Unbearable grief compounded by our adult children’s reactions

My beloved husband of almost 45 years died just under 6 months ago. We have 3 adult children (aged 36 -41) and prior to him dying (after a traumatic time being in ICU for 4 months), I would have said we were a close family, who cared about each other a great deal, despite living some distance apart.

We are spread out geographically (between 35 minutes to 3 hours’ drive away from each other) so have not been in the habit of meeting up every week, although I did collect my nearest grandson from nursery and school once a week for 2 years before my husband became ill. However, we’ve always been the sort of family who meet up to celebrate Christmas, Easter, mothers day, fathers day and for each other’s birthdays, plus a sprinkling of random events, which meant we got together about every 4-6 weeks, with phone and video calls in between.

We all had busy lives, my husband and I were both self-employed, the children all work full time, our two sons have young children and our daughter has health problems so although we always tried to help them out whenever we could and be there for them when they were going through tough times, we never expected them to do things for us.

However, when my husband died, I thought we would be united in our grief and our adult children would, at the very least, be willing to help me sort out all the admin and keep in touch a bit more often - maybe a phone call around once a week each to check I was ok and offer a few extra visits or invitations to visit them. I had mistakenly thought they genuinely cared about me and would make a little more effort to be there for me when I needed them.

Never in a million years did I expect my husband’s death to trigger our daughter lashing out at me and refusing to speak to me for weeks on end, or my sons to basically go into denial, refusing to offer more than 3 hours each with all the paperwork I still have hanging over me and contacting me once a fortnight if I’m lucky. I know we are all grieving in our own way but their way seems to be to carry on as if nothing has happened, and refuse to acknowledge let alne care that my whole world has been ripped apart.

To be fair, our youngest son dropped in unexpectedly the other evening as hed been to a business meeting not far from me and we did spend a lovely evening together. I just wish these sort of visits could be a bit more frequent. I’m not asking any of them to give up their lives for me or anything close to it - just an hour or two a week would be an amazing comfort. However, that visit was the first time in almost 6 months any of our children have done anything like that, despite me telling them very clearly how lost and alone I am feeling and how much I need help to complete the paperwork.

I feel as if I have lost my children as well as my husband - I am grieving for the family I thought I had; it’s clear they are far too busy with their own lives to care about me and my life seems absolutely pointless now.

Friends all assume our children are supporting me and I’m ashamed to admit how little they are in contact because it makes me feel as if I must have been a dreadful mother. I’ve tried joining various groups to ease the abject loneliness but get so upset when other widows talk about the amazing support their children have given them. How do I deal with the overwhemling and unbearable grief for my husband alongside feeling abandoned by our children?