Survived to Thrive Podcast
A podcast designed for survivors of suicide loss. This podcast explores the unique grief experiences that accompany a loved ones death due to suicide, shares insights on how your brain processes this kind of loss, and offers worthwhile and valuable tips you can start today to gain a more joyful and fulfilling life even though your loved one died.
Survived to Thrive Podcast
Episode 92: Marriage in Grief
Unlock the keys to strengthening your marriage through grief on this episode of the Survived to Thrive Podcast. Grieving after a suicide can shatter communication, leaving couples feeling isolated and misunderstood. But what if you could turn these challenges into opportunities for deeper connection? We'll explore how emotional withdrawal and miscommunication often arise in grieving relationships and how recognizing them as normal can help maintain the vital bonds between partners. By understanding these dynamics, couples can support one another through the heartbreak, finding ways to express their emotions and rebuild intimacy.
This episode doesn't shy away from the tough emotions of blame and resentment that can surface in a marriage during grief. Learn how to shift these feelings, viewing them as choices rather than inevitable outcomes, to improve emotional well-being for you and your spouse. We'll discuss the individuality of the grieving process, how unfamiliar behaviors may emerge, and how to cope with these changes by seeking support. Through practical strategies and a focus on hope, discover how joy and fulfillment can be reclaimed even after profound loss, guiding you and your partner from surviving to thriving.
As always, thanks for listening!
We are a community dedicated to empower survivors of suicide loss along their grief journey. We invite you to check out our website to sign up for our weekly newsletter, along with other free materials."
Website: https://www.survived-to-thrive.com/
Email: amy@survived-to-thrive.com
You are listening to the Survived to Thrive Podcast with Amy Miller, a podcast for survivors of suicide loss. In this weekly podcast, you will learn more about your unique experiences and gain insights on your brain and how it processes grief and loss due to a loved one's suicide. While suicide grief comes in all shapes and sizes, Amy shows you that you still can have a life full of joy and fulfillment even though your loved one died. You don't have to just survive anymore. You can thrive.
Speaker 2:You are listening to the Survive to Thrive podcast with Amy Miller, episode number 92, marriage in Grief. Hey friends, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for joining me today. I've been considering which topics to discuss today, and one that keeps popping in my head is this topic of marriage and how grief impacts marriage, and so when I keep having topics recur in my mind, I believe that that means it is something that I should probably discuss on my podcast, because it is you who I do this podcast for, and I feel like this is something maybe you need to listen to, something you need to hear, something you need to learn more about, and a topic that I think actually impacts so many of us who are grieving loss due to suicide. So I thought I would discuss it today in today's podcast episode. So I'm going to get right to it, because this is a pretty extensive topic to discuss, a topic that I think impacts so many of us, and marriage is an institution in which so many of us have participated in, and when we are going through the ups and downs in life, when we're going through the ebbs and flows, there are certain things that happen in our lives that really impact our relationships, and marriage is one of those relationships that is profoundly impacted by grief, and all of us who are married will experience grief in one way or another. When we're talking about suicide grief, though, we are adding some additional layers and some intensity to that grief, and it can truly have such an impact on our marriages. So I thought it would be really important to discuss that in today's podcast episode. So I wanted to break it down, because here's the thing when we're going through grief, we have gone through a change, if you will. We have morphed into almost a different person. We see things in ourselves that we've never saw before, we see things in our spouses that we've never seen before, and our relationship dynamic is impacted by all of these changes, and so I wanted to break down the sections. Well, I guess the portions of our relationship that tend to be impacted the most when we're talking about grief, and especially when we're talking about grief due to suicide.
Speaker 2:Okay, so the first one I want to talk about is miscommunication. Okay, grief just has this way of making it more difficult to communicate, right? Because, first of all, as a griever, you're really feeling a lot of intense emotions, and the truth is is when we're in the midst of our grief experience, we don't even know what we're feeling really. It's hard to put words and descriptions on how we are truly feeling, because a lot of times, especially when you lose someone to suicide, you're going to get an inflow of a multitude of emotions and a lot of times these emotions are very conflicting and they're confusing and they're very difficult to navigate, and so it's very difficult to communicate all of the things you're feeling, and so that can also be problematic in our relationships, especially our marriages, so it often leads to more misunderstandings. It's hard to communicate the minute by minute of what you're experiencing and going through.
