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    "original_url": "https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/09\/24\/well\/mind\/suicide-secrecy-partner-loss.html?emc=edit_hh_20260925&nl=well&segment_id=227037",
    "parsed_content": "AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTSupported bySKIP ADVERTISEMENTAsk the TherapistMy Partner Died by Suicide. What Should I Tell People?Our Ask the Therapist columnist, Lori Gottlieb, advises a reader who believes her partner\u2019s family secrets may have contributed to his death.Listen \u00b7 7:35 min Share full articleCredit...Marta MonteiroBy Lori GottliebLori Gottlieb, a psychotherapist and best-selling author of a memoir about her work as a therapist, offers readers advice on life\u2019s tough questions.Sept. 24, 2026, 5:01 a.m. ETSee more of our coverage in your search results.Encuentra m\u00e1s de nuestra cobertura en los resultados de b\u00fasqueda. Add The New York Times on GoogleAgrega The New York Times en Google One year ago, my live-in life partner ended his life. I had no prior warning, no idea of what he had been planning. I am forever grateful to him for doing this in a hotel room far from our home. At the time, I was out of the country on a business trip. I miss him daily, and I will love him and honor his memory for the rest of my days.I only learned of his last days after his death. All a very tragic case of undiagnosed mental illness and a family\u2019s choice of avoiding small-town stigma rather than \u201couting\u201d a history of multi-generational mental illness rooted in the trauma of physical abuse and neglect. Since then, I\u2019ve studied adult autism, borderline personality disorder, genetics and childhood trauma.In his elitist WASP-y community, each generation taught by example that such topics were never to leave the house. Because we were not married, his family had control and his ashes were buried quietly with almost no attendees, no funeral, no obituary and only a brief death notice.My question is: How do I answer, \u201cWhat happened to your partner?\u201d Or worse, \u201cHow did your last relationship end?\u201dAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTI need to learn how to reply without tears, oversharing or expressing anger toward his family.From the Therapist: I\u2019m so sorry that you lost your partner, and that added to your grieving is the task of considering how to explain his death to others. Suicide is a particular kind of loss \u2014 different from, say, one resulting from a car crash or heart attack or cancer. Instead, it\u2019s filled with unanswered and often unanswerable questions, along with ongoing societal stigma, which makes both the grieving and the telling all the more complicated.You have spent the past year searching \u2014 through your partner\u2019s family history, childhood, possible diagnoses and the circumstances of his last days \u2014 trying to understand how the person you loved arrived at a place you couldn\u2019t foresee. Your need for answers makes sense, but I want you to allow for the possibility that there\u2019s a gap between what you learned and what you can fully know. Human beings are complicated, and it\u2019s difficult to be certain of all the reasons someone dies by suicide.I point this out because the more room you leave for this uncertainty, the less pressure you might feel to \u201cexplain\u201d to others what happened and instead focus on what you say is most important to you: honoring his memory. This means telling the truth, but in a way that prioritizes your comfort and allows for him to be remembered as a whole person, rather than reduced to the circumstances of his death.Of course, your answer will be different depending on who\u2019s asking, and it might help to have some responses teed up so you don\u2019t feel caught off guard in the moment.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTTo a person you don\u2019t know well, think about what you would say if your partner had died of a heart attack. Maybe it would be, \u201cLast year, he died unexpectedly\u201d and you\u2019d leave it at that. Or maybe you\u2019d say, \u201cLast year, he had a heart attack and died.\u201d If your instinct would be to include the cause of death in any other circumstance, then include it in your response now. \u201cLast year, he died by suicide. I miss him so much and I\u2019m working through this.\u201dIf someone has follow-up questions, remember that you don\u2019t owe anyone every detail. Was he depressed? Did you know? How did it happen? If you feel like answering, do so. If you don\u2019t, you can say, \u201cThis has been hard and I\u2019d rather not go into that, but thank you for asking about him.\u201dWith someone closer to you, you might choose to have a deeper conversation about your grief, what you loved about your partner, how sad you were to learn of the struggles you hadn\u2019t been aware of and how his death has affected you.Either way, be prepared for people to surprise you \u2014 sometimes in unexpectedly moving ways. A patient whose brother died by suicide told me that many of the people at work she\u2019d felt closest to responded to the news with a compassionate, \u201cI\u2019m sorry for your loss\u201d \u2014 then never brought it up again. She wondered if this would have been the case had her brother died in a different way.But then there was a quiet older man who worked in IT, with whom she had exchanged few words. It was he who said: What was your brother like? Tell me about him. How are you doing? How\u2019s your family managing? He didn\u2019t ask these questions all at once \u2014 he followed my patient\u2019s cues. Eventually, he revealed that he once had thoughts of suicide, back when he was young like her brother, and said that while he didn\u2019t presume to know what her brother struggled with, he understood a person\u2019s need for their pain to stop. He didn\u2019t tell her how to deal with her own pain \u2014 no \u201cDon\u2019t feel guilty\u201d or \u201cThere\u2019s nothing you could have done\u201d or \u201cIt will get better.\u201d Just: I understand and I\u2019m sorry and it\u2019s OK to talk about the reality of his death.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTThere are so many reasons people shy away from acknowledging a suicide. A patient whose son had died by suicide was afraid that if she shared the cause of death, people would assume she\u2019d been an awful parent. Others worry they\u2019ll upset the person who asked, or make them feel awkward. But part of the reason suicide feels like such a radioactive topic is that it touches something familiar: Many people know what it\u2019s like \u2014 or love someone who knows what it\u2019s like \u2014 to have felt hopeless or desperate or terrified, and there\u2019s a misconception that acknowledging a suicide will plant the idea in someone\u2019s head. But the opposite is true: Hiding it away is more dangerous than bringing it out in the open, which creates space for people to talk about feelings they might not otherwise share under the weight of suicide\u2019s stigma.Which brings me to two last points.First, you say you\u2019re worried about crying, but shedding tears isn\u2019t the same as oversharing, and being able to say what happened without emotion shouldn\u2019t be the goal. The goal is to be able to choose what you disclose without having to pretend that a profound loss doesn\u2019t make you feel sad.Second, while your partner\u2019s family decided how to bury him, they aren\u2019t the only ones who get to choose how he is remembered. You can hold your own memorial, gather the people who loved him, speak about him and tell stories about who he was and who you were together. Their silence doesn\u2019t dictate yours.And perhaps that\u2019s exactly your answer: \u201cSomeone I loved died by suicide. His death was tragic. My life with him was not. Would you like to hear about us?\u201dIf you are having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com\/resources for a list of additional resources.Want to Ask the Therapist? If you have a question, email askthetherapist@nytimes.com. By submitting a query, you agree to our reader submission terms. This column is not a substitute for professional medical advice.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT",
    "published_at": "2026-09-24T09:01:08+00:00",
    "author_name": "Lori Gottlieb",
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    "ai_headline": "My Partner Died by Suicide. What Should I Tell People?",
    "ai_simplified_title": "Lori Gottlieb Advises Reader on Partner's Suicide Disclosure",
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