How To Support Your Girlfriend Who’s Grieving The Loss Of A Loved One

How to support your girlfriend who’s grieving the loss of a loved one without overwhelming her.

In this video coaching newsletter I discuss an email from a viewer who’s grieving the loss of a loved one. He wants to offer emotional support without overwhelming her. Her sex drive is lower and he wants to be patient.

He wants to know what to do to help her through this and be the best partner possible. I tell him what to focus on. My comments are in bold italics like this below in the body of his email.

This particular email is from a guy who is in a relationship with his girlfriend, and she just had somebody really close to her pass away. She’s taking it pretty hard, and he wants to know what he can do to help her through her grief without overwhelming her. He also notes that her sex drive is lower and he wants to be patient. He’s like, “I want to be the best partner possible. What can I do?”

This is a good email because you don’t want to turn into an emotional tampon. You don’t want to become her therapist. Something I learned from Tony Robbins many years ago through the coaching that I did with him, I say that he did with myself and the rest of my platinum partners, and watching him use these techniques, there’s something called a pattern interrupt. If somebody is in a dis-empowering unresourceful state, like in this case, you have a woman that’s emotionally upset, she’s close to you, your girlfriend, your wife, whatever, she’s lost somebody close. The thing you got to remember, that I talk about in 3% Man, is whatever a woman feels when she’s with with you is what she associates with being with you. In this case, what is the formula? Hang out, have fun, hook up, right? Have fun being the key part. So even though your girl has had a tremendous loss, you want to focus on something that’s positive, that’s uplifting. If anything, you want to be an escape because what is she experiencing with her family? “Oh, sorry about your loss. Sorry about so and so.” They’re sending flowers. “Oh, how did it happen? Oh, I’m so sorry for you.” So most of her interactions are going to be negative and reminding her of the loss. If you’re her rock and her mound, obviously you want to listen to her if she wants to cry about it, or share something beautiful that happened.

Remember, what is the formula? Hang out, have fun, hook up. As a man, your job is to create an opportunity for sex to happen. The fun being the key part. So what’s going on if all this crap is going on in her life, she’s had a tremendous loss? You want to be the escape from that loss. If she’s doing nothing but feeling negative emotions with most of the people she’s interacting with, well the last thing she needs is you to be another whinge bag or be another Debbie Downer. So what you want to do is you want to do what’s called a pattern interrupt. You want to do something that’s unexpected, that’s fun, that takes her out of that negative mindset, so when she’s with you, she feels like being with you is a fun escape from the trauma or the loss that’s happened in her life. So the best thing that you can do is go and have some fun and do something fun together.

I’ll use an example that happened to myself one time with a girlfriend of mine. She had this dog that she was very close to, and it was like a child. She got the dog after she had lost somebody really close to her. We weren’t together anymore at this point, but she was seeing a new guy and she was hanging out at his house. What happened was he wasn’t on his leash, and he’s one of those rambunctious dogs that doesn’t listen. If he’s not on his leash, he thinks, “Hey, zoomies are OK.” So he goes running out in the street when a car is coming down the road making all this noise, and he gets run over and he got killed right in front of her. She’s dating a new guy, and maybe he didn’t understand dogs. Obviously, if I was there, I would have never allowed that shit. Even though it was her dog, it was my dog too, and it sucked.

What happened was he runs out in the street, gets ran over and pretty much dies right away. She tried to resuscitate him, she’s covered head to toe in his blood. It’s very traumatic. Just the worst thing ever. That had happened in the afternoon, and I wasn’t aware of it. I just sat down, it was around 6:00 with my parents that I hadn’t seen in many weeks, and I was looking forward to catching up with them. Then I see a text from a mutual friend of ours saying, “Hey, give me a call when you get a chance.” I was like, “Well, that’s weird. I don’t usually get texts from somebody like that at this time of day. OK…” So I called her up, and then she proceeds to tell me that our dog got run over and killed that morning, and I was like, “Oh, man.” That’s like, the worst fucking thing that could possibly have happened to her.

So the new guy, who had only been in her life I think for a few weeks at that point, he didn’t really know how important the dog was to her. I did, and I was worried about her. I was concerned about her. That was literally her child. The dog went everywhere with us. Every time we went somewhere, the dog came with us. We went traveling, the dog went with us. If we’re in the bathroom, he’s in the bathroom. He gets in the bed with us. He went everywhere. We go to the grocery store, he’s coming along in the grocery store. It was the greatest dog. Everybody loved him. So she loses this dog that had helped her get through a really difficult, traumatic time. Then she loses him in just a really gory, awful way. She’s got this new guy in her life. He was nice. He took care of the body and everything, but he didn’t know how important that dog was to her. I was worried about her. You know, I’m at dinner with my dad, and I was mortified. As I’m getting this message, I was like, “What the fuck happened? How could this happen?” My dad is like, “Well, I know it’s kind of horrible to say, but you can always get another dog.” It’s true.

