A mother of two young children has been forced to remind her sister that losing a dog is not the same as grieving for a husband.
In her Reddit post, user smybsker explained that she lost her husband a month ago: “I’m still grieving and I miss him every day. I have to take medication for depression and anxiety to help me get through the day.”
Shortly afterwards, the widow wrote, her sister’s beloved dog got put down. “She called me as soon as it happened and said I was the only sibling who would understand her pain,” she added. “I didn’t mind, honestly I just wanted to comfort her since her dog meant the world to her. She held a wake for him and our whole family attended. It was a nice service… But now, she’s comparing our losses.”
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Clinical psychologist Dr. Chloe Carmichael, Ph.D, told Newsweek about the delicate family situation. “The writer is demonstrating incredible maturity by recognizing that her sister just doesn’t seem able to grasp the obvious difference between a husband and a dog,” Carmichael said. “Not only are we talking about the difference between a person and an animal, but specifically, she lost a person who was a committed life partner and co-parent.
“Especially in the profound stages of grief while mourning her husband, the writer’s decision to simply take some space from her sister for now with a plan of reuniting at a later time is a beautiful solution,” Carmichael added. “I applaud the writer for not getting stuck in black-and-white thinking, where she feels she must either accommodate her sister or become mired in conflict. Instead, she has chosen a nuanced solution of expressing herself and then being willing to allow some space while she and her sister both come to terms with their separate losses.”
The grieving woman wrote that her sister has told her she knows exactly what she’s going through, and “she calls me asking if we should go visit graves together…she goes three times a day.”
The poster revealed that, after telling her sister that a dog is not the same as a husband, “she’s upset and refusing to talk to me now…A dog is not the same as a husband. A dog can’t love you back like a husband can. A dog can’t read to your children like a husband can. A dog can’t make soup when you’re ill like a husband can.”
Despite the fact that a dog and a husband are not comparable, the poster wrote she is still unsure whether she is in the wrong. “It’s really hard for me right now to discern when I’m being condescending or not. Idk [I don’t know] if it’s a side effect of my medication, or if the empathetic part of my brain has shut down. But I really am getting tired of her comparing our pain when she lost her dog and I lost my world. At the very least, she still has her husband.”
In an update, the poster explained that she loves her sister and understands why she is upset and plans to reconcile. But, for now, she wrote, “perhaps it’s safer for our relationship that we keep a distance. We’re just too different when we grieve. It’s not compatible. But that doesn’t mean I don’t care about what she’s going through.”
“A spouse’s death is very traumatic. In addition to the severe emotional shock, the death may cause a potential financial crisis if the spouse was the family’s main income source. The death may necessitate major social adjustments requiring the surviving spouse to parent alone, adjust to single life and maybe even return to work,” according to nonprofit Mental Health America.
Reddit users voted that the poster was not at fault in this situation. One wrote of the sister: “She can want comfort, but she should get it from anyone else but the sister who just lost her husband.”
Another posted that “she lost a dog whilst she cared for her pet it was just that a pet. Losing a dog doesn’t leave you worrying about paying the mortgage, how to care for your children etc. Yes she has grief but people need to stop comparing animals with humans.”
Newsweek has reached out to smybsker via Reddit for comment.
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