My partners Nanna had a fall in february, she had some complications and passed away in hospital 9 days later. She had 15 of us around her bedside and she went peacefully, without pain and with her loved ones.
Seeing her pass away impacted me more than I thought it would, it brought back memories of my own Nanna passing away as I was there when that happened.
Growing up, although my parents did not say this, somewhere along the way, I was led to believe that you had to support the family and the people closest to the deceased. You weren’t to show how much you were hurting because it was disrespectful to the family. If you weren’t able to support people without needing support yourself then you should stay away as it was not your place to be in so much pain.
I took this to heart and now this and my own mental health has ruined my relationship with my partner. I have tried to explain via a letter but my partner (or should I say ex), doesn’t want to know.
I sent a care package with the letter and grief resources for them so that, if they don’t want to talk to me about it, at least they can write it down or something. But my ex partner believes I shut them out and pushed them away, when I thought they were shutting me out and pushing me away, I believed that they didn’t want to have me around and told them not to come back from their parents house back to our shared flat when they said they were going to, as I believed that they were doing it out of obligation and not because they wanted to see me. I believed that they shouldn’t do things that they didn’t want to.
My ex is now not talking to me and I am stuck in the flat we shared, trying to sort her stuff out, not knowing if she wants to ever talk to me again. And I’m in so much pain because I miss their Nanna so much and it hurts and not having my partner now too, it’s destroying me.
Am I alone with my misunderstanding of grief? I have recently been diagnosed with autism so I often need clear rules or to feel that my feeling are valid and not wrong. It seems that my need for this has caused the relationship to blow up in my face.