Speaker 2:A lot of times we feel like our spouses don't understand how we feel, which can lead to loneliness and distance, and it just overall just feels very isolating, right. And you know, on the spouse's side, a lot of times the spouse will feel like the griever is feeling, looking or seeming a little bit more withdrawn and the spouse feels like they're walking on eggshells and it's difficult for them to have conversations, right. And this is if, for example, like in my situation, you know I lost my sister and so my husband obviously wasn't as close to my sister as I was and so he was trying to navigate how to be supportive of my grief of my sister, yet still have some sort of connection. But when I was in the midst of my own personal grief experience I was very distant and withdrawn and I was, you know, kind of in my own world, really right. And so my spouse is trying to connect and communicate and be supportive and I wasn't really reciprocating that or validating any of that because of everything that.
Speaker 2:I was going through In other situations. Sometimes, especially if it's a relative or someone that you both were super close with, you can find that in your marriage, one of the spouses might be in the depth of a grief trench, while the other one is doing a little bit better and is feeling more willing to communicate more effectively, have conversations and connect with their spouse, while the other one is in the depth of their grief experience and they're just not there. And sometimes this can cause conflict, because both of you are on your own unique grief experience, right. So someone might be in the depths of the grief experience while the other one is doing okay, trying to connect with their spouse, while their other spouse is not having it, and vice versa, right, where the other spouse might be doing a little bit better, but then the spouse the other spouse is going back into one of those deep grief trenches, and so it can be very challenging to have communication when this is happening in a marriage. And so what I want to say about this is this is all very normal. It's very common in marriages where we're going to have struggles with communication when we're going through the grief experience. Okay. The second one I want to talk about is intimacy, because this one is huge. You know, a lot of times when you're in the midst of grief you want to withdraw from intimacy, both physically and emotionally, and a lot of times this can leave your spouse feeling very rejected because they still want to connect right. Sometimes, if you're both going through the grief experience, both of you withdraw from intimacy Again, it's going to bring feelings of isolation and loneliness and, if it can be very challenging, you might feel like your marriage is drifting apart, that you're not coming together as one, and this can often lead to disconnect, right, and lead to more misunderstandings and miscommunications, because the intimacy is not there Again. This is something that is very, very common in marriages when you're going through the grief experience.
Speaker 2:Another part of the grief experience I want to talk about is the different ways of grief, right. We all have our own unique, different way of grieving. We all grieve differently. We have our own experience. We have our own life experience which really dictates and leads us in the way that we are going to personally grieve, right. Even when we're experiencing the same loss, right.
Speaker 2:Sometimes one partner will seem to be more expressive, more wanting to express and get the emotions out, while the other person may be more reserved, they may hold their emotions in a little bit more, be a little bit more introverted about it, right? And a lot of times that leads to us judging each other's grief experience, right? Maybe we don't mean to, but especially I see this, when someone is really communicating their grief experience, where they're really an open book about it, they're talking to a lot of people, they're wanting to join in support groups to talk about it, or they're just willing to talk to people that they know, like people that are just their, you know, not close friends, but people that they just know, their acquaintances, and they'll just go into details, more details, about their loss. And you know, and the other spouse is, you know more, a little introverted about it, don't? They don't really want to share as much, right? And so then the person that's very expressive like worries about the one that's being more introverted about it, that's holding it in and wondering if they're okay and if they're grieving properly and that maybe they should cry more, talk about it more, and then they don't, right? So I think it's really important to note that we are all different human beings, right, and we experience our experiences and our emotions uniquely and differently from one another, and so I think it's a point to make that your grief is going to look different than your spouse's grief, and that's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. All of us have our own way of expressing how we're feeling in our loss.
Speaker 2:Okay, the next thing I wanted to talk about is blaming and resentment, because I feel like this happens a lot, especially when the loss is a child, when the loss is somebody they were both close with, like maybe it was a parent or something, and maybe one of your spouses had a difficult relationship with one of your parents, or something like that. But a lot of times, grieving couples have a tendency to blame or resent their spouse for one reason or another, either having to do with the death of their loved one, especially if it's a child, or they may have resentments of things that they've never really faced or confronted prior to the loss. And now that they've experienced a horrific, tragic loss, suddenly all of these emotional grievances that we have been feeling suddenly come to the surface, right, and so then that can turn a lot into blaming and resentment. But here's the thing I feel about blaming and resentment. Blaming and resentment are two things that are going to disconnect you, okay. It is not something that will bring you closer together. It is not something that will solve or fix anything when we're blaming and we're resenting. In fact, it is going to push you further and further apart.
