Hi, I hope this is in the right forum for this post.

My parents were together over 50 years, she died earlier this year.  On the surface my dad is coping well.  He's saying all the right things.  He's built what he calls a support system.  He lives not too far from me, but my siblings are a lot farther away.  We were all together for a couple of weeks around the funeral and my siblings are awesome - we chat and talk all the time about things we could never tell other people, especially my dad.  My dad came and stayed with my husband and I for a few weeks right after the funeral but now lives on his own in the house he shared with my mom when she died.

I say "on the surface" because we are not sure my dad is actually doing some of the things he says he is.  He said he saw a grief counselor and he told me all about it so I am sure he did, but that was a few months ago and since then, nothing.  He says he's gone more times but I get no details like I did the first time.  My siblings haven't had any better luck.

We REALLY want him to go to a grief counselor because some of the things he is doing just are not appropriate.  He has decided that he NEEDS to be with 'family' as much as he can, which sounds fine except that none of us seem to have a choice or a say in the matter.  Also I am the only one close enough with a spare bedroom to stay with.  He did also stay with my sister once for 2 weeks but he didn't ask if he could go - he just planned the trip and told her when he was coming.  He does that to my husband and I frequently.  Just announces that he's on his way for a week or something.  He has also started guilting our kids - his grandkids - into coming to see him much more frequently than they are able to.  They are all adults with jobs and spouses and some have kids of their own and they don't live in the same city.

Last week he told my siblings and I that he is planning a trip or two next year where we can all be together.  Lovely thought, but logistically and financially it just isn't possible for any of us, even though he says he will cover most of the cost.  We have to say no, and we will, but that doesn't address the ongoing problem of him taking so much for granted.  It is very disruptive having him around so much - I have kids and grandkids and a husband and a business and a job to juggle already.  My siblings and I are also much farther along in the grief process than he is, and he says he knows that grief is a personal journey, but we don't think he realizes that in his heart.  He keeps asking us to share what we are going through but we can't because we really aren't going through very much any more.  My mom had a full and happy life and we miss her, but we think of her with fondness now and not with the overpowering grief my dad still has.  We do tell him this but it doesn't register.  We also realize it's going to take him far longer to grieve than it will us because they were so much in love and together so long.  None of us can connect with that, which we think he should be discussing with a grief therapist and not with us.  We ar at a loss as to what to say to him when it comes up all the time.

I thought the neediness would stop after a whle, but it doesn't look like it's going to.  The other day he told the whole family that he is coming up for a visit at the beginning of December.  He didn't say anything about where he is staying, which means he is assuming he will stay with us again.  And there's the trip thing next year.

We will all be discussing this with him together soon but we're all really leery of what to say that isn't going to sound horrible to him.  Or do we just tell him and let him own his reaction?