Anita,

You’re absolutely right about her son, and I have regularly maintained that that attitude didn’t at all help his situation. I am not like my ex-partner’s mother; I don’t share many of her beliefs and values, so I wouldn’t really try to defend her. I do think though that in most instances it has been a case of mistaking and misinterpreting the situation, rather than actively seeking out a poor outcome. I guess this seems like the most obvious thing in the world to say, but I do feel it provides clarity – there is no way ever that her mother wanted her son to take his own life. What happened was a very unfortunate tragedy, that admittedly may have been encouraged by an ignorant attitude towards his depression.

It is very difficult currently to know where my ex-partner is emotionally due to me being unable to contact her much. I haven’t brought it up with her, but she still has me blocked from social media accounts and only very occasionally there’s a few text messages exchanged. Last we spoke I mentioned that I was struggling with the miscarriage now that I had allowed myself time to grieve instead of supporting, and her attitude was basically that she’s trying not to think about it too much. I get the sense that she is either trying to block it out or she has something holding her back from talking to me and letting me back in. If she is simply trying to ignore it then to be honest I am fearful for her, but there isn’t really much I can do – I told her that I believe in her and have faith in her, but she didn’t reply. She told me during the conversation that she’s fine, and that I should stop worrying, but that’s the only time she’s come across like that – previously she’s accepted that she was struggling. It’s just very difficult to interpret. So in terms of how she’s doing emotionally, I don’t really know. There may be evidence I’m missing, but all the signs would indicate that she’s finding it hard whereas her voice is saying she’s okay; that’s not uncommon anyway when people go through hard times, but I’m worried that she may be blocking things out because she knows she isn’t going to get much sympathy at home. Again, I realise there’s nothing I can do, but it doesn’t stop me being concerned.

I think her mother would do well to be more sympathetic and empathetic, but I don’t really think she’s uncaring. I think her way of caring is very different to mine, for example, and it doesn’t always help, but it is her way of attempting to care.

I would point out that there’s one more piece to the puzzle that I’ve been keeping to myself, mostly because I didn’t really want anybody to think less of the girl I loved. The truth, though, is that she did admit to me after returning from holiday that she had cheated on me with her ex-partner. According to her, she had gone to his house from home one night after drinking heavily and they had sex, and that was that. She told me and it took me a long time to process, a good week really. I was a little ‘off’ for the first few days of that week, explained to her that I was struggling with intimacy and the like but eventually we found our way through. She was in floods of tears after telling me and was clearly very distressed, which absolutely doesn’t excuse her actions but at least proved to me that she was only really telling me because she wanted to salvage what we had. If she didn’t care, she’d have simply kept me in the dark and went back to him I imagine. I eventually got into a headspace where I found the heart to forgive her, despite the betrayal, and she insisted to me that she would ‘make having her at my side worthwhile’. It wasn’t long after this that she removed her ex-partner from her life completely and didn’t speak to him, but since our separation I do know that she’s back in contact with him. That is probably the only reason I’m drawing any anger or resentment at the minute, because after the way he treated her previously, and the distress it clearly caused her to have him around (at least to some extent), I feel a bit betrayed that he now has the right to be her friend and be chatting away etc. but I don’t. I hope it doesn’t really mean anything, but I don’t know what to think about that part. If she has gone back to him, and all of her family and everybody haven’t said a word to me and have been backing up the ‘she needs time to be alone’ stuff, then that would probably crush me. I could find a way through it, but it would feel very cruel. Does any of that even bear thinking about at this point? I’ve been very careful not to react to it in any way. When my ex came to my house less than 2 weeks ago we actually had a laugh at his expense, and made fun of some of his less-desirable, abusive qualities he showed post-breakup to kind of lighten the mood.

As I’m sure you can tell anyway, the lack of clarity is the main thing that’s driving me insane, and I still don’t understand why she won’t speak to me. I know that she’s not apathetic towards me, and I can be pretty sure she doesn’t hate me given that she spent time with me and shared cuddles with me when she came to collect her things, so why? It could be guilt, or it could be a defence mechanism against falling back into a relationship with me; other possibilities do exist. It’s hard because not knowing why means I don’t really know how to treat the situation, so I have to leave her alone, but that genuinely makes me quite concerned for her well-being. I don’t know that there’s a way for me to allay that fear currently.