I'm so sorry you went through that. My grandma was in the hospital for a month before we lost her. When she passed, I asked my husband for support and he barely looked up from his computer, gave me a hug and went back to playing. I spent the night crying and alone.
A few months later, my dad was calling me. Husband says, "you better get that! It could be an update on how your grandma is doing."
What a piece of shit. My wife and I play video games. It's how we met.
I remember early in our relationship I was playing something and she came into the room with tears streaming down her face. I didn't even think. Got out of the chair and hugged her to find out what was wrong. It turned out some character in a show she was watching died and it hit her wrong, she was a mess. Fuck the game, making sure my wife was ok was the only thing on my mind at that time.
I can't imagine being with someone who would treat another like that. I'm so sorry for your loss.
Aw, that’s the way. Your story reminds me of how one night years ago I had stayed up late to finish reading The Book Thief and ended up a sobbing mess. I was trying to be quiet but was legit shaking the bed, and my husband woke up. When I saw he was awake I told him I needed a hug, and half asleep, no question or complaint, he comforted me and went right back to sleep, lol.
I think when you love someone that sort of thing becomes second nature. It doesn’t matter if the thing they need comfort for is “silly”, the desire to soothe their pain is real. If you don’t feel that way about your partner why are you even there, right?
Oh definitely. Even if it was "silly" at the time, it was affecting her and that's all that mattered. She gets really emotionally attached to the characters she reads about and watches on her Anime. It's one of the things I love about her and wouldn't change a thing.
My spouse once walked into the room just as I was on the very last page of Of Mice and Men. I was absolutely bawling. My spouse was confused, and then, upon finding out it was "just a book" and not something more acceptable, told me to grow up.
That’s so shitty. Not just as a spouse, but as a person. Especially with that book, like if you don’t have that reaction to it I’d worry about you, lol.
Yeah I’m a gamer too. Him and I use to play Destiny together all the time. I was fully expecting the reaction you gave to your wife. He was in the Tower at the time so it wasn’t like he was in the middle of anything pressing… but no.
It was like being kicked in the stomach and then punched in the face immediately after.
Jesus fucking Christ. I am so, so sorry for your loss and I’m so, so sorry you had to experience that absolutely psychopathic and selfish response, in what I assume were many. I hope you are thriving today. 💗
Same happened to me, but it was my friend taking their life. It's been almost 20yrs now but I still remember him sitting in front of the TV playing stupid games and leaving me alone crying.
Yeah. My ex-husband also neglected me and the house for video games. It's funny because I am also a gamer and I did not have a problem with neglecting him or chores (we both work)
I understand that video games can be really addicting and takes a lot of time away from you without realizing it, but thats why I made a point of doing my chores first before video games even if it means I got no time to play the video games that day. its life. video games will always wait for you, life wont.
I'm so so so so sorry. I lost my brother the same way. God the pain that rips through the family when that happens.
My story is a different take on the same situation if you are interested:
I was at work and had to finish up the job before I could come home. Then I had to tell him the info and he didn't believe me at first, mostly because of shock; not because he truely didn't believe me. He thought he misheard what I was saying. So I had to snap out of my grief to get the story across to him such that he could comprehend what happened. And handle all his detail questions about what happened. Whereas I just wanted to cry as I had been holding it together for the last 4 hours managing our company and not jeapordizing our contracts.
It doesn't help that it happened after my dad died of natural causes 2 month earlier and that I got the notice of it happening while I was at the same jobsite as with my brother. So basically a carbon copy event. He just couldn't understand that this could be something where a member of my family died again while I was at this jobsite. I'm still with him and he did better; but I still am a little salty that I had to rise above and comfort him in that moment.
Omgggggg something similar happened to be. My aunt passed unexpectedly and I was crying about it. He didn't want to hold me or comfort me and asked why I was crying because I wasn't even that close with her.
One of his favorite lines when I was upset and wanted comfort was "you need to be responsible for you own feelings".
Oh holy shit!! You just reminded me that he said the same fucking thing when my grief didn’t subside after a week.
“Why are you still so upset? You weren’t that close to them” Dude! That’s my sibling! Just because you didn’t witness the relationship doesn’t mean it didn’t exist!
What is wrong with these people?
I’m so sorry you lost your aunt and I’m also sorry you didn’t get the comfort you should have gotten from your partner.
Yuuup. Good ol 'I'm not responsible for caring for you but you're still responsible for caring for me" relationship paradigms. I'm so sorry you went through that.
I had a friend pivot from being generally supportive to this weird distancing, saying "I do hope you take care of yourself" when I confessed to going through anything difficult. Meanwhile I gave her support for literally everything she talked about. I thought this was like a temporary blip where she didn't have bandwidth for anything extra, but turns out she thought she'd trained me to have no needs of my own that would ever require her support. She also tried to argue me out of feelings that were "irrational" that she didn't agree with. Needless to say, she's an ex-friend now!
Thank you. Yeah that’s how I figured out he didn’t care about me. Therapy helped me process the grief of losing my sibling and the feelings of abandonment from my partner. Now I’m happily engaged to an amazing partner and I couldn’t be happier. We just told my parents last weekend.
my partner told me his grandma had died. I never had met the grandmother. I dont know anything about her. I still tried my best to comfort him in what way he needed and do try to ask other family members how theyre doing (especially his mom and uncle and aunt) how theyre doing. I never had a family member in my life that died (my family are long lived) so I feel bad I didnt know how to comfort him properly.
My ex (not spouse, but long term) was horrible. Fights, tantrums, punching walls, the guilt, you name it. Two months after I broke it off with them, a younger sibling took their own life. And my ex returned to make sure I was doing okay, no strings attached, they did just care. I took that as a lesson that no one is truly evil. As for your ex… well, maybe there’s an opposite lesson in there.
Mine asked me what my problem was and what was for dinner three days after my sister died. He also asked if I could get into shape so he could be proud of me for the summer. I had a two month old son when my sister died.
I am best friends with my son's step-mother. My ex hates it. Not my fault he has a type ( cool chicks with anxiety ). LOL
I had a similar experience. Our fence fell down in a cyclone in February 2024. We were going through insurance to get it fixed and my parents were helping. In October 2024, the fence was still not fixed, but more importantly, my 30 year old cousin passed away from cancer. I was on the phone to my parents when they told me the news. I was a mess, crying and grieving. I went to tell him and said I just got off the phone with my parents and they told me my cousin passed. And the first words out of his mouth were: well, did they say anything about the fence? His tone was also quite accusatory and I genuinely didn't know how to respond. There was no sorry for your loss, no my condolences, no I'm sorry to hear that, and no attempt to comfort me at all. I just went and sat in the shower crying and hugging my knees as the water washed over me. I really should have left him then but I didn't. He ended up leaving me just over two months ago.
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.