The Manifestation of Grief
Dear Prudence had a question this week from a man fed up with his wife’s attachment to a new stuffed animal following a stillbirth, a neonatal death, and a miscarriage. Yes, you are reading that correctly—three losses. He writes: “She never slept with a stuffed animal before. She doesn’t bring it in public or around anyone else, so it’s not embarrassing in that way—but I just think it’s childish and weird.”
He has asked her to get rid of it but admits: “She insists that for some reason she can’t even articulate that it brings her comfort and is a ‘baby that she’ll never have to bury’.”
Her response gutted me because I identified with it. Grief doesn’t always manifest as crying, and acknowledging that people express grief in a multitude of ways is the first step in comforting someone while they’re grieving.
Prudie put the question asker in his place when he said he threw out the stuffed animal, stating: “I hope this is an out-of-character moment of coldness for you, and not an indicator of your general approach to your wife’s suffering.”
And… yes… he is completely out of line. But that is why Prudie should have looped back to that original point: everyone grieves differently, and I think this man’s obsession with the stuffed animal is his way of expressing grief by fixating on something he thinks he should be able to control. He can’t control family building, so he goes for something else connected to it—his wife’s attachment to the stuffed animal. She holds onto a stuffed animal for comfort after the losses; he lashes out—even at loved ones—in anger after the losses. One person’s expression is only about herself. One person’s expression unfortunately affects the people around him.
I’m not excusing his behaviour. We need to own when our emotions impact people around us. But I am trying to extend a little of that understanding to him because he writes that he is in pain. And without knowing the inside of his brain, how can I possibly state what is coldness and what is a terrible manifestation of his grief? I’m choosing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
What do you think?
5 comments
It would have been good for her to bring up that he is also affected by those losses. It was a cruel act, but probably motivated by his own desire to just bury the pain and move on.
Throwing away her stuffed animal seems unnecessarily cruel. There is nothing wrong with something like this if it brings her comfort and isn’t interfering in her daily life or their marriage.
I don’t often agree with advice given by the current Prudence, but I echo the thoughts about hoping this act was not an indicator of his general approach to his wife’s suffering. Yikes.
I read that column earlier this week and immediately thought, well good thing this guy doesn’t know about MY stuffed animal hahaha. But yeah, I thought what he did was extremely mean. It’s kind of you to extend compassion to him and recognize that his anger might be his grief. That helps me be more compassionate. Thank you.
This was a very astute observation. He probably felt like he was being stabbed every time he saw the stuffed animal. Both people matter.
I guess this falls under “hurt people hurt people.” I feel far more for the wife who needed a representation of a baby she didn’t have to bury (ooof), butt it’s good if you too point out that he was acting (horridly misguidedly) out of grief, too. A good reminder of empathy, even though he showed very little.