Speaker 2:So my biggest advice when it comes to blaming and resenting is to not do it. I know it sounds simple and you're probably thinking, as I'm saying this, that it's so much harder than you think, but the truth is, it's not going to help you to feel better, right. When you think about how you're feeling when you're blaming your spouse, when you're resenting your spouse, right? How do you overall feel? It feels horrible, and the truth is we get to decide how we feel. Okay, we get to make that decision. If we want to feel resentful or blaming, okay. So I always recommend to those who are experiencing grief and, especially, are having struggles with blaming and resenting their spouse, to make a decision to not do it. Okay. Choose to think about your spouse in a different way. I'm telling you, it feels so much better, and the truth is that we actually do have the power to do that. Okay, resenting and feeling like really blaming our spouse is a choice, okay. So I think it's really important to remember that, even if it's really hard for you to let go of that resentment, even if it's really difficult to stop blaming your spouse, just know that you're choosing it. Okay. Sometimes that's the first step. That's the first step in helping you to let go of blaming. Choosing it, okay, sometimes that's the first step. That's the first step in helping you to let go of blaming and resentment, okay. So just be mindful that when you're feeling those emotions and you're thinking those things and you're feeling those things, that that is all a choice, okay.
Speaker 2:The next one I want to talk to you about is there's going to be things that are going to come out in your spouse that you're not used to. You're going to feel very unfamiliar with them, right? Have you ever watched something that your spouse was doing and you just thought to yourself, as they were doing the thing, that you had no idea that your spouse was capable of doing something like that? That you had no idea that your spouse was capable of doing something like that. And you know this is going to come up a lot in grief, because there's going to be sides of your spouse that's going to come out in them in the midst of grief, okay. The other thing I want to say about this is there's going to be things that are going to come out in you that your partner is not going to understand. Okay. It's going to feel very unfamiliar to them, and you know, when you are grieving as a couple together, there's going to be unfamiliar things that are going to come out in both of you, okay.
Speaker 2:So I think it's really important to just be mindful that this is very common. This happens often and nothing has really gone wrong. I like to say that a lot, because a lot of times we think there's a big problem with a problem, but usually there's no problem with a problem. A problem is just that a problem. And sometimes we feel like when we make the problem, we have this tendency to make problems, make problems out of problems. Okay, sometimes the problem is just needs to be Okay and there's really no problem with the problem. I hope that makes any sense to you, but it is true, sometimes we add a problem to the problem by making a problem out of the problem, okay. So just be mindful of that.
Speaker 2:All right is, you're going to see probably some new weaknesses come out in your partner. You might see new things that come out in them that you don't really like, some things that are again this kind of ties into the unfamiliar sides that you might find with your partner. You might find some weaknesses that you really don't like. Maybe you know they're going to lash out more. Maybe they're going to do something or say things, maybe they get mean, maybe they curl up in their beds and they don't want to get out of bed for a while. You're going to find things that are going to come out in them that you never recognized before you met them and it's going to be kind of challenging to see that side of them. But again, this is all normal. This is grief.
Speaker 2:Grief is just one of those experiences in life that we don't get any manual for. We don't get any step-by-step right. There's no like check boxes to check. There's no list in grief, right, there's not like. I'm a list maker and I always make a list and I like to check off lists right, when I'm doing things, when I'm packing a suitcase, when I'm cleaning my house, when I have a lot of to-dos I got to do, I like to make a checklist and I like the satisfaction of checking off a checklist.
Speaker 2:But the thing with grief is there's no such thing, there's nothing to check off, right? Because, again, each and every single one of us has a unique experience, and each and every one of us is going to be faced with weaknesses we never had before and we are going to put those on full display. And that is the thing is that it's not even a problem that that happens right, because it's just part of being a human being and it's part of being in this world, experiencing experiences in this life. So just be mindful of that. Okay, all right. So, with all of those things said so, that was a good list of things that I think come up when we're talking about grief and how it can affect our marriages. So you might be asking yourself okay, so if all of these things are happening, right, the miscommunication, the intimacy issues, the you know unique grief and grieving ways of each other, like the different, each partner has their own different way of grieving the blaming and the resentment, the unfamiliar things that come out, and the weaknesses, how do we even cope with all of this?
Speaker 2:And so I wanted to give you some things that I think are actionable strategies that seem to be super helpful in marriages when we're experiencing grief. The first one is we need to seek support. This is huge. Seeking support is a big deal, because I think a lot of times we isolate ourselves. When we're in grief, we feel like we can handle it. This is just a temporary thing, but sometimes we really do need to get some additional resources and support, whether that's through counseling, whether that's through support groups, whether that's through couples retreats. Sometimes you just need to have some additional support. Coaching is very effective with marriages. It really helps to come up with some better ways of processing your thoughts and your feelings and your emotions, and especially during grief. But there's got to be some support behind you. It's really important to bring in a mental health professional, somebody that really understands grief and can help you with that.
