An acquaintance at work everyday would give me updates on how his wife was fighting cancer and was going for treatment and every day, the prognosis seemed to get worse and worse until finally (this weekend), he announced that she had passed away.
Then later, I heard from several other people that she had died 2 months ago and it appears that the stories he was telling me about her fight every day was just an illusion to keep her alive in his mind. (They were married for 44 years)
2 questions
Why would he keep telling me these stories of her battle for 2 months before finally admitting that she had died.
Should I even mention it to him that I know that she had died 2 months ago?
Personally, I think this is something that I should keep quiet about and not let on that I know and just don’t say anything as it can only make things worse by asking him about it.
My reaction is that he was in denial and I would not ever mention it to him. Sad. I know a woman who didn’t tell anyone her husband had died for about 2 days during which she was hugging him. I would never, ever, ask her about it.
It is most likely simple denial combined combined with shame, fear and maybe some elements of PTSD. If they were married 44 years, he is older and has had his whole life thrown into disarray.
I definitely wouldn’t call him on it. He has his reasons even if they may not seem like sound ones to an outside observer like yourself. I don’t know what they are and he doesn’t owe anyone an explanation. People react to death in strange ways sometimes.
Now that he has made the news known, I would treat it the same way as if it really happened yesterday.
God, I would never, ever mention it. As long as you thought she was alive she was alive, for him, a little bit. If it was still going on but as it came out now I’d let it go and put it up to overwhelming grief.
Denial is one of the standard stages of grief. It’s probably not a healthy sign that he stayed in that stage for two months, but he’s the one who has to fight through it, not you.
Thanks. I am NOT going to call him out on it. I can’t see that helping matters at all
He really did love his wife and when he was talking about her, he kept saying that he wished it was him who was having the cancer and not her.
In retrospect, I should have picked up on that she had died sooner as now that I think about it he did keep referring to her in the past tense many times when he was talking about her battle with cancer
That’s not funny. She was being treated for cancer. She would have a death certificate showing her real date of death from her doctors and other people already knew about her real date of death.
Maybe he has been dreading the inevitable outpouring of sympathy and well-wishes that will follow a formal announcement (on his part) of his wife’s death? I’m imagining myself in his shoes, and wondering what it would be like to be reminded for several days by everyone you see that your wife has died.
Maybe he’s avoided revealing the truth in an attempt to stave off that event.
Years ago I was at a bar and a guy started talking to me. He was pretty (very) drunk. He explained that his wife had just died. He talked about walking into the house and finding her dead in her recliner. He cried a bit and bought me a few beers (he’d been shut off).
I ran into him again a few days later and reintroduced myself. He was sober, sipping a beer and working on plans for a memorial service he was having for the two year anniversary of his wife’s death, which was coming up that weekend.
When my mom was dying a slow death from Alzheimer’s, I concealed it from almost everyone at work. I did let the HR person know, as I knew I might be called away at any moment, and I wanted her to know the reason why. She wanted to tell all my bosses, but I asked her not to. It was all I could do to keep it together without having to discuss it several times over every day.
Some people may not find sympathy helpful or don’t want to deal with other people’s reactions. I’m sure he was an emotional wreck when his wife died. If he told people then, he’d have to also deal with everyone’s reactions in addition to his grief. It may have been easier to deal with other people’s reactions once he had time for his own emotions to settle down.