When Grief Changes Everything Between You

Grief doesn’t just change how you feel
 it changes your relationships sometimes in ways you never expected.

In this episode of Grieving Greatly, I talk about the quiet, often unspoken shifts that happen after loss, between partners, family members, friends… and even within yourself.

Why does it feel like people grieve so differently?
 Why do some relationships grow stronger, while others feel like they’re falling apart?
 And why can you feel so alone, even when you're not?

This episode explores:

• The impact of grief on relationships and connection 
• Differences in grieving styles and misunderstandings 
• The pressure to “move on” vs. your lived reality 
• Feeling disconnected from others—and from yourself 
• Learning how to navigate relationships while grieving 

If you’ve ever felt like no one quite understands your grief this episode is for you.

🤍 You are not too much
 🤍 You are not alone
 🤍 And you are allowed to grieve in your own way

Jen Connors - Harrys Helping Hands Counselling - 0431212575

Transcript

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No one tells you that grief doesn't just take the person you love. It changes every relationship in your life. Your partner, your children, your family, your friends. Even the relationship you have with yourself. And no one prepares you for how confusing that can feel. Hi and welcome back to Grieving Greatly, a space for the parts of grief we don't always say out loud. In the last episode, we talked about the days after the loss and what it's like to function when you can barely breathe. Today I want to talk about what happens next. When grief starts to move through your relationships and quietly changes everything. After loss, nothing feels the same. Not your world, not your body, not your connections. When Harry died, it didn't just break my heart. It felt like it broke our whole family. Our tree was broken. The foundation we stood on shifted completely. The people around you are still there, but something has shifted and you can feel it. Some people show up in ways you never expected. And others, the ones you thought would be there, aren't. And that hurts. Sometimes more than you're prepared for. Grief between partners can be incredibly hard. You're both grieving the same person, but in completely different ways. I would talk and talk, trying to make sense of it. He would say nothing. I remember thinking maybe I'm grieving more. But I know now that wasn't true. We were both in pain. Just expressing it differently. Some of us withdrew. Some of us need to talk. Some try to stay strong. Some can't. And none of those ways are wrong. But they are different. And those differences can create distance and misunderstandings. Hurt feelings, silence. Sometimes it can feel like you can't reach each other, even though you're hurting in the same way. And that can feel incredibly lonely. And then there are your children who still need you. Even when you feel you have nothing left to give. Some avoid you, some try to fix it, and some hold you in ways you will never forget. But it's confusing because you're already in so much pain, and now your relationships feel uncertain too. Grief can isolate you, even from the people you love most. Not because the love isn't there, but because the pain is. And maybe one of the hardest shifts is the relationship you have with yourself. You don't recognize who you are anymore. Everything hurts. Your thoughts, your body, your emotions. You can feel consumed by grief. Like it has taken over everything. And sometimes the person you lost can feel more present to you than the people who are still here. Not because you don't love them, but because your grief is all consuming. It pulls your attention, your energy, your whole being towards what you've lost. And something else can happen that people don't talk about is comparison. I remember thinking as Harry's mum that my grief was the greatest, that no one could possibly ever feel what I was feeling. I compared my grief to people I loved, even to a beautiful friend who had also lost her son, and I thought mine is worse because I knew Harry longer. And I was so wrong. Grief is not a competition. There is no scale, no hierarchy. Everyone's loss is their world. And I say that now with compassion for who I was in that moment because that thinking came from pain, from overwhelm, from love. I remember yelling at my grief counsellor when she told me things would get better. She had lost a child too. And I said, Well, obviously I love my son more than you loved yours. Even saying that now, I know how unfair that was. But in that moment, I was suffering so much, and I couldn't see beyond my pain. Grief can make you see, and feel things, believe things, that aren't who you truly are. People say time heals all wounds, and I struggled with that. Because time on its own doesn't heal anything. It's what you do within that time. And sometimes, in the beginning, you're not healing at all. You're surviving. To get through the next moment, the next hour, the next breath, to take care of yourself in the smallest ways possible. If you're in this place right now, where your relationships feel strained, where you don't recognize yourself, where everything feels heavy, please hear this. Nothing about this is wrong. Grief changes things, it shifts people, it reshapes you, but it does not mean you are broken. Different grief doesn't mean broken love. It just means each person is trying to survive in their own way, and if you can try to remember the person in front of you isn't grieving wrong, they're grieving differently. If your relationships feel different right now, if things feel strained, quiet or disconnected, I want you to know this: the love doesn't disappear, it just becomes harder to see through the grief. You are not failing at this, and neither are they. You're all just trying to find your way through something that changed everything. You are someone who has loved deeply and lost deeply, and right now you are doing something incredibly hard. You are still here, and that is enough. And as we finish today, I want to leave you with something I hold close. You'll always be enough for me, and you'll never be too much. This episode is for Harry and for every relationship that has been changed by grief. Thank you for being here with me, and I'll be here with you in the next one. If this episode brought anything up for you, please reach out to me anytime or call Grief Australia or Lifeline on 131114. Thank you.