she should find a friend or counselor to discuss her feelings, but not try to push herself onto him.  While he hasn't been able to come out and say it, he needs her to stop trying to help him and let him have some uninterrupted time with his grief.  He cannot have that time during the day at work, when he has to attempt to get some work done, so he comes home and needs time to just grieve, by himself, without her help.  When he's ready for her help and the various gestures that they discussed before the actual death, he'll come out of the shell and can be more responsive to those signs of caring.  But not yet.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics