No death is easy, but when it comes as a shock things can feel even harder to get your head around. And it doesn’t matter whether they were young or old, sick or healthy – when someone you care about passes away, the grief can be overwhelming and disorientating, leaving you with no clue where to turn.

Some people cope with the grief by putting all their efforts into arranging a funeral special enough to honour their lost loved ones; others try to carry on with their lives, pushing down the grief and trying to go on as normal. Probably the healthiest approach is talking through all your feelings, talking about the deceased, sharing memories and stories – with those who did and didn’t know them. But this isn’t possible for everyone, and others might feel too raw to do so – and that’s okay.

But if you’ve got a loving partner, family or friends by your side, you will get through all those big, heavy feelings in time – and with the support and listening ear of your loved ones, things should feel at least a little easier to navigate.

The woman in this story has a husband by her side – but unfortunately for her, he doesn’t seem to have figured out the whole ‘supporting your spouse in hard times’ part of marriage.

Read on to find out what happened here.

AITA for expecting my husband to stay with me after my grandmother died?

I’m a 28-year-old woman, and my grandmother passed away recently – and I’m struggling with whether my expectations of my husband were unreasonable.

Around noon, my father called to tell me that my grandmother had died. I immediately took off and went to my parents’ house.

My husband (28, male) happened to be off work that day.

He asked if I wanted him to come with me, and I said yes, of course I would appreciate the support.

Let’s see how things were at her parents’ house.

At my parents’ house, while my family and I were choosing my grandmother’s clothes for cremation and selecting a photo for the funeral bookmarks, he spent time coloring and playing guitar.

Later, my mother asked everyone whether they had any scheduling conflicts so we could choose a funeral date.

Everyone said they would cancel whatever plans they had if necessary, except my husband. He said if he happened to be working, he simply wouldn’t attend because he didn’t need to be there.

At one point while I was making dinner for everyone, he asked if we had plans that evening. I said no, since we were taking things as they came. He replied that in that case, he would go watch the hockey game at his brother’s house.

Read on to find out how she reacted to that.

Before my grandmother died, we had already planned to spend that evening together, so he wasn’t canceling any existing plans to stay with me.

I was in shock and overwhelmed, so I just said, “If that’s what you want to do, then go ahead.” I asked him to drive me home before going to his brother’s place.

Once we were in the car, I started crying.

He asked what was wrong, and I told him that my grandmother had just died and that despite the circumstances, he seemed more interested in having fun than supporting me.

But his response just made things worse.

He replied, “You told me I could go. It’s not my problem if you can’t stand up for yourself.”

I admit that I did tell him he could go, but I also feel like I shouldn’t have had to explicitly ask my husband to stay with me after my grandmother died.

Am I wrong for being upset and expecting him to stay with me after my grandmother died?

AITA?

Sure, she told him he could go – but she should never have been put in that position to begin with.

It’s clear that, beyond asking if she wanted him to come to her parents’ house, he showed very little empathy for his wife in her time of need.

To abandon his grieving wife to go watch a hockey game – which was not even pre-planned – is shocking behaviour.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a woman who stirred up family drama by finally choosing her own mom over her in-laws.

Let’s see what folks on Reddit made of this.

This person was shocked by how little her husband seemed to care.

While others thought the least he could do was pretend to care.

Meanwhile, this Redditor called out her husband’s neglectful behaviour and abusive words.

When your spouse is grieving, there’s an unwritten agreement that you’ll do your best to be there for them. Sure, you might not know what they want or need – they might not themselves know what they want or need – but the very fact that you’re by their side will be a comfort in itself. However, it feels like this poor woman’s husband thought he’d ticked the box and fulfilled his duty by accompanying her to her parents’ house – and then being no use at all while he was there – and now that’s done, he can just go have fun.

He clearly has no emotional intelligence at all to see that things aren’t just better now, and his wife needs him more than ever. But it seems like a hockey game is more important. As it is, he did give her a choice – or the semblance of a choice, anyway. Because she was likely so shocked at his callousness that she just agreed, because it would have been more exhausting not to. It’s a shame she’s only finding out now that her husband is not husband material.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a middle schooler who was totally frazzled after being left to babysit alone for 3-plus hours, and swears she’s never doing it again.