“Am I being crazy or selfish?”
Dear Stephen,
I stumbled upon your website while searching the internet for advice and found your replies to others’ questions very interesting and helpful. I have been in a relationship with my girlfriend for about a year. She’s been dealing with a death in the family recently, and I have tried to be supportive, wanting to have a relationship and get to know this woman while respecting the ups and downs of her family situation. I know the past few months have been a blur for her and she feels emotionally scattered. When I had a birthday recently, she gave me a sweet card and apologized for not getting me anything because she couldn’t think or plan anything during this tough time for her family. So I planned my own day and had a lovely time. Then, a few weeks later she told me she was looking for something for me for my birthday. This weekend we celebrated our anniversary and she drove us to a friend’s house and we had a lovely time. I planned meals and food for us because she felt she couldn’t plan anything yet since she was still coping with family problems. But then, during the weekend, we missed a mutual friend’s birthday and my partner wanted to make it up to her by planning a fancy birthday dinner with lots of courses. I started feeling angry and annoyed and jealous (and even more petty) that my partner wanted to do something special for a friend without having planned something special for us. Yes, for our anniversary she did drive us to a friend’s house, but I felt that I planned the whole thing and have been planning things for her for months. And the first time she is capable of planning something, I feel hurt because it’s not for me. Am I being crazy or selfish? Really petty? I’m trying to be understanding of my partner’s grief, but I am struggling to communicate (and to weigh) my own needs in the relationship. I would appreciate any advice.
–Trying to Be Supportive
Dear Trying,
If your partner is dealing with a death in the family, then you’re right to give her some latitude. A friend of mine has a good rule of thumb: depending on how significant the death is, the grieving person can reasonably expect to be out of sorts for up to a year. Though I am not Jewish, I appreciate the Jewish wisdom of a one-year grieving process (discussed here). We’re too quick in our culture to paper over our feelings and move forward, as if bereavement can really be wrapped up in a matter of days or weeks.
Having said that, your partner does not get a free pass out of behaving ethically in her relationships, and you do not need to suspend your own thoughts and feelings for a year. You get to feel resentful. I say this first of all because if you do feel resentful, there’s not much you can do about that. Feelings are like the weather: they come over you. You can control how you handle your feelings, but the feelings themselves just happen. It sounds like you feel resentful because your partner took a pass on your birthday (for the most part) and then decided to order up a full birthday special for your friend. This is not something you need to swallow.
You might want to have a sit-down with your partner. Tell her, first of all, that you understand that the grieving process is a serious thing, and that her grief honors the family member who died. Tell her you want to be supportive, and you understand that she’s been unable to do the usual “relationshippy” things, like planning a special birthday experience for you. You could even ask her if there’s anything further you could do (or not do) to help her during this time. And then tell her that for the sake of your relationship, you need to let her know that you were taken aback when she said she wanted to plan an event for your friend. Tell her you really struggled with this because you don’t want to sound petty, but you couldn’t help feeling stung by it.
It’s normal for couples to avoid these kinds of conversations. You don’t want to sound petty, or you don’t want to overburden the relationship with discussions about your expectations. But if you’re approaching your partner from a mature, sensitive, yet self-confident stance, she’ll most likely notice that. If you really don’t think you’re being petty, then you will effectively communicate to her that you love her, support her, and also expect your propers as her partner.
Someone I know said it this way to her partner: “If I’m your partner, then when the plane is going down, it’s my hand you’re holding.” It sounds like you want this kind of relationship—a relationship where each of you is #1 in the eyes of the other. Even if your partner is grieving, it’s not petty or crazy or selfish to ask for this.
