DEAR DEIDRE: I saw on social media that my best friend’s husband has a new girlfriend. My friend only passed away in February.
I was devastated when she died. She was 52 and had a brain tumour. She died three months after her diagnosis, leaving us all in shock.
My partner and I are both 53 and we’ve been supporting her husband. We helped with the funeral arrangements and made a pact that we’d go out for dinner together regularly.
I don’t do social media but our daughter asked me whether I recognised my friend’s husband’s new girlfriend. He had stated that he was now ‘in a relationship’ with her.
It’s too soon. It’s as if he was seeing this girlfriend before my friend died.
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We are meeting him for lunch next week. How do we address the elephant in the room when he’s not mentioned this to us?
DEIDRE SAYS: It may feel too soon for you but people deal with grief in different ways.
He may have been looking to forget the sadness for a while and this new relationship has brought him just that - an escape from reality. My support pack called Coping With Bereavement explains more.
Go out to your planned lunch and if the opportunity arises, tell him that you understand he’s in a new relationship.
Explain that you’re looking forward to meeting her. It may be difficult for him to talk about this when you two were so close so paving the way for a conversation may offer him a way through.