Someone close to your ex dies
If a close member of your ex’s family, or a friend you got to know while you were together, passes away, Amy Baglan, founder and CEO of MeetMindful, says there are a few ways you can handle it in order to show your respect — and showing up unannounced at the wake isn’t one. “If he tragically loses a loved one, it’s appropriate to send a card,” Baglan said. “Don’t text though. You don’t want to give him the impression that you’re available to chat regularly or are interested in rekindling the relationship.”
There’s a need for closure
Now, this is a tricky one. We all think we want closure — but, by closure, we usually mean: We want to pry open our ex’s heads and find out the real reason they were such humongous douchebags. Calling an old boyfriend in an attempt to figure out why the sparks fizzled is only going to disappoint you. On the other hand, psychotherapist and relationship coach Toni Coleman says some types of closure are important in order to carry on with life and have healthier future relationships. “A need for closure that is specific and reasonable,” Coleman specifies. “An example would be an abusive ex who has been working a program (such as AA) and wants to reach out and make an apology.”
If you lived together and/or have unresolved financial issues, it’s your responsibility as mature adults to communicate until you resolve those important matters, Coleman said. If your breakup was so bitter you can’t imagine sitting opposite your ex and feuding over how to handle a property you co-own, enlist the help of an objective third party.
More: How to really get over your ex
Your responsibility as good parents and role models for your children has to come first and there’s very little way to avoid having to speak to a co-parent, so the best thing to do is learn how to talk to each other. Marriage and family therapist Christina Berdebes tells clients to keep five simple rules in mind when contacting an ex: Be clear of your goal in the conversation, prepare yourself so that you don’t steer away from your goal the minute you hear an ex’s voice, have a piece of paper ready with points you want to cover in your conversation, make arrangements ahead of time to call a friend right after so you can vent and get support and remember the plans you’ve made to move on from the relationship.
The safe initial reaction to the news
Start by offering one of the simple phrases that we suggest saying to all who are grieving, “I’m sorry for your loss” or “my condolences.”
It’s always hard to say the right thing after a death, but of all the benign things to say, these two are the safest. Even if you never met the pet, this fail-proof phrase is a simple acknowledgement of the pain the friend/colleague/sobbing stranger next to you on a park bench is feeling.
If the grieving person wants to talk about it with you, and you have no idea what to say, just listen.
Remember Thumper’s advice in Bambi: “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all.” Even if you can’t relate or think the person is overreacting, it’s important that you keep these feelings to yourself. You’re there to lend support and help.
Also, don’t bring up your own experience of pet loss, or how you would feel if your pet passed, because that can belittle their current pain and make it feel like a grief competition. This is about them, so the best thing you can do is lend a sympathetic ear.
Why losing a dog feels like losing a family member
I never had a pet growing up. Not even a goldfish. So when my then-husband suggested I adopt an ASPCA kitten from a work event I was attending while he was toiling away at the office late one night back in 1999, I hesitantly agreed. A few hours later, I was on my way home with our first “baby.”
And baby he was, especially as his love and companionship helped bring me back from a bout of depression I suffered after miscarrying my first pregnancy at 11 weeks.
When I did eventually become a mother for the first time a little over a year later, the cat was already an integral part of our family.
He died unexpectedly at the age of three while I was pregnant with my second daughter, and I vowed never again to own another pet. Losing an animal, especially one I loved so dearly and who was closely associated with a trauma in my life, was something I never wanted to experience again.
It was on a weekend visit to a pet store with our baby girls strapped wide-eyed into their double stroller, unwitting accessories to what was about to happen, that a store clerk directed us to a cage housing a Ragdoll kitten inside.
The store clerk complicitly handed the kitten to my husband, who introduced the frightened animal to our young girls.
When I did, that tiny kitten looked directly at me. Right then, I knew he was ours.
Almost two weeks ago, more than 13 years later, I found myself driving that same little guy, our Louie, from one hospital to another, the second of which would be better equipped to offer him the emergency care he needed.
For the duration of the 40-minute drive, he lay next to me in my eldest daughter’s arms, wrapped in a blanket. Midway through the trip, I caught him out of the corner of my eye, arching his head back toward me.
“What is he doing?” I asked my daughter as I continued to focus on the road.
I glanced over and immediately met his upside down stare. The look we exchanged was the same as on the day we first met.
We are each grieving in our own way for the loss of our beloved pet, family member, friend, and confidante.
But, for me, there is something more — the loss of yet another connection to life before my divorce.
Louie grew up with our family. When he was young, he traveled to Hong Kong and lived with us there for three years, and was just as much a part of the welcoming committee as my daughters were when my husband and I brought our son home from the hospital for the first time.
For years, Louie remained my three children’s playmate, suffering through countless costume changes and photo shoots, as well as endless and not always so gentle hugs and kisses. He was a good sport throughout and my guess is loved (almost) every minute of it.
Louie grew up with me as well as I began my new life as a divorced, single parent, never letting me sleep alone, not once, while my kids were away with their dad or allowing me to sit by myself on the couch watching TV. He helped fill what I at one time believed was an unfillable void in my life.
When Louie got sick, I was willing to go to extreme measures (and expense) to save him. My ex-husband, not so much. It was clear he had long since moved on — from me, from Louie, from our life together — and advised I put the cat down without a fight.
As Louie fought to come home, first surviving a risky procedure only to face new complications afterward, emotions ran high. So, too, did the medical bill.
We made the decision as a family. Secretly, I hoped the children would be the excuse I needed to prolong his life. They weren’t. They were the rational ones, refusing to let Louie suffer any longer than he needed to.
The loss of Louie, of our family pet, as devastating as it is, is a gentle reminder that there eventually comes a point when we must let go of our past. As I have learned over the last few years since my separation, letting go comes piecemeal, and does not necessarily become any easier even with the passage time.
In the days following Louie’s death, I suggested to my children we welcome another cat into our lives one day.
They responded in very much the same way as I had so many years ago, telling me they do not want another pet.
If, as I suspect, I am met with resistance down the road, I know exactly what I will say: “Just hold him.”
I was a typical (yet still fabulous) SUV-driving suburban Jewish housewife. Although I graduated from a large national law school, I worked for all of one minute (not as a lawyer), and made the choice early on to stay home and raise my family while my husband built his career as a successful M&A lawyer.
Fast-forward 16 years. While I was busy polishing the granite and stainless steel appliances, competing with myself to be a more ethnic version of Martha Stewart, and running my three… Read More