Speaker 2:Another thing that I think is very helpful to help you cope with grief in marriage is you need to really respect your partner's grief, and what I mean by this is that again, as we talked about in this podcast, that no two people's grief is the same right. It's all unique. We all have our individual experiences and it's really important to respect your partner in the way that they're expressing their grief right. So, for example, my husband. When he's upset or he's sad or whatever, you know, he expresses it very differently. He wants to go and work in his garage, he wants to go work on a project, he wants to do something, okay, where he can be alone, he can work with his hands and he can just process in his own mind, in his element. Now, I could resent him for not communicating with me or talking to me about what he's experiencing. I could do that, but the truth is is it's just not helpful. So I know that this is the way that he wants to express grief.
Speaker 2:Now, me, on the other hand, I'm very expressive. I cry a lot, I like to talk about it, I like to express the feelings that I'm feeling and I want to communicate that, especially to my husband, right, and he's just been so kind to me. He just listens, he listens to what I'm saying, he validates my feelings, you know, and so I think it's really, really important to just be respectful of the way your partner or your spouse is grieving, okay, the next thing I want to talk about is to be compassionate. Okay, you really need to have compassion for yourself and for your partner. You know, it's interesting because sometimes, when we're experiencing our own grief experience, we kind of go into this survival mode, right. Again, it's like they don't say survivors of suicide loss for nothing, because it is. It feels like a survival that we are going through. Right, we're going through survival. I think of that show Survivor, right, going through. Right, we're going through survival, like I think of that show Survivor, right, it's like a survival experience because it is so challenging to navigate through and, again, like I said, nobody gives you a manual on grief and you don't know how to do it. So you're just kind of figuring it out, right, and you're just surviving and so you know. I think it's really important to be mindful of that and just have some compassion for having to go through that, having to experience an experience that there is no manual for, okay, and have compassion for yourself especially and for your partner, okay.
Speaker 2:The last one I want to bring up is patience, because patience tends to be an issue that I think so many of us don't have. We live in a day and age where we get instantly gratified right, if I want some new shoes, I can go to a store and buy new shoes, or I can shop on Amazon and Amazon will deliver shoes. In fact, I can get those shoes so quickly now I can have them deliver it in a few hours, even, right. And so we're so used to being instantly gratified. That's why we have fast food, that is why we have gas stations where we can put fuel in our tanks. That's why we have grocery stores, so that we can buy all of our already grown produce.
Speaker 2:Because we are a very impatient people. In fact, it's so interesting how you know impatient we all have conditioned to be. If you're like in the line at a fast food place and you're in there for longer than five minutes without the line moving, then we can tend to get very frustrated, right, but we don't really put it in perspective. We don't put it in the perspective of, you know, everything that went into being able to provide us with a hamburger, right? We don't think about the farmers who had to raise the cow to be able to provide the beef and the dairy that had to be involved to make us the cheese for our cheeseburger, right? We don't think of those things, right?
Speaker 2:Because we're so used to being instantly gratified and grief is something that is not something we can instantly get over. It's going to take us some time. It's going to take some patience. It's going to be challenging, right, and especially within our marriages. It's going to take time and it's going to be challenging. And guess what? It's okay. In fact, it's probably what we want it to be like.
Speaker 2:Okay, maybe it feels counterintuitive, but the truth is there are some great things that can come out in our marriages. When we're grieving together, when we are working together. Okay, it can sometimes be a catalyst for positive change. Even and if we're both working and willing to tackle it together and get through the grief experience together, it can actually be a source of strength for our marriages. So I hope this is helpful for you.
Speaker 2:I hope that your grief can be that catalyst for positive change in your own marriages and I hope that you'll take what we talked about today and apply it, and I promise you, if you do, it's going to feel so much better. Your marriages are going to be better, your communication is going to be better. Your intimacy is going to be better. You're going to be better. Your communication is going to be better. Your intimacy is going to be better. You know you're going to really bring out some strengths in your marriage that you never knew even existed. All right, friends, thank you so much for listening today. I hope you have a great day and until next time, bye-bye.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Survived to Thrive podcast. If you like this podcast, please share with your friends and write a review on iTunes. Also check out survived-to-thrivecom for more information and to subscribe to get the podcast's latest episode, along with useful tips you can begin to use immediately to feel better, directly sent to your inbox.