Confessions of a Grieving Marriage...Part One

The moment your child dies the husband and wife begin a whole new and different type of marriage, everything has changed. As parents we never “get over” the death of our child, but we learn to adjust and live with the massive void in our lives. The death of a child still to this date remains one of the most stressful life events imaginable. It has been found that nearly 65% or greater of marriages fail and end in divorce within the first five years after the death of a child. The problems that many couples encounter while dealing with their grief usually include:

• Lack of communication with one another.
• Being overprotective of other children.
• Differences in how to grieve.
• Putting blame and guilt on self and/or on spouse.
• Turning to alcohol and drugs.
• Looking for someone or something to blame.
• One wants to talk about the deceased child, and the other doesn't.
• Wondering when and where and how to deal with a child's belongings.
• Decision about whether or not counseling is needed.
• Turning away from one another.
• One spouse may tend to feel anger sooner than the other.
• One may tend to feel sadness sooner than the other.
• One may want to "do" something to make things right again.
• One may just want to "be."
• If a couple had problems before the child's death, those problems can become more difficult to deal with.

Immediately after the death of a child both parents are in “the fog” of shock as terror fills their days and nights become a never ending nightmare of trying to sleep. The only way to survive “the fog” is to put our brains on auto pilot. Our brains do not really function, but our bodies continue going through the motions of our daily lives. The mundane tasks of doing laundry, making dinner, washing dishes, doing housework or going to our work place is simply things we have done a million times and require no thought process. We have to carry on for the sake of our families and the other children that may be living at home. Our hearts and spirits are in severe need of an intensive care unit; our lungs keep breathing, our muscles keep working but our thoughts and heart are frozen in shock.

In the beginning friends and family are around helping out and bringing meals, but we all know that grieving lasts well after the meals stop coming. The emotional pain from the death of our child is incredibly distracting, consuming and exhausting. Our entire focus is simply getting through the worst till the next wave hits and then the next. Just surviving the day is exhausting, leaving little to no reserves for anything else which includes working on our marriage or dealing with our spouse. 

Add to the fact that men and women are just simply different and we grieve differently. As little girls we are taught to share our feelings and it is okay to cry, while boys are told to man up and don’t be a sissy, hide your emotions. So the very way that we deal with our grief and emotions is very different as women tend to want to talk and share their feelings and emotions while men shut down and find solace in working or being alone. Right from the beginning this conflict in grieving is a recipe for problems and issues in a marriage....