Short version: How many people do you have that you can rely on. Everyone is alone really, how do you cope with that, especially when you live alone now due to bereavement?
Is there anything you find helps? Is it better to have shallow friends or none at all? When you have lost the one person who was your world can interactions really help you or is there no point trying?
Did you experience any friends who could not cope with your grief, how did you handle that?
Long version:
My husband and I were extremely close and did everything together. To the point that after he died I struggled practically a lot with locking the door and my key had hardly been used as he always did that. I rarely went anywhere without him. Even when I went to work he would drive me and pick me up. I loved it like that as I adore him and time I wasn’t with him felt wasted to me. Even though we’d been together almost 20 years I didn’t get bored of him and really enjoyed being with him and he still surprised me often despite spending so much time with him.
He was more social than me and even seeing my side of the family was usually arranged by him, he used to encourage me to make other friends, go on work nights out and things but I just didn’t want to.
So I didn’t have many (any) really close friends. Just my Mum, brother and Stepdad who I am really grateful for and a few friends that I’d known a long time but didn’t see really often.
Most of those few friends already abandoned me months ago when finding out that I am still not OK.
Last weekend my support bubble family fell out, they are all very upset with each other and my brother is not answering my texts anymore either (I offered he can come and stay with me since they all live together). My Mum is very upset/shaken and I don’t know how to help as I can barely help myself.
Following that I was very upset so I’d texted a person I thought was one of my very few true friends. We’d met when 16 (we are 40 now) and she was a bit of a loner but I used to stick up for her.
She suffered with loneliness during our 20s/30s and never had a partner so I had gone on short holidays with her as a favour to her, despite I would have much rathered go with my husband and I was always homesick when away.
The last 5 times or so we stayed at Festivals in the UK and then my husband came too but I slept in her camp spot with her instead of him so as to not make her feel too lonely.
Of course I did have fun with her too but I feel like I often came to her rescue, my husband offering to pick her up when she had rowed with her parents and she stayed with us or came for tea when she needed support in those kind of situations. I never needed support from her until now. I did always get the feeling she was jealous of the relationship between my husband and I and early on in my relationship with him she had a massive go at me for bringing him to a pub quiz she’d arranged (despite that I’d asked her and she said yes). She told me then to choose between him or her and I said him so she didn’t speak to me for a year.
When I told her my husband had died over the phone, I had to comfort her and be very calm to her and she was not much help to me, straight away telling me I’ll meet someone else and unhelpful things like that. She dropped off some flowers at the doorstep which she found very stressful and texted me that she had a row with my nice neighbours too as she had blocked their drive when they were trying to leave so i had to reassure her over that the first week after my husband died.
Later weeks I texted her funeral details and had a short call with her as she was worried where to park at the chapel and that kind of thing.
I next talked to her at the funeral and she caused quite a large commotion which disrupted the first 5 minutes of the 20 minute service. She also went to great pains to introduce herself to everyone as my “best friend”. I found it a bit odd but thought it was all the stress of it (she has not experienced death much and is also quite socially awkward normally) and even though her behaviour upset me as it meant everyone missed the first song of the service (and we were only allowed three) I again remained calm with her and comforted her instead of vice versa when she was stressing about it.
She did come and meet me for a walk a few times around Christmas when I was very suicidal (she didn’t know that) and sometimes that helped so I was grateful to have her. A lot of the discussion was her questioning me for evidence of her various afterlife theories however which I didn’t like so much.
A few times since she has tried to get me to join Zoom videocall events she has organised for a social group she volunteers for since she needed people to make up the numbers for puzzle games and that kind of thing but I told her several times I didn’t have the mental capacity for that at the moment with strangers. She was very insistent about this a few weeks ago as she only had three participants and asked if I could invite some more people like my brother or something and also because her sister was joining and “is constantly asking me how you are”. I didn’t join it despite all this pressure from her and I think that annoyed her.
Last week I told her that I had been truly going to kill myself earlier in the year (she asks me a lot of questions). I was also trying to explain to her how I am feeling because she had been googling bereavement forums as I thought she was trying to understand how to help me (she sent me a link laughing at a woman who didn’t change her sheets after her husband died and other insensitive things that made me feel she could just be laughing at me though).
Whilst typing to me she had also smashed her mothers 100yr old vase that belonged to her grandmother. She was also laughing about this when I was horrified and her mother was very upset. I think because she has never had someone she is really close to die she cannot put her self in her mother or my position. This is why I was trying to explain it to her as she did seem to intend to help me but just couldn’t find the right way. Then she had said if I feel like that again I should phone her, even if it’s the middle of the night.
I did feel like that after the upset with my family, I felt I hadn’t someone else I could turn to so I texted her in the middle of the night. She texted back that everyone has problems and her battery was going flat.
A few days later she texted me again and we had a light-hearted exchange not related to death/serious stuff. So maybe she thought I was finally OK (as she is often surprised I am not “better” after four months) but out of the blue she suddenly sent me a text saying she had been holding it in but she was very upset that at my 40th last year she had wanted to come and see me (despite covid meant i wouldn’t have let her in and she always said she hated driving to my place) and i had said i was having cocktails at home with my husband so we would come to her another time. Also she was annoyed that I hadn’t responded to her text asking if my new neighbour was fit a few weeks back (i found that very offensive and upsetting at the time and after two weeks explained to her again that I found her constant comments that I will meet someone else upsetting). She asked if I think “this is an acceptable way to treat a friend” and told me i had a “real nerve”!.
I sent a quite calm text back saying as I’d explained to her previously, during those two weeks I had felt like actually killing myself again and so I cut contact with anything i found upsetting (which was almost everything). I also said sometimes i felt a little like she found my grief entertaining and I do not feel she listens to me properly but just waits for a gap to tell me what she thinks I should do to “get over it” but for me it is a struggle and i wish her all the best but cannot cope with this right now.
She sent me more rants back again and said we should break friends and i said I agree and wished her the best again.
Since then she texted me a reconciliation type text but I didn’t reply (however she still also was listing more “evidence” of me being awfully annoying/boring with my grief).
I have work colleagues I speak to and during work hours (working from home) I do feel a bit better so I can see that sometimes talking with people does alleviate the deep loneliness i now have. My counsellor also suggested volunteering and i was due to go this morning but chickened out. I’m still not sure if these superficial type connections are really of value though.
I am truly lonely for the first time in my life. I do only really want my husband which of course I cannot have but except for this forum and my mum (who has so many of her own problems right now) I don’t have any people I can rely on. I know I must rely on myself but I am not sure I can. How do you do it? How to cope with loneliness?