This Woman Uninvited Her Brother To Dinner Because His Grief Was Making People Uncomfortable. Was She Wrong?

Grief is one of those things that everyone experiences differently, but also that cannot be truly explained until you have felt the full force of it yourself.

We can assume from this post that OP has not lost anyone very close to her yet, because she and her husband are super uncomfortable with the way her brother is acting after losing his wife two moths previous.

She states that he spent a couple of weeks alone but then began to accept dinner invitations from family, as they typically gathered once a week for a meal.

Whenever someone at dinner mentions his wife, though, he breaks down and sobs.

My F29 brother’s wife passed away recently from cancer about 8 weeks ago. He isolated himself from everyone for 2 weeks.

Mom and dad were so worried about him and so they started inviting him to family events at their house. he agrees to come but then at some point, someone mentions his wife even just her name and he begins to sob.

I’m not exaggerating… As a result, dinner get awkward, and whatever event is being hosted gets interrupted.

According to OP’s husband this makes everyone else uncomfortable and wanting to escape, so he thought it would be the “nice” thing to do to un-invite him to dinner when it was their turn to host.

This happened 3 times already. Last weekend was my turn to host dinner. Ngl my husband and I were worried same thing will happen again. My husband said it’d be almost impossible that no one will mention my brother’s wife at some point.

So he suggested I let my brother sit this one out. In other words, just let him stay home and get the space he needs.

Her brother was taken aback, her parents thinks she (and her husband) are horrible, but OP is acting as if she’s confused as to why.

I considered the idea then called my brother and apologized to him for cancelling his invite. he wasn’t happy about it which was surprising to me because I thought he was basically forced to attend those events.

My parents found out and went off on me calling my behavior disgraceful and saying that I was unsupportive and unfeeling to what my brother’s going through to exclude him like that.

I explained why I thought this was the best option but they claimed that I took away the comfort and support that my brother gets from the people around him.

They said that I was selfish and have no regard for my brother’s loss but I 100% do. my husband said that my parents obviously don’t care about guests being uncomfortable watching my brother sob at every event and causing it to be cut short like that.

They’re still pretty much mad at me and demanding I apologize to my brother because I hurt his feelings.

I can only assume Reddit is about to set her straight…

The top comment points out that, for pretty much anyone, eight weeks would not be enough time to get over this loss.