Heavily grieving the loss of my beloved Grandmother, and my partner hasn’t been very available

[Bee1998]

I lost my Grandmother one week ago, on the 9th of May. 
She had been diagnosed with bowel cancer about a year and a half ago, and two weeks ago, she fell over on the tiles at home and hit her head. She was admitted into hospital, with bleeding to the brain. Only a few days later, she passed away suddenly while in hospital. 

This has been the hardest loss that I have experienced by far. 

I was crying and worrying about my Grandma passing since I was a child, for my entire childhood. 
I am now 26, and it has been so difficult time in my life. 

My grandma wasn’t just a grandma, she was my absolute everything. She was the person who guided me through my entire life. She was my teacher, my parent (she practically raised me, as my mum was abusive, and my father was absent), she was my superhero, and the superglue to our entire family. She was my best friend.

I went to see her in hospital the day of her passing. This was the first time I had seen anyone deceased, and it was an intense moment for me. 

For the entire week after she passed, I couldn’t stop crying. I would wake up early every morning, and the minute it sunk in again that she was gone, I would burst into tears. 

I live with my partner, and I have felt as though he hasn’t been overly supportive of me during this extremely sensitive and difficult time for me.

He was supportive in the fact that he came with me to visit my Grandma on the day of her passing, but since then, I haven’t felt any form of love from him. 

Every day, he has been very distant. He hasn’t been spending any time with me (apart from going to buy groceries). 
He just sits in a seperate room and plays chess. 
I also haven’t felt any love from him. He hasn’t been affectionate in any way. 

Also, just two days after my Grandma’s passing, he was asking about sex. 
And the days following, he was asking me to perform sexual acts on him, despite knowing / seeing how heavily I had been grieving. 

We were also meant to be going to Rhode Island in America together at the end of June this year, as he needs to go for work, and invited me to come with him. 
I have never been overseas, and was looking forward to going with him. 
Just yesterday, he mentioned that it might be best for him to go alone (given the circumstances). I found this odd, because shouldn’t it be my choice whether I feel up to going or not? This has brought a lot of mixed feelings and anxiety for me, as he cheated on me during his last work trip to the United States. 

[therising]

Hi Bee1998

I feel for you so deeply, I truly do. The way you describe your grandmother is so loving, so heartfelt and so soulful. I can only imagine how hard it is for you to see in the dark right now, without your guiding light. I'm glad you've come here looking for some type of guidance and light, to help you find your way forward during such a heartbreaking time.

I think the toughest of circumstances will help reveal the nature of people. Right now you will be experiencing your true nature, the nature of someone who can feel and love so deeply and so soulfully, to the point where it hurts. In your partner you may find his true nature or at least the nature he possesses maybe without the ability or desire to change. Lack of ability and lack of desire are of course 2 different things. For example, if he's on the autism spectrum, he may not have the ability to feel deep emotion or feel for others. On the other hand, if there's simply no desire or a sense of the need to develop the ability to feel, that's a whole other story and something worth questioning.

When it comes to love, I've found that defining it in a way that feels relatable made all the difference to me. I stopped defining myself as 'broken' if I couldn't feel love. Why can I or can't I feel love from someone? My definition has come to be 'Love is found in evolution'. If I can feel someone leading me to evolve through and beyond a challenge, especially a depressing or potentially depressing challenge, I can feel them loving me to life or back to life. To offer a couple of examples

• While my husband often proclaims he loves me and hugs me a lot while telling me, there are times where he'll ask me how I am. On occasion, when I've responded with, 'I can feel myself becoming depressed', his response has typically been 'I hate to hear that. It upsets me because I love you so much'. Then he'll walk off because he's upset about how upset I am. He doesn't help me make sense of my feelings or help me evolve through and beyond them in any way. He leaves me alone to feel the way I do. I do not feel love in such cases
• My 18yo son and 21yo daughter will sense when I'm down. They don't even have to ask if I'm okay. They can naturally feel for me. Either or both will sit with me and help me make sense of what I'm feeling, leading me to much needed revelations. At times my son will lead me to laughter, based on the fact he's a natural comedian who knows when I need a laugh. And at times my daughter will be all about tough love, 'Get off the couch, NOW! We're going out!'. I feel deeply loved by them. I can feel how much they love me. For me, love is not a noun, it is an action word. The act of leading someone to talk things out or the act of leading someone to laughter or the act of leading someone to leave a depressing environment are loving acts that can make a difference. They're the acts of great leaders or guides, such as your grandmother. Whether your partner's all about wanting intimacy for himself or he's looking to lead you to feel differently through the act of sex (as a resource for feeling a difference), these are 2 different things

I could be wrong but I imagine you to be an intuitive person. If you are, something will be leading you to ask questions of your partner. How he answers them will prove telling to some degree. Personally, I wouldn't settle for 'I don't know' or 'I don't want to talk about it'. These are 2 of my husband's 'go to' responses which tend to aggravate me. They reflect a lack of responsibility (aka 'response ability'). When you need answers, don't settle for anything less than valid answers. Btw, this can kinda look like fighting (to get valid answers). You may be accused of being 'difficult' or something along those lines. If you need answers that help shed light, seek them.