My partners lost his children’s mother.

Okay, I’ve been with my partner for 10 months, he has two children from a previous relationship and I have one from a previous relationship as well. Our relationship is awesome, we’re both on the same page about everything, we communicate great, we share the same interests and views on life. I literally adore him so much, I’m so happy we met! I knew beforehand that he had lost his partner a few years ago. 4 to be exact, they were separated but obviously he would’ve been devastated and after loosing her, he fell ill, was on life support, lost his job, his home and of course being unable to care for his children, they went with a family member. He got his health back on track right away and of course he was faced with a lot of bumps along the way.

Now, it’s a touchy subject for him, I do NOT pry at him to talk about it but I also don’t bring it up either, I don’t know how to be supportive. Like that’s huge! I don’t want to make him hurt by asking questions but I don’t want him to feel like I don’t care about it either or that I’d feel upset if he did talk about things. I just have never been in a situation like this before, it feels like life before us, just doesn’t exist. I would love for him to feel comfortable talking about his past, talking about her, she will always live through them. I would never feel some type of way either and I just want to clarify that now. It does bum me out that we just don’t talk about anything prior to us, I want to know all about him! Good, bad and sad.. he can lean on me for whatever! I truly love him so much, I want our relationship to work. I’m very open as a person, I’ve talked all about my life, about my relationship with my child’s father (he was obviously curious on why we ended and all that stuff)

The other night he slipped up, we were having a few drinks together, playing games and hanging out... I turned over and he had tears rolling down his face and he just said “I miss her, I miss her for my children and it’s just hard” I of course gave him a big hug but I just didn’t know what to say, I don’t know how I can make it better, what is the right thing to say what I should lean away from, I feel like I didn’t handle it the right way because I don’t know how to so I’m here asking for perspective from someone who may have dealt with something similar. TIA