Why Do I Feel So Alone in My Marriage After Child Loss?
When the person who knows your grief best feels far away.
Loneliness in a marriage after child loss can settle in even when the person you love most is sitting right beside you.
You both love the same child. You are both carrying a weight you never imagined.
And yet somehow, you feel like you are grieving all alone.
If you have caught yourself wondering how the one person who knows exactly who you miss can feel so far away, you are not imagining it.
Something between you feels different since your child went to heaven.
Tony and I have been married for 43 years. We have walked through a lot together. But nothing in those years prepared us for the weight we carried when Andrew went to heaven.
And what I learned about grief and marriage surprised me.
Come sit with me for a few minutes. Let’s walk through this together.
Why Marriage After Child Loss Feels Like a Different Kind of Weight
When you stand at the altar and say “I do,” there is often an unspoken expectation that marriage will be a partnership where everything is shared equally.
Fifty-fifty.
But it doesn’t take long to discover that is not how marriage works.
Sometimes it is sixty-forty. Sometimes it is eighty-twenty.
There are seasons when one person carries more because the other simply can’t. That is part of doing life together.
But when your child dies, it is a different kind of weight.
Now you are both carrying something so devastating that neither one of you has the capacity you once had.
The partner who used to pick up the slack is carrying the same weight you are.
And that changes everything about how two people lean on each other.
When Grief Turns You Inward
Grief naturally drives us inward.
Your world becomes very small. You are focused on getting through the next hour, the next day. Sometimes just getting out of bed takes everything you have.
I don’t believe that is selfishness.
I believe that is survival.
But think about what happens when two people who have been doing life together are suddenly both trying to survive something they never imagined.
You are living in the same house.
You are sharing the same heartache.
But you are not necessarily experiencing it together.
When you are hurting that deeply, you naturally look toward the person closest to you. You expect them to understand. You expect them to be there.
But what happens when they are hurting just as deeply as you are, and their grief looks nothing like yours?
That is where misunderstanding can begin.
And without even realizing it, two people who love one another can begin feeling very far apart.
The Divorce Statistic You May Have Heard
There is a frightening statistic that has circulated in the grief community for years.
Maybe you have heard it: that 80 to 90 percent of marriages end in divorce after the death of a child.
That is simply not true.
In 1977, an author named Harriet Schiff wrote a book called The Bereaved Parent. She referenced an estimate that as many as 90 percent of bereaved couples experienced serious marital difficulties.
But experiencing difficulties in your marriage is not the same thing as getting divorced.
Somewhere along the way, that distinction disappeared.
The Compassionate Friends, an organization that supports families grieving the death of a child, conducted surveys of bereaved couples. Their findings were dramatically different.
One survey reported a divorce rate of approximately 16 percent. And not all of those divorces were attributed to the death of the child.
These were surveys, not a comprehensive national study. But they certainly don’t support the claim that most marriages end after child loss.
If you and your spouse are struggling to understand one another since your child went to heaven, please don’t assume that means your marriage is in trouble.
Grief brings challenges into a marriage when your child dies, and sometimes they show up in ways neither of you expected.
Grieving the Same Child So Differently
One of the things I didn’t fully understand when Andrew went to heaven was just how differently two people could experience the same heartache.
Tony and I knew each other. We knew our strengths, our weaknesses and the ways we approached life differently.
But grief brought those differences into places we had never experienced before.
Sometimes, as grieving mothers, we look at our spouses and wonder why they aren’t responding the way we are.
Maybe you are the one who needs to talk about your child, and your spouse doesn’t seem to have much to say.
Maybe your spouse goes back to work, gets involved in a project or finds something to keep busy, while you wonder how they can possibly concentrate on anything else.
Before long, you may find yourself questioning what those differences mean.
Do they hurt as much as I do?
Do they think about our child as often as I do?
Why don’t they seem to need the same things I need?
If you have asked those same questions, I understand.
Sometimes the loneliness you feel isn’t about being physically alone.
Sometimes it is about feeling disconnected from the person who is sitting right beside you.
You Were Never Meant to Carry Your Spouse’s Grief
There is a Scripture I want to leave with you.
Psalm 68:19 (NLT)
Praise the Lord; praise God our savior!
For each day he carries us in his arms.
When I look back at my own marriage after Andrew went to heaven, Tony and I were right where you are.
We were both grieving the same son. We were both hurting in ways we had never experienced before. And neither one of us had much left to give.
Here is why I love this Scripture.
You don’t have to carry the weight of your spouse’s grief. It is not your responsibility.
And it is not your spouse’s responsibility to carry the weight of yours.
When you are looking toward your spouse, hoping they will understand what you are going through, it is easy to forget that they are carrying a weight of their own.
God sees both of you and what you are carrying.
He knows the pain you haven’t been able to put into words. And He knows the pain your spouse has not been able to express.
So have grace for yourself. Have grace for your spouse. Pray for them.
When the time is right, communication can open up what both of you are going through. Communication matters, but there is a time and a way to do it.
Grieving differently doesn’t mean you love each other less.
May the God who carries us each day carry you today.
🎧 Listen to the Full Episode
If these words have met you where you are today — there is more waiting for you in this week’s episode.
🎙 Episode 325: Why Do I Feel So Alone in My Marriage After Child Loss?
In this episode, I share how Tony and I grieved Andrew so differently, the truth behind the divorce statistic so many grieving moms have heard and why you were never meant to carry your spouse’s grief. If you have been feeling disconnected from your spouse since your child went to heaven, this conversation is for you.
Next Steps
✨ Calming the Chaos
When you feel alone in your grief, even sitting next to the person you love most, there may be something weighing on you that you haven’t been able to name yet.
Calming the Chaos is where we slow down, look at what hasn’t been obvious before and learn to name it and identify it.
If your heart is telling you it’s time, I would be honored to walk alongside you.
With care and prayer,
Teresa Davis
