People rally around woman who ghosted friend after his husband's sudden death
"This was a catastrophe..."

A woman upset she's not talking to her friend.
A woman’s social media post begs the big question: How far should someone go to put themselves out for a friend after they experience a traumatizing situation together? It all began when a woman made friends with her neighbors, Eli and Leo, a same-sex married couple. However, she began to distance herself from Eli after a while because he was “selfish” and “not a very good friend.”
One day, as she was leaving the house to go shopping, she received multiple calls from Eli that she didn’t pick up. He then texted her, “Leo just passed. Please answer.” She rushed home and saw an ambulance in front of the apartment building. When she got to Eli’s apartment, she saw Leo lying dead on the floor with Eli hugging him, sobbing inconsolably.
“They were watching TV when Leo suddenly got up and said he has pain in his chest, then collapsed. Paramedics came and pronounced him dead. They said we now have to wait for the police,” the woman wrote on Reddit. “We were waiting like this on the floor—Eli sobbing and hugging Leo’s body, and me hugging Eli—for almost 2 hrs. Then police came, and we sat on the couch right in front of Leo for another few hours. I did my best to stay calm and collected and help Eli. Many hours later, they took Leo away.”
The back doors of an ambulance.via Canva/Photos
Eli asked the woman to call and tell Leo’s parents, who didn’t know that he was gay or married. They didn’t believe her. Eli’s cousins came over for a while and then left. “I stayed till late night, ordered food, cleaned, etc. We watched TV under the same blanket I used to cover Leo’s body. I didn’t sleep that night,” the woman continued.
Over the next few days, Eli kept calling the woman, asking her to come over, but she told him she was “sick” because “the thought of entering that apartment makes me shake.” The incident was so traumatic for the woman that she has made an appointment to see a therapist. “I feel deeply affected by what happened. I keep seeing flashbacks. I’m afraid to leave my apartment because I’m afraid to run into Eli. I was already depressed and I’m so so lonely,” she wrote. “I feel so guilty for ghosting Eli in this horrible situation when his whole world collapsed.”
An upset woman with her thoughts.via Liza Summer/Pexels
She asked the online forum if she was in the wrong for ghosting Eli, and just about everyone supported her choice.
“No, dear, [it’s not your fault]. This was a catastrophe, and you are in crisis and need help. What happened to you was very traumatic, and you are traumatized; you need to find help from your loved ones (or professionals, if those resources are available to you) to heal from this. You can't draw water from an empty well, and in my opinion, you should only consider assisting Eli in ways that contribute to or at least don't completely derail your recovery. You've already been more help to them than anybody else has. You can't keep anybody warm by setting yourself on fire. I'm so sorry this happened to both of you, what a horrible, tragic experience and loss,” the most popular commenter wrote.
“His husband just died, and you were kind enough to help him through the immediate aftermath. It does suck that he doesn't have a support system he needs, but you don't either,” another commenter wrote.
via Canva/Photos
The only person with a problem with how the woman handled it believes that she needs to give Eli a reason why she isn’t responding to him. “[You’re in the wrong] for ghosting him without explanation. That only makes things worse. You are emotionally drained and do not have the bandwidth to support him. That is completely fine. You just need to communicate that fact to him,” they wrote.
Ultimately, the commenters believe the woman did the right thing to stand by Leo’s side, even in the most disturbing situations, and she deserves praise for her kindness. In the comments, the woman wrote that she has no support, so the positive response, even by a Reddit forum of strangers, has to have made her feel some relief at a time when she is so traumatized.