Look, I try to be the caring, sensitive boyfriend. Really, I do. I’m always “there for you.” I listen. I have a tissue permanently pinned to my shoulder. I’m a good boyfriend, I swear.
But really, how long must this go on?
My girlfriend’s mother passed away (mercifully, and not unexpectedly) on July 4th. Three months ago. And yet she’s still in mourning. She spends entire weeks crying. Last night she called me and asked me to come over so she could wet my shoulder. Which was fine, I was happy to do it. But sheesh, after three months, you’d figure she’d have moved on.
Or maybe not.
Having never lost a parent myself, I don’t really know how this whole grief thing works. How much more of this is there to come?
Was it expected? Did she have a chance to say goodbye? Was there things she felt she had to say?
Professional help is where I would go too…she needs to express her grief in more constructive ways now, IMO. Now is the time to write letters to mom, saying the things she needed to say, and start remembering the good things about mom. Mom wouldn’t have wanted her to be msierable forever.
Well, she is a psychologist, so it wouldn’t be a total shock to suggest it. And she’s on ritalin, so she sees a psychiatrist on a pretty regular basis. (He prescribes it.) I have to wonder what they’ve been talking about.
Most certainly. We expected her to die every other weekend for the past three years. After 5 heart attacks, what do you expect? I can’t count the number of times my girlfriend made emergency trips to the nursing home because “my mother is dying tonight.” And she recovered every single time. Almost.
I think she’s still trying to find her footing in Orphan World. She doesn’t know how she’ll survive without the security blanket that mom provided (which she didn’t, for many years).