Your loss deserves to be acknowledged, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith. If your family are not providing you with this, find ways to mark it without them
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I’m a 50-year-old gay man. My partner, who I was with for 21 years, died suddenly 10 years ago. My family have all but ignored the anniversary of my partner’s death since it happened. My father died the year after my partner and I always send my mother a card or flowers on their anniversary, and ring to check in on his death day and birthday. With it being a decade since I woke up to find my partner dead, I thought that my family would at least send a text or call. There was a total silence.
I feel if I had married a woman and been with her for 21 years, or indeed had children with her, then my family would behave very differently. My mother is constantly asking me to order flowers in remembrance of friends of hers whose husbands have died, including on the anniversary of my partner’s death last year. She ignored the date and asked me to order some flowers to remember the date of a friend’s husband who died. I pulled her up about it last year and had thought with it being a decade, that this year may be different. I brought it up on our family chat. They have not replied.
