What Happens to Couples After Miscarriage: Incongruent Grief

It is not a myth that some couples break up after a miscarriage, while other couples come closer together. No doubt, pregnancy loss can make or break a relationship. This partly depends on how the two partners grieve about their unborn child and cope with pregnancy loss. It can be hard to know how to feel after pregnancy loss, let alone how to support your partner who miscarried.

Unraveling a recurrent dream

During the years of subfertility, recurrent pregnancy loss, and threatened childlessness, which I narrate here, I had a recurrent dream. I kept dreaming that I was single. Despite being in a stable, long-term relationship in real life, this dream revisited me several times. In the dream, I was wandering around, encountering new places and people, mindlessly distracted by the hustle and bustle. Then, the same frightening realization would abruptly hit me, with the same terrible force each time. I was single. My body started to freeze and my heart beat faster. How could this happen? All of a sudden, I stood there utterly alone in a busy world passing by.

Decoding the meaning of my dream seemed simple enough. The dreaded scenario of a future without living children and the loneliness that I envisaged terrified me. However, there was something else too. The loneliness following pregnancy loss is multi-faceted. In my case, my partner did not share the same devastation and grief for the lost pregnancies and the prospect of a childless future.

On multiple occasions, my partner patiently explained that “it was different” for him. He had not experienced the same changes in his body as I did. He thought that his enthusiasm about our kids would probably kick in after they were born. Unlike me, my partner had not formed a strong attachment to our unborn children. Already a father, he did not face the prospect of a childless life. In contrast, the idea of us having a child-free life together was far from terrifying for him. As much as I rationally tried to accept his explanation, my recurrent dream was there to remind me of how alone these differences made me feel.

Incongruent grief: a common relationship breaker following pregnancy loss

This mismatch in our experiences had a scientific name. It's called incongruent grief, which describes how the two partners grieve for their unborn child in different ways. Obst and his colleagues (2020) report a consistent research finding across studies; women appear to experience higher levels of distress and more intense grief reactions than their male partners. Further, women express their grief more openly and want to share it with others. On the other hand, men typically bottle in emotions, occupy themselves with activities, and take up the role of supporting their partners.

Gender stereotypes may have well influenced the different ways that male and female partners grieve. The idea of a “real man” being stoic, unfaced by testing conditions, and a provider and protector for their family runs deeply in our society. This message can make it harder for men to connect with their sadness following pregnancy loss. Further, male partners may suppress their emotions to stay strong for the sake of their partner. These gender stereotypes may also affect same-sex couples, depending on each partner’s identification with aspects of male or female roles. Additional stereotypes surrounding gestational versus non-gestational partners may further affect same-sex couple’s grief.

The strength of each partner’s attachment to their unborn child is another unique factor that may impact the grief. A baby during pregnancy is not necessarily granted the status of a person, as I discuss in a post about the pioneering nature of baby loss certificates, recently introduced in England. Thus, while one partner may have developed a strong bond with their unborn baby, the other may have not. Often, but not always, the gestational partners develop this strong bond earlier on in pregnancy.

How can incongruent grief divide a couple following pregnancy loss?

There are at least three ways in which incongruent grief can spoil and erode a relationship.

• A push-pull dynamic. Incongruent grief carries the risk for the person hit harder by grief to experience their partner as distant and insensitive following pregnancy loss. In turn, this may lead the partner grieving more intensely to become critical and rejecting towards their other half, whom then, may withdraw. As a result, both partners feel misunderstood, and retreat, depriving one another of the support they both long for.
• Emotional injuries hurt. The disconnection that incongruent grief can cause to a couple lets the partner hit harder by the loss deeply injured by their partner’s response. This is because they feel that their other half was not fully there when they needed them the most. This injury can become a relationship trauma, demolishing even strong bonds between partners.
• Sex is complicated. The couple’s sex life can also be affected by subfertility and miscarriage. An activity that once was a source of pleasure could now become a reminder of the loss. Sex could also trigger anxiety about another pregnancy and miscarriage. If one partner has lost interest in sex, while the other still craves for it, then this territory could lead to conflicts and feelings of rejection in both partners.

What three tasks can help partners manage incongruent grief following pregnancy loss?

• Remembering your baby together. Despite their differences, both partners grieve in their own unique way. A grieving ritual or object could create a shared space for both partners’ grief. A ritual could include anything from a memorial ceremony to participating in the Wave of Light during Baby Loss Awareness week. Finding a commemorating ritual or object that feels “right” for both partners could be a candid way of coming together as a couple. This post on grieving objects following pregnancy loss could help generate some ideas.
• Talk, listen, pause, then talk again: Incongruent grief can cause disconnection. When we feel estranged from someone, our instinct is to withdraw. Partners taking the opposite action and talking to each other is key here. It could be talking about feeling overwhelmingly sad or feeling numb. Whatever one feels, it is about listening to our partner with the intention to understand and not blame. This can sometimes feel particularly hard because anger, often found underneath grief, makes us want to blame. Talking could cause heat or feel awkward—it may happen in small chunks, with long pauses in between. If you and your partner are stuck with talking to each other, couple therapy for pregnancy loss may help.
• Don’t only rely on your partner. While you don’t want to alienate yourself from your partner, you also don’t want to over-rely on them. There is often the expectation that a partner should be able to understand how pregnancy loss feels better than anyone else. Well, if they do, this is incredibly fortunate. However, when incongruent grief is present, you and your partner could benefit from support or distractions outside the relationship. If you need to talk, look for someone who gets it. Online communities made of individuals who have gone through pregnancy loss can be supportive. On the other hand, if your way of coping is immersing yourself in work, DIY (do-it-yourself) projects, or gaming, this is OK too. However, it is about sensitively communicating to your partner your need to escape and stay strong, so they don’t feel ignored and forgotten.

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