When Your Husband Grieves Differently After a Miscarriage - Don't Mistake It for Coldness

Why Does a Gap in Feeling Open Up with Your Husband After a Miscarriage?

After a miscarriage, your tears won't stop, yet your husband goes back to work as usual the following week and talks about his job at the dinner table. Seeing him like that, you may feel "So this wasn't a big deal to him," and end up carrying loneliness on top of your grief. But the calm that shows on the outside does not always match what is happening inside. Mixed into what looks like a gap in feeling there may be not a difference in how much someone grieves, but a difference in how grief comes out, or in how long it takes to come out.

One reason the gap appears is that you have each lived through the same event from a different place. The one who was pregnant has gone through the loss with the whole body: morning sickness and bodily changes, bleeding and procedures, and the slow return of physical health afterward. The other stands beside all of it, yet returns to daily life with nothing having changed in their body. The length of time each of you felt the pregnancy was real may also differ, and depending on how many times you looked at the ultrasound screen together or how many nights you talked over possible names, the outline of what was lost can look different from person to person.

Another is the role others expect. Some people are told by relatives or coworkers, "Take care of your wife," and feel they must not fall apart. While taking on the hospital paperwork, contacting work, and telling the parents, some let time pass with their own grief put off. A miscarriage is a loss people rarely talk about, and the grief of the partner who was not pregnant can become even harder to see. Grief like this, which others are reluctant to recognize as something one has the right to feel, is called disenfranchised grief, and for how society receives it, the view of the right to mourn a loss no one talks about can also help.

There is a way of dividing people that calls those who let feelings out by crying or talking "intuitive," and those who hold on through action, such as throwing themselves into work, looking into causes, or taking on paperwork, "instrumental." Neither is right, and both can be mixed in one person, but grieving that leans toward the instrumental style can look from the outside as if the person is not grieving.

When you notice a gap in feeling, the point is not to guess whether your partner is grieving. It is to tell apart whether the way they are responding denies your grief, or is simply a different form from yours. If it is the former, what you need to talk about changes; if it is the latter, there is room to adjust how you ask.

Ways Your Husband May Seem Cold After a Miscarriage, and Other Ways to Read Them

Below are responses that are easily taken as coldness. The right-hand column is not a correct answer about "how you should see it," but material for checking whether another possibility exists.

If, reading the right-hand side of the table, you still feel "but I'm lonely," that feeling is not wrong. Knowing that your partner has his own way of grieving and getting the kind of support you want are two separate things.

On the other hand, some responses can't be put down to a difference in how people grieve. Here is a guide for telling apart a difference from a response that denies your grief.

When the right-hand column keeps happening, put protecting your mind and body ahead of finding better ways to ask. When words blaming you for the miscarriage or an attitude that won't let you rest keep piling up, please also consider not carrying it only in conversations between the two of you, and using the places to consult in a later section. When the blaming words and attitude continue and you feel afraid of your partner, calling DV Consultation Navi (#8008) connects you to a nearby place to consult about spousal violence.

How Can You Ask Your Partner to Listen When You Need Them To?

Wanting your partner to "just pick up on it" is a natural feeling, but a partner who grieves differently may not see what you are asking for. Their silence may be because they don't know what would help. The knack of asking is to make what you want small and specific, set how long it lasts and when it ends, and leave your partner room to say no.

When You Just Want to Be Heard

If your partner tends to answer with reasons or solutions, saying "I don't need an answer" at the start can sometimes take the pressure off them.

• "Today, let me talk about our baby for just 10 minutes. You don't have to try to say anything; I just want you to listen"
• "More than advice, if you could just say 'that must have been hard,' that would be enough"
• "Please don't stop me if I cry. It would help if you'd just sit next to me"

When You Want a Way to Mourn Together

With a partner who finds it hard to talk in words, asking to do something together may reach them better.

• "Would you choose a box with me to keep the ultrasound photos in?"
• "On the day that was the due date, I'd like the two of us to take a little time"
• "I'd like us to think together about whether to give our baby a name"

When You Also Want to Know How Your Partner Feels

When you want to close the gap in feeling, it helps to not only talk about yourself but also create an opening to hear your partner's grief, so the conversation is less likely to run one way. To keep it from turning into an interrogation, ask in a way that lets them not answer.

• "I'd like to know how you're feeling. It doesn't have to be right now"
• "Since you went back to work, do you ever find yourself lost in thought when you're alone?"
• "If you can't cry in front of me, that's okay. But please don't carry it alone"

Even if what comes back after you ask is smaller than you hoped, you don't need to decide right away that it failed. For your partner, handling grief in words may itself be a first. If it doesn't get through the first time, it is enough to wait a while and try saying it again in a different way.

The reverse also happens: it is you who can't cry, and your partner blames you, "How can you be fine?" In that case, tell them you are not fine but carrying it in a different form, and try putting it into words: "Right now, keeping my hands busy helps me hold on more than talking does." Whichever side you are on, not trying to make your partner grieve in your shape is the foundation for keeping the gap in feeling from turning into mutual blame.

How to Think About It When You Differ on When to Talk About the Next Pregnancy

One of the moments when the gap in feeling comes to the surface is talk of the next pregnancy. One of you wants to move on quickly; the other can't think about it yet. Neither is making light of the baby you lost; some people hold up their grief by moving forward, and others protect their grief by standing still. The one who raised it early may feel "I can't stay on my feet without hope for what's ahead," while the one who can't think about it yet may feel "If we talk about the next one, it's as if this baby gets written over."

Your physical recovery and when it is okay to think about the next pregnancy involve medical judgment, so please check with your doctor. When physical symptoms such as bleeding, pain, or fever continue, please put seeing a doctor ahead of the discussion.

The next pregnancy is basically something the two of you talk over, but there are times when it is better not to decide together right now: for example, when one of you keeps being unable to sleep or eat, when words blaming the other come out, or when you are trying to reach an answer under pressure from relatives. At such times, one approach is to put off the decision itself and decide only "when we'll talk again." If you set a date, such as "Let's talk about this again at the end of next month," it may tell the earlier one that the topic hasn't disappeared, and the later one that there's no need to answer right now.

Where to Turn When It's More Than the Two of You Can Carry

When every talk turns into an argument, when you can no longer cry in front of your partner, or when the feeling of being the only one left behind doesn't fade even after several months, please consider having a place to talk outside the two of you.

Grief care, where people who have been through miscarriage or stillbirth are listened to, may be found at the help desk of the hospital where you had the procedure, at a local public health center, or in groups where people who have been through miscarriage or stillbirth meet. If your partner isn't keen, it is fine for you to go and talk on your own first.

When you feel low and can't sleep, can't eat, or feel you'd like to disappear, one option is to call a mental health help line. The Mental Health Consultation Dial (0570-064-556) connects you to a public place to consult in the area you call from. It has set hours, so at night or on days off, the Yorisoi Hotline (24 hours) will listen to you. You can find somewhere you can reach at this hour with Helplines Open Now.

How to face the grief of a miscarriage itself is covered in the piece on how to carry a loss that people rarely talk about. When you feel you are carrying alone a grief that the people around you don't understand, the piece about a loss that no one acknowledges may also offer a clue.

When you notice a gap in feeling, first try holding your partner's responses up against the table to see which row they are closest to, and choose just one thing you want to ask for. It can be "Listen to me for just 10 minutes" or "I'd like to take time on the day that was the due date." At a time when you can talk calmly, try handing that one line to your partner.