“My wife and I grieve so differently since our son died”
After a shared loss, two people can grieve in ways that look almost opposite. One cries, talks and visits the grave, and the other goes back to work, fixes the shed and goes silent when the name comes up. Each may read the other as not caring, or as falling apart. What matters most is whether the difference is in style or in how much is felt, and whether the gap is turning into blame or distance.
What to check first
It helps to check what else is going on: work pressure, other children to care for, either partner's own health. Losing a child is among the hardest losses, and both partners may be close to empty at once. Before reading it as a pattern in the marriage, it helps to see whether each person is coping in a way that is ordinary for them.
What could be going on
Intuitive and instrumental grieving (Martin and Doka): Fits if one of you grieves through tears and talk and the other through doing, fixing and thinking.
Dual process model of coping with bereavement (Stroebe and Schut): Could be that you are at different points in the swing between the loss and daily life. Check whether you sometimes swap places.
Pursuer-distancer (demand-withdraw): Check whether one of you asks to talk and the other pulls away, and whether that started before he died.
Expressive suppression: Fits if one of you feels a lot and holds it in, perhaps to keep the other going.
Experiential avoidance: Check whether one of you avoids every reminder, including the other's grief.
Bereavement guilt and regret (Li and Stroebe): Check whether either of you blames yourself, or the other, for something before he died.
Telling them apart
Intuitive and instrumental grieving (Martin and Doka): One partner may grieve by feeling and talking, the other by doing and thinking. The less tearful one may be grieving hard through work, plans or long drives. The difference lies in how the grief moves, and each may need different things from the other.
Dual process model of coping with bereavement (Stroebe and Schut): Each partner may be at a different point in the same swing between facing the loss and getting on with life. One wants to look at photos while the other is getting through a week at work. A few days later the positions may reverse.
Pursuer-distancer (demand-withdraw): The gap may have set into a cycle: one asks to talk, the other pulls away, which makes the first ask harder. The pattern may have been there before the death, and grief has turned it up. Both end up lonelier inside the marriage.
Expressive suppression: One partner may feel a lot and hold it in, often to protect the other or to keep the family running. The face stays calm while the body carries it: poor sleep, a short fuse, headaches. Holding it in tends to cost more than it looks.
Experiential avoidance: One partner may steer clear of anything that brings the loss close: his bedroom, the photos, his name. The avoidance spreads to the other partner, because her grief is a reminder too. Talking may stop because it hurts too much to start.
Bereavement guilt and regret (Li and Stroebe): One or both may carry blame for something before he died: a decision about care, a missed sign, who was driving. Sometimes the blame is turned on the other partner and left unspoken. Distance in the marriage may be partly a way to avoid that subject.
Questions to carry
- The last time we clashed over this, what was each of us trying to protect?
- How does my own grief come out, and how might it look to her?
Also said as
- my husband doesn't seem sad about our daughter
- partner won't talk about the death
- we're grieving differently and it's tearing us apart
- he went back to work like nothing happened
- my wife cries all the time and i can't
- couples grieving differently after losing a child