Siobhan, I can relate. My STBX has never lost anyone to whom he was close, so deaths on my side of the family have been a crap shoot as to what his response was going to be.

A few years ago, when my grandmother lie in a hospital 800 miles away dying from a stroke, my stepmom said, "Your dad needs you now." I didn't spend a lot of time explaining to the STBX before I was packing the car. She died the next morning as I was putting the last minute items in my car.

The STBX gave me the cold shoulder. The day of the funeral, also my Dad's 60th birthday, I called after the graveside service and the STBX screamed at me as to how I'd abandoned him and our toddler.

The day after the funeral, I drove the 800 miles back. On the way into town, I called and made a reservation at a local hotel - to spend a few one-on-one hours JUST with the STBX to have some intimacy in a different setting. We couldn't necessarily afford it at the time, but I felt it was necessary after spending that time apart. Yeah, we were intimate, but within minutes of being done, he was yelling at me again for having left so abruptly for my grandmother's funeral.

I found his response to be so insensitive, and so selfish. It's not like you can PLAN ahead for death and dying. It's not like you can just tell the family that raised you to buzz off.

And I, like you, put my life on hold as my stepson lie in a head trauma ICU that same year. I put a major work project on hold for a week until we knew the kid was out of the woods. I put in 80 hours the week after in order to meet a deadline because of the time I'd missed. It was never enough. EVER.

Only YOU can do the inventory and assess whether you did the right thing for the right reasons. And it sounds to me like you did what a partner should do in times of tragedy, just as I felt did. Seemed no one saw, remembered or recollected whose arms were there to hold everyone else as they shed their own tears. Yet none were there for me. And I, too, was considered selfish to expect it.

Being on the back side of separation and downhill of divorce, I now have someone by my side who when the going gets tough, he doesn't say much, but extends both arms, expresses his appreciation for my mere presence, allows me to feel and cry my heart out if necessary, has an unwielding supply of hankies, and I know this is how it SHOULD be.

Let this be a moment of truth to you. You're better off without him.