I called her right afterwards and we talked. Obviously she was just totally distraught and upset because this was like her child. She lost the most important furball in the world to her. So I think it was the next day, I went and picked her up and we went to a place to check on some puppies because I personally thought it would be great to get a dog because she loves animals and a pattern interrupt is like, she’s experiencing the worst grief ever. What does she need more than anything? She’s needs puppies! So even though she wasn’t mine anymore, I knew how important a dog was to her. More than probably anybody in the world did.

So we went, and there’s one dog there that she just fell in love with. Then there was another one. It was a female from a different breeder, and I was like, “Well, let’s get to them. You can breed them, and then you could sell some of the puppies and make some money.” My goal was to get puppies into our hands and our arms as quickly as possible, to interrupt the pattern of negative thoughts and negative thinking, because it wasn’t just the loss of the dog, it was the loss of a family member that she’s being reminded of, and now, the one thing that helped her get through one of the most difficult times in her life is now gone in a really awful way. That happened right in front of her. He literally died in her arms, blood all over the place.

So we took the first puppy home. The other one, it was about a week, week and a half before we could take the other one home, and I just remember how it lit her up on the inside. It was a complete pattern interrupt. Of course, it wasn’t just good for her, it was good for her parents, her family. It’s like, dogs aere really cool. I remember, it was probably about a three, four weeks, maybe a month later, I remember she was petting the boy and she’s like, “Thank you for saving me,” and I thought it was one of the most beautiful things that I had ever seen, because I knew how important the old dog was to her. Even though you may think it’s silly or whatever, that little dog changed her life. Then she had the female and her just lit her up, and it just completely helped get her through a horrible time of grieving in her life, because she was too busy with puppies that were pissing and shitting all over the place at that point. Yeah, she was distraught and she had lots of cry sessions over the loss of her dog, but she was so busy cleaning up piss and shit from the new puppies, feeding them, taking care of them and doting on them that she didn’t have time to worry or to wallow in her sorrows, if you will. The puppies are pretty much all grown up.

Sometimes as a man, you got to do things like that. It’s like, you just got to step in and say, “What does she need? What do they need?” In that particular case, she needed puppies, and it was a good pattern interrupt, changed her state. That’s what you need to do. Same thing with the viewer, it’s a real short email, but he’s got to get her out of a negative state. He’s got to get her into experiencing happy emotions, because it’s beautiful, somebody that’s just absolutely distraught, then in this case, you give her a couple of puppies, completely changed their attitude, completely changed her state. She didn’t forget about the loss, but it made the loss as bearable as it could be versus not having any dog or not having any pets to take the place of this one that was so important to her. I mean, he was like her shadow. She literally went everywhere and he almost never got left behind or got left at home, unless maybe she would drop him off for me to take him for the day or her parents, because everybody loved that dog.

Sometimes you got to do those things. You know what somebody needs, you got to take care of them. In this particular case with the emailer, he needs to do something as a pattern interrupt to interrupt her grieving, and the best way to do that is by having some kind of fun that will get her mind off of things. Us guys, we think, “Oh, how do I help her? I’ve got to be there for her.” No, get her out of it. Change her state. Overwhelm her with love, fun, having a good time and laughter, because that’s going to be the best thing, because she’s going to have plenty of time to be by herself and grieve and things of that nature, or see a picture or see an old toy from the previous dog and have a cry about it. She doesn’t have time. I’m personally not happy about what happened with with our dog, and when I hear about the puppies pissing and shitting all over the dude’s house and his nice couch and carpet, yeah karma’s a bitch. He didn’t protect her dog. Didn’t keep him safe. So I kind of chuckle at that.

I know she’ll probably see this video and give me shit about it, but I don’t care. Hopefully the puppies left lots of stains and fucked his couch and his rugs up for the fact that he was an idiot. He was incompetent. To me, it’s common sense that you don’t take a dog outside and take it off a leash. If he would have been around dogs, understood dogs, he would have never allowed that, but that’s life. Shit happens and you got to find a way to get through it, and a pattern interrupt is one of the best techniques to do that. If someone’s crying and emotional and they’re freaking out, you got to do something that freaks them out, whether it’s yell, say something, say a shocking word or a shocking phrase. Oftentimes when I’m doing these videos and I say things and it’s like, “You’re being a bitch. You’re being a fucking pussy,” those are unexpected things.

I’m not saying it to insult the guy, I’m saying it as a pattern interrupt. Especially when a dude is displaying weak, unattractive behavior, because masculine energy grows through challenges. So what I’m doing is I’m challenging their manhood, and I’m also trying to emotionally negatively anchor them to a behavior that they need to move away from. If I can associate pain and nasty things with their behavior, the next time they feel inclined to do that negative behavior or that unresourceful thinking, or the way they act or behave, they’ll remember what I said and go, “Oh, that’s unattractive. That’s undesirable. I can’t do that.” So I’m strategic when I use the words that I use, because it’s very effective to work and to get somebody out of a resourceful state. A lot of times when I’m doing phone sessions with guys and they start telling me their story and what is going on, a lot of them will say, “Hey, if you think I’m being a total bitch Coach, or you think I’m being a pussy, please tell me. I got enough people in my life telling me, “Oh, it’s OK, you’ll be fine. If it’s meant to be, it’ll be.” It’s like, “I need somebody to be real with me. That’s why I hired you.”

