Have you lost friends following bereavement?

I agree with you Pammiel. it's as though it's a contagious disease.

I know those who are embarrassed because I meet them in the street and you can see it in their eyes as they ask how I am getting on.

To be fair this last 18months with the covid nobody has been able to have many social occasions and they all have families to see to.

I can't blame them really, I just think it's another stage to overcome. My 96yr old MiL who has been bereaved twice this year (DH and DS) is such a brave and stoical person. "You just have to get on with it" says she. I miss him so much but we were not a couple who did everything together. We had our own interests and some shared ones. I think ours was a healthy relationship.
I am glad you have found happiness Pammiel

Yes quite a few and not only those in couples.

A couple of my friends disappeared into the woodwork when I lost my husband a little over four years ago and I noticed that gradually the invitations to social events stopped coming. I found out from mutual friends afterwards that it was because I was regarded as competition for my friends’ own husbands because I was once again single. I will never understand this attitude - I was faithful to my husband for over forty years and would never ‘go after’ anyone else’s man. I think it says more about their own insecurities because apart from anything else, the grief is overwhelming and being with another man is unthinkable - something that people can’t really fully understand until they’ve been through it themselves.

I lost someone who I considered to be one of my best friends when, a year after my husband died, I became friendly with the man who I will marry later this year - he was widowed around the same time as myself. Despite the fact that this friend didn’t know my late husband that well, she pronounced that I was not a ‘real widow’ whatever that is, and that I should be ashamed of myself - and that if her widowed father had taken up with another woman, she would have disowned him. To put this into perspective, her dad was in his eighties when he was widowed, I was in my fifties. I was shocked and very hurt at the time and although I tried to carry on the friendship, it was never the same after that and fizzled out.

When a partner dies, the pain of grief is both physical and mental - you don’t just lose the person, you lose your whole way of life and I think this is what most people fail to appreciate until they experience it for themselves. As one half of a couple there is always the subconscious knowledge that you have a fifty percent chance of being the one left behind. I think this is what comes to the surface and frightens people when they see it happening to someone close to them, so they withdraw so they don’t have to deal with it. I don’t think we talk about death enough in this country. Let’s face it, we’re all going to get there eventually so it’s weird that it should still be largely regarded as a taboo subject.

So Sorry to read this from so many of you, it just adds to the pain.

I was 13 when my mother died. The same thing happened to me. I wasn't shunned exactly, but 'friends' didn't ask me out, or to parties etc.

I think it's at least partly because people don't know what to say, and they're embarassed. People crossed the street to avoid me.

I always make a point now of contacting bereaved friends, Listening if they need to talk, but also laughing and certainly asking over.

Yes I agree , you do get dropped when you become single.
Married 25 years, long term friends disappeared over night
when the divorce became known.

nanasam a good subject for discussion ?
I have three friends who were bereaved in the last couple of years.I seem to have lost one of them, not through my neglect but rather because I stepped up my visits, she doesn’t drive (actually none of them do) and while the other two very much appreciate my taking them to places locally and for visits to chat and have a cuppa, she seems to have withdrawn and sees just about nobody these days.Doesn’t want visits (turns them down) or to go anywhere.Tbh she has always been a little like this but now really is a recluse.It’s a shame, but you can only try so much in the end.
I also talk ( when with bereaved friends) about their husband now and again, as too often it becomes as if they had never existed. Last week when having tea and chat with one of them I mentioned his music ( former musician) and she lit up when talking about him.
It is hard to know how much bereaved friends want including
In your life, because we are all different in that respect.
I ask them if they would like to do something, but am never offended if they turn it down.

I have to agree with other posters! Twice widowed, this exclusion by women who I previously thought were friends was very obvious. Only other single women continued to include me with regard to outings, events and parties. Very hurtful. As others have said, I would never "chase" a married man, nor would I have attempted to "take" the husband of a friend! I can only conclude that the wives guilty of such behaviour were clearly not secure in their relationships! Very Sad that so many bereaved or divorced women have experienced this!

My late wife joined the site some years ago. When she died, I began to realise how we had morphed into a WE, and most of our friends were mutual. Since Gillie died, I never hear from a number of them. I assume that we were obviously friends as a couple. So bereavement does make you 'single' again. sadly

This doesn't just happen in bereavement. Some people seem to think that it's perfectly ok for someone in an estranged couple to be treated as a punchbag and completely turn their backs favouring the perpetrator! Personally, I can do without such 'friends', I would rather be alone!

Yes, people are inconsiderate, frightened by the thought of illness, death and bereavement, so they act like this.

It has been going on all my adult life. As a single woman at a later date than my girlfriends, I wasn't invited to their parties which were only for other married couples, but graciously "allowed" to come for afternoon tea.

When they had children, I who knew more about children than they, but didn't have any was excluded on that count too.

At first I thought I had done or said something wrong, but on checking with other women in the same boat found out that this was normal. Society has still no use for single women, or childless couples during the child-raising years.

