Losing someone you love is a difficult thing to experience. The painful feelings can hit you at any time, making each moment feel heavy. It helps to have supportive friends or family who will be there for you.
One man on Reddit was that source of support for his grieving friend. When it began causing problems with his fiancée, he put the story before people online and asked if he was the jerk for his actions. Bored Panda also reached out to Jill S. Cohen, a grief counselor who works with children and adults, to get her perspective on the situation.
More info: Reddit
Guy who has been providing emotional support for a year and a half to his grieving best friend doesn’t share anything about it with his fiancée, leading to big problems in their relationship
Image credits: cottonbro studio (not the actual photo)
The poster mentioned that his fiancée is a “busybody” and that he has been keeping a lot of the details of his best friend’s mental health crisis from her
Image credits: cottonbro studio (not the actual photo)
He calls it the “Nolan situation” in front of her and steps out to take calls or spend time with his friend outside the house because Nolan told him to keep things private
Image credits: RDNE Stock project (not the actual photo)
When she confronted him about his sneaking around, saying she couldn’t trust him, he told her that “her comfort was less important than someone’s actual physical well-being”
Image credits: anonymous
The guy’s fiancée was hurt because of how he prioritized his friend over her and went to stay with her mom after their argument
Grief is a highly personal experience that can vary from each individual. Some cultures believe in expressing grief quietly, and others feel that mourning should be done openly. That’s why people might mourn differently depending on the cultural or social background they’ve come from. The Original Poster (OP) kept things private about his friend’s mental health crisis because Nolan had asked him to. But, in doing so, he ended up shutting out his partner.
Jill, the grief counselor we reached out to, had this to say about the best friend’s grieving process: “He is entitled to his personal privacy about his grief situation, but not so much when the secret is impacting his friend’s relationship with his fiancee. It is understandable for the griever to want to be quiet about the extent of the trauma around the death of his parent, especially if it was over a year ago, and he may be embarrassed. However, the griever should not put the onus on his friend such that it jeopardizes his relationship with his fiancee.”
It should also be noted that the feelings of grief can be so intense that it can be difficult for people to think about anything else. Nolan might still be struggling with difficult feelings and might not have considered the impact of his actions on his friend’s partner. It’s heartening to note that he did reach out to a therapist and sought professional help apart from the support he got from his friends.
Jill also states, “Ideally, in the best-case scenario, the griever should allow his supportive friend to share with his fiancee that a close friend is grieving his parent’s death and is needing an excessive amount of attention these days. So that fiancee has some sense of what’s going on in the whole scheme of things.”
Although OP’s partner felt that Nolan should stop relying on his friends so much, there is no timeline for how long it can take a person to grieve. Research on grief and bereavement states that people may experience improvements in their symptoms around 6 months, but it can also take 1 to 2 years. But then again, many factors play a role in this process, such as their relationship with the person who died, their mental health, levels of social support, and much more.
Image credits: Min An (not the actual photo)
The man’s fiancée felt hurt that her partner was sneaking around and hiding details from her. But the poster felt that he was justified because he was helping his friend grieve. To help us understand how to help a grieving person, Jill shared some pointers. She said, “The best way to support a person who is grieving is simply to be present and listen to him/her and bear witness to the griever’s grief. There is not much to say to a griever that he or she doesn't already know, or that will take the pain away.”
She also mentioned that we should: “Take action with tasks to help the griever adjust to life in the beginning and help with his or her basic needs i.e. make a meal, get food delivered, send a housekeeper over to clean once in a while, go to church or synagogue with the friend, go for a walk. Take care of small tasks without asking what needs to be done. Because usually, grievers say ‘No thank you’ when offered help.”
According to HelpGuide, asking for help is difficult for grieving people because they might feel guilty receiving the attention or might fear being a burden to anyone. That’s why it’s important for the people around to make the effort for them.
Many commenters sided with the fiancée, stating that the man should have let her in on what was going on. Jill weighed in on the situation, saying: “I think that it would be unfair of her and a breach of confidence to need or demand to know the details, but she is entitled to know to an extent what it is that her fiance is doing that takes so much time and energy and is done in private and that, quite likely, is taking time away from her.”
Grief is a tricky thing to handle, definitely for the person experiencing it, as well as for their loved one. That’s why this post went viral with 19k upvotes and over 7k comments discussing how the OP should have handled the situation. Many commenters felt that he was being too secretive and that shutting his fiancée out was wrong. What do you think about the situation? Do you believe that the fiancée was right or the poster? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
Netizens sided with the man’s fiancée and also said that the guy was acting too much like Nolan’s therapist
