"It does require you to forgive people for screwing up"

Why support networks are important when your partner dies

by Helen Fielding - journalist, novelist, screenwriter, and creator of Bridget Jones

It does require you to forgive people for screwing up and saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing, up to a point.

When writing Bridget Jones Mad About The Boy, my huge concern was not to get it wrong because I was aware that Bridget has a symbolic meaning for a lot of women. It really needed to be authentic and that was my big fear. I find it very meaningful if people come up to me when I'm signing books and say, ‘This was very helpful to me when someone died.’ But it's a movie, it’s a book, I didn’t set out for it to be a self-help book or a psychology book, but I did want it to be mostly accurate and authentic and funny - so it's nice if it worked like that.

I think it's been proved by surveys that the biggest indicator of happiness is not your partner, money or job, it's the quality of your relationships and your community. It’s really hard for people when friend groups drop them, especially the friend group that consists of couples - they suddenly find it awkward to have a person who isn't in a couple. It's just horrendous when that happens. What you really want is a group of friends that's pretty elastic and not all one thing or the other, that will absorb the person who's had a tough time and not leave them out of stuff.

People do really terrible things: a child’s parent has died and another parent at school will decide to have a daddy paintballing birthday party three weeks later and not think. But you have to cut people a bit of slack because not everyone knows how to deal with bereavement if they haven’t gone through it, or maybe they have gone through it and they’re all triggered and weird. So, it does require you to forgive people for screwing up and saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing, up to a point. Sometimes you find out who your friends are and you think, ‘Ah wait a minute.’ If people are too hopeless then you might want to do a bit of pruning, but I think generally good friends blunder through it.

Nobody’s life is perfect once you’ve cracked the shell. Everyone’s lives are a bit messy and the good groups of friends and school parents are ready to admit that and don't leave someone out or leave someone feeling they've got to turn up for everything on their own. The people who’ve gone through it themselves will probably be best at that. Even kids, if their dad or mum or brother or sister dies, are often the first ones to go up and say something, even if it's something stupid like, ‘I'm sorry about your dad. Ooh pizza!’. It’s important to be part of the gang; I might say the wrong thing, but I still love you and I'm going to try anyway.

It’s incredibly hard being a parent because if your children are in pain, you wish you could have it for them or take it away, but you can't. All you can do is be there and make sure they know you love them, and make fun when you can. Include them. I make a mess of things all the time. I don't know the answers, I just sort of know what worked.

Follow Helen on Instagram @helenfielding

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