Have you lost friends following bereavement?

oh yes, friends and acquantances do disappear, it is a horrible realisation that we are truly left on our own, as though being widowed was not enough. In -laws also vanished out of sight after a year or so. The only ones who have remained stable in my life are two sisters in aus and my sister up north plus of course my AC and my dgc. I am prepared for a life alone, have many good hobbies and will re-join hobby groups when it feels safe to do so

I am a bit like whiff, have absolutely no interest in any other male relationship, my husband was and is, my one and only. So a friend died and her husband, my husband`s work friend, has been ringing me from time to time, I, as always, have been trying to offer wise comforting words. He wants to meet up so I am now on avoidance, so much easier than making polite conversation over lunch. I can only guess what his wife was saying to him at the end of her life, `she is a good catch, good company, she will look after you`. No thanks, I have accepted being alone and it is not all bad, not at all. Life moved on when I accepted that being alone was now a fact of life

Dad had been ill a long time and died during Christmas break, while some good friends were away. They never contacted Mum again ever.

Most of our friends we have made individually through our hobbies and interests, so most of our friends are personal to one of us and we would expect them to fall away when the person who knew them was no more.

Most of my friends are single, divorced, or widowed and it is a personal friendship that I would not expect to end when my DH died. The few friends we have that we know as couple are longstanding and almost family, one has been widowed and we certainly see her as regularly as ever.

In retirement my mother built a busy social network around her and my DF, who was not entirely socially adept. When she died, the group scooped him up and kept him in the loop. he taught himself to cook, watching Delia, and by the time he died 10 years later, no social occasion was complete without one of his trifles, Victoria sponges or meat loaves.

When I was widowed many years ago (I was only forty-one) I was afraid I would lose friends - I had read about the situation - but it didn’t happen. Most of my friends had been part of my life since well before I was married. On the whole we met as individuals, not couples. Husbands weren’t included. There was only one couple, friends of my husband, who were annoyingly persistent! I’m sure they thought they were doing the right thing, but I wished they would leave me alone. They were his friends, not mine.

My DH1 died when I was 40 and I’d like to offer another aspect to the situation. In the months afterwards 2 men made “advances” to me. One was a married male colleague with whom I had always been friendly. Worst of all the other was a good friend of DH1, also married and who was best man at our wedding! I found all this very distressing and lost a bit of respect for men. Fortunately that didn’t last long and I’ve been very happily married to DH2 for some time. Needless to say neither of those men are in my life now.

To add another aspect to the situation. Five years ago one of our oldest friends husband died - we have known her for almost 50 years. My husband and I did everything possible to support her, phone calls, invites and lunches out. After a couple of years she started to make hurtful comments to me - which I ignored for a long time. Then whenever I called it wasn't convenient to speak better to ring her 9pm - which I did next time - then she said it's better if you ring at 11am. We never had long conversations unless she felt the need to talk. Then she stopped sending us Birthday Greetings. I know she has made some new friends and we are very pleased for her. However, I am so sad that the support and years of friendship meant so little. She doesn't have any family at all and we considered ourselves her family. My only thoughts are that we have daughters and grandchildren and it was painful for her - although we didn't really speak much about them to her as she was never interested.

I have found that my oldest friends (female) have stayed loyal. More recent friends (made through work mainly) have disappeared. The main thing I noticed, though, was that friends who were originally my husband's (his school friends, work friends, etc) just disappeared. Not even a Christmas card.
It's pretty impossible being on your own among lots of couples, so I have had to make efforts to establish a new circle of aquaintances through various hobbies (all single women!) I do miss chatting to men, though!

aonk A friend's husband died recently. His closest friend made advances to my friend at the funeral.

Ours is slightly different MrOops best mates wife died suddenly last year, the funeral was late Summer and by October he was dating, he is now with a very young girl and we rarely see him, we feel that we lost them both when his wife died.
It’s disconcerting, we are trying to remain friends, but it’s difficult. There a few of us who were close to them both and they all feel the same as us.