I thought it was just me that thought the world was made for couples not single women. I now realize that I have not been imaginging things...

oh, well thinking here.. I/we, have never had lots of friends, not socialised by going out as couples... perhaps I am lucky in that..
so I can`t think of any. but then, if it had happened to me, I wouldn`t have called them "friends"

I do sense that some men , I emphasise"some" men seem cautious, but then I have always worked with men, and been at ease with the majority of men.

my small group of church people, throughout the lockups have emailed, I always sign Pauline xx to everyone as do most of us.. one man did "jokingly" tell me that his wife... well I thought ... he fancies himself! and isn`t that the problem? well particularly as I am elderly, and I do mean elderly!! LOL

I do feel quite lonely though, recognising it as a feeling (cos it comes and goes) thinking we are society is not only all set for "couples" but we are brought up, instilled into us that we need another half...

not taught to be self reliant.. I so envy people who always say the like their own company,, what does that mean? but have also adapted to having to be alone

my dh died 20 months or so ago!

Yes, it is definitely a ‘couples world’ (just look at the price of single room supplements in hotels and cruise ships). A woman on her own can be a ‘threat’ to other couples (particularly if the ‘one-ness’ is the result of divorce). I have kept most of my friends, just one or two have dropped off the radar.

A close friend was widowed last year and we have continued to invite her over (probably more than ever) and I continue to see her as before. However I have noted that even very old friends have stopped including her in social events where couples are involved. The wives ask her out for lunch or walks but we are the only people to still ask her out for dinner with other couples. It think bereavement is one of those times when you find out who your real friends are.

When I was widowed at 42 it was no different, so it's been happening for many, many years. Our mutual friends and even our separate work colleague couples slowly drifted away, then I noticed that female-only invitations stopped too.

To me, people who treat other's like that aren't true friends and I just went about doing my own thing which some of them found interesting and asked if they could join me next time.

Well, 'next time' never happened as I decided they deserted me when I needed a friend most of all so I wasn't about to be used, but I made sure I shared some info about my holiday trips or concerts etc.

As has been mentioned, I was asked to babysit too...but I was 'busy'.

Great, Luckygirl ?

Well done Luckygirl. That sounds really lovely. The first of many!

Not seen at all ..... indeed.

But I have just been to a wonderful concert in a beautiful manor house with another woman who was also widowed last year. I have really enjoyed myself. First time I have done such a thing since being widowed - a first step.

It is so sad. It's disgusting behaviour. I hope I have never been one of these jealous women.
My mum was widowed at 39 and she was very aware of this ostracising. Once she came across it in a very blatant way. It was like a scene from Cinderella. She had an invitation to a big event - a ball. and her "friend" asked her to babysit because obviously she wouldn't be going would she! She had no partner.
She didn't go but she didn't babysit either.
eazybee Grr on your behalf.

I'm not seen as a threat but perhaps just not seen at all.

Yes, Casdon. Similar boat. As a youngish widow in my 40s, I know I was deliberately shut out by couples who DH and I had been friends with for years and that it was the wives who were responsible.

Years later, bumping into them, usually at a funeral, some even mumbled an embarrassed apologied but it was too late. I had moved on and made new friends.

Maybee70. Your comment is spot on. At the time, it felt like an insult to my integrity. If they thought I was interested in their husbands, they were wrong. I never have and never would get involved with someone who was already in a relationship. When grieving for a man who has been cut down in the prime of his life, you feel numb not amorous. Shame on women who do this. So much for sisterhood.

I have to work with one very irritating women who whenever she sees me talking to a man yells: Ooooooh, look at her flirting with the men again. It’s embarrassing and puerile and I wish she’d shut up.

The friends I have now are mostly ones my husband never knew. Some wives are very suspicious of widows as if we can't wait to get our hands on their partners. Nothing was further from the truth in my case.

I did lose some ‘couple’ friends when my husband died, I was 49 and still bringing up the children whilst working full time, so I was incredibly busy and didn’t miss them too much after the first year or two.
What I’ve found since is that there are lots more other single people out there than I’d realised when I was part of a couple - and lots of them also want to get out and do things, go on holiday etc. with me, so I’m not lonely. It does take a while, and it’s probably easier when you’re younger widowed because you still have the energy. I’m sure it’s much harder when you’re older, particularly after so much time stuck at home in the last year, but once your friend and cousin can face the world again I think it’s really worth making an effort to get out and do things, because other people are out there in the same boat and want to be friends.

You are all so right it is quite a common occurrence whether you are widowed, divorced or become ill. When Mr J was diagnosed with cancer some friends drifted away, did not even call to see how he was. Unfortunately he also has other complex health problems and is waiting for yet another operation. The only way we can describe it is that we now inhabit a different world to the one that we once shared with those friends who walked away. However we do have other good friends who are very caring and supportive. If people can walk away that easily then they were never meant to stay in our lives. As they say when one door closes another one opens so let's be grateful for those who still care, for new people who have walked into our lives and strangers that have yet to become friends.

Sorry to say it's a common thing. When your husband or wife dies friends and relatives disappear into a puff of smoke. People you have know for years avoid you. Happened to me when my husband died 17 years ago. I had write about it on another thread on this forum.

It's as if death is a disease and it's catching. Also I was 45 when I was widowed. The 63 year old me would have challenged those people.

Grief never dies if that person was your other half of yourself.

What those people who disappeared forget it will happen to them. Only 2 certainties in life we are born and we die .

Absolutely. I used to live in shared houses that were mainly full of men. I always enjoyed men’s company but have never ever been someone that would flirt with men and people’s marriages are sacrosanct to me. I always just wanted to talk to everybody. Even at work one day my friends son came in and we were chatting about music (we used to go to the same gigs) and a work colleague said ‘look at her, flirting again’. I really don’t understand it.