Viewer Email:

Hi Corey,

I am writing to seek your advice on how to best support my girlfriend, who is currently grieving the loss of a loved one. I understand that this is a delicate time, and I want to be there for her in the most compassionate way possible.

Hang out, have fun, hook up, fuck her brains out, give her lots of happy endings and happy finishes. You got to go out and do something fun. You can’t sit around and sulk and go, “Oh, let me get your flowers. Let me make you a cake. Let’s just sit around and put some quiet music on and feel sad.” No, you want to get out and have a good time, because everybody else in her life is going to be bringing the negative, low energy vibes to her. Whereas you want to be the fun bus. You’re driving the fun bus, like I did with the puppies. I had to overwhelm my former girlfriend with puppies, love, puppy kisses, turds, piss and everything, bomb it and everything else that goes. Then them tearing up shit they shouldn’t tear up. It’s like, all the things that go along with puppies because it’s a pattern interrupt. It changes the state completely. Gets a person out.

You can’t stay stuck in a negative state when a dog is taking a shit on your nice rug because you don’t want it to, or diarrhea everywhere all over, like that happens too. So there was explosive diarrhea, diarrhea everywhere. You know, you got little puppies, those things are going to happen. The point being is that you change a person’s state by doing the unexpected. Especially in this case, when everybody is reinforcing the negative vibes, you’re bringing the positive vibes, you’re bringing the fun, you’re bringing the good times. That’s what you need to focus on.

How can I offer emotional support without overwhelming her?

Again, focus on hanging out, having fun and hooking up. Have a good time. That’s what you need to do. Interrupt her pattern of negativity.

How can I be patient and understanding as she processes her grief? (Especially since her sex drive is lower)

Again, hang out, have fun and hook up. If you’re out having a damn good time together, and she kind of forgets about the loss or what’s going on, she’s going to really appreciate what you are doing for getting her out of that, and she’ll become more frisky and more affectionate, because you’re her rock, you’re her mountain, you’re her daddy. That’s what you need to be sometimes, be her daddy.

Any specific actions or words that can be particularly comforting during this time?

Humor.

One of my best friends, when he found out that he had cancer and it was like a 15 pound tumor at the time, I was like, “God damn, dude! Why is it that everything in your life is like, go big or go home? You don’t just have a little tumor, you got a 15 fucking pound tumor! That is so you dude.” That’s what I said to him, when one of my good friends told me her had cancer. He had a 15 pound tumor that they were going to cut out of him! We laughed. We had a really good laugh, because what is, “Oh, I’m really sorry. I hope you make it?” We had a good laugh about it because what else are you going to do? Everybody else is making him feel like shit, and I was probably the only laugh he had the whole day, and I was breaking his balls about that. That’s the best thing. Again, a pattern interrupt.

What are some things to avoid that might inadvertently cause more pain?

Well, don’t be dwelling on it. Say you’re hanging out and she brings like, “Well, what was so and so’s favorite drink? Or favorite meal? Well, let’s celebrate their life. Let’s have a toast. Let’s do a fucking shot as well. Let’s get after it!” That’s what you want to do.

I appreciate your insights and any advice you can offer to help me be the best partner I can be during this challenging time.

Thank you so much for your time and guidance.

Best Regards,

Bob

Again, rock out with your cock out dude. Go have a damn good time. Maybe take her away for the weekend and go to a bed and breakfast or something like that, or maybe a staycation in your city, something that’s not too expensive. Anything you can do to change your state, change your surroundings and get her mind off of the negativity and back on having fun with you. That’s what you need to do, and you need to consistently do that, not wallow. If she says, “Oh, I’m feeling grief. Why don’t you be more understanding?” “Because we can’t do anything for your family member, but what we can do is be grateful that we knew them, that they loved us, and that we love them, and that they knew that we love them and celebrate their life. Let’s go have a drink, raise our glasses and toast their great life and all the blessings and the wonderful things that they brought into our life. Let’s go out and celebrate. I don’t want to sit around here like a slug in the couch and feel sorry for ourselves. Let’s get out and go have a good fucking time.”

Go get some puppies, go have a good time and live your life with her, and she will appreciate you and love you for that, and one day, when it’s long past, she’ll look back and go, “Man, he’s my rock, he’s my mountain. I was going through the worst time of my life, and he stepped in and kind of made it all better. Made it all go away. He knew exactly what to do and to say to make me feel better.” Think about that, because women care about how they feel about you, not what a great guy you are, or how much you can wallow in sorrow with them. Be the guy that changes the state, changes their mind and gets their mind off this horrible tragedy that just happened so you can move forward. They will appreciate you more for that than anything. Plus, beating up her pelvis and giving her lots of happy endings is the way to go.

So, if you’ve got a question or a challenge and you’d like to get my help, go to UnderstandingRelationships.com, click the Products tab at the top of your screen on any page, and book a coaching session with yours truly. Until next time, I will talk to you soon.