Hi all, I will try to make this brief.
Girlfriend of 2 years is grieving her mother right now. Her mother was declining for the entirety of our relationship and it has put a tremendous strain on us, but here we are. My girlfriend also has an emotionally abusive father which has added extra tension on everybody.
Long story short, she told me she wanted to talk with me when she is ready. And I totally understand. I told her I will be available whenever she is ready, and I have left her alone, with the exception of leaving a meal on her door step and putting in her mail a sympathy card from our mutual friends. Besides that we have been no contact for a couple of weeks now. My sister and I will be attending her mother’s funeral in a week.
She needs to do her own thing to grieve and I can’t stress enough how I totally understand. I am writing this post because I feel so terribly anxious and I would love support or words of wisdom from people who have experienced this type of thing.
Firstly, I’m so worried we are going to break up. I have read a lot on reddit that relationships end during periods of grieving like this. And that’s something I don’t understand. Because if somebody has been a supportive partner all the way through, why would the grieving partner chose to end the relationship? Does this always happen? And if so, how does any relationship last, including marriages, because everybody’s parents inevitably die. I feel so hopeless not only if our relationship ends because of this, but what about another relationship in the future. How do any couples stay together since death is unavoidable?
Secondly, I feel awful that I don’t know how long this will linger for. My feeling is that if she wants to break up, wouldn’t it be easier to get the break up out of the way first, and then have the rest of your dedicated emotional energy be spent for the grieving? Also, she knows I still have the keys to her apartment and she hasn’t asked for them back. And her wanting to talk when she’s ready, makes me think she wants to be of a clear mind when we have a conversation. But again I can’t imagine why break up would be on her mind and why she would be putting that off as another burden for her to hold on to.
I don’t want people to judge me that I’m concerned with the relationship when she is going through such a difficult time. Of course she is having one of the hardest times of her life, but I am doing what she asked of me, and I can’t do anything more.
I’m sorry that my mind is scattered right now, I hope everything here makes sense.
I feel like if this relationship falls through because of my girlfriends grief, it’s going to make me think there is no point of trying to connect with somebody again because when they go through a hard time, it will end the same way.
I hope I explained this enough. Our mutual friends have felt confident that our relationship will survive but I’m still so scared. I’m crying as I’m writing this. Because my girlfriend and I have been through such a hard time together and it keeps getting harder, but I think we have a lot of potential together and I don’t know how to deal with the possibility of losing her. My family has told me to let things go as they go, and if it isn’t meant to be better things will come into my life but I’m still so scared. I don’t know what else to say.
Thank you in advance for your thoughts
TLDR; scared about the future of my relationship with my girlfriend who is grieving the loss of her mother.