losing my mom is causing a wedge in my marriage

[sarah1681]

i lost my mom 11 days ago and i have withdrawn from my husband and other people i dont know why im doing this im not meaning to hurt him i just want to be left alone to miss my mom ive actually been thinking about leaving him lately i need some time to get over losing my mom and he goes through his days like life is just great and so on and to me its not my life has forever changed losing my mom at 53 years old i dont even want to be in the same room with him. If it wasnt for us living with his mom thats older i would leave. i love him but i dont feel like he understands what im going through.

[Sammijo2424]

Please do not make any major decisions at this time, you are so early in your grief, nowhere that you are right now will feel good. My husband passed away 14 months ago and I made some horrible decisions in that first month. My mother passed about 25 years ago, it took me a year to get back to normal (well, at least half normal). It has been 14 months since husband passed and I am far from being ok.

No one wants to hear that time heals, I am not sure about healing, but life really does get easier.

[Kntuckyrain]

My husband has been very supportive since my Dad died on 2/14... However I lashed out yesterday when he wanted to fool around. I am just trying to live day to day... I get what you are saying....don't make a rash decision now... But when time has passed you may still want to move on without your husband. Personally of my husband did not support me right now I would want to leave him too.

[Heartlight]

From my experience, people want to understand or help us but, for many reasons, can't or don't know how.  My experience with this has been to be honest about how I'm feeling without the added anger of thinking they should understand.

 

In fact, when I was in the first weeks of both my losses, if anyone ever said "I know how you feel" or "I know how you must be feeling" I would almost tear them a new one.  I was insanely angered that they thought they could have any clue as to how I felt.

 

So no, they don't understand, at all.  Even when they do.  And we really shouldn't expect them to - as much as it would be wonderful and beautiful to have someone bundle us up and truly give us everything we need so we could live through our pain... we're all just human and muddling about and no one can do that for us.

 

I have found that if I want someone to understand, I have to tell them.  And I have learned that in telling someone how I feel, I only need to make very simple statements about 'I' that are in the moment.  "I am in such pain.  I want to tell you more but I don't understand it myself.  I feel like I just want to sit in this room and cry for a while.  I want you to leave me but then when you go I want you to be here."

 

Like people said, now is not the time to make decisions about the future.  Now is the time to allow yourself to feel your loss and express it as best you can.

 

From a man's perspective, which I have a dear friend who was able to give me this insight when I was going through very deep pain, it was explained to me that a man has in instinct to 'fix' things and when there's something that can't be fixed, he will sometimes try to keep things normal until he's called upon to fix something or to create an environment where things can have balance - in his eyes - hopefully benefiting the situation.

 

I don't know that this is what is happening, it's just another perspective.  One that I was given and helped me so I'm passing it along.  The really important thing is to allow yourself the time to make sense of your feelings without making yourself crazy thinking you have to make decisions right now.

 

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