Ask Julia: Why Does Moving Forward Feel Like Leaving Them Behind?
Building a new life after your partner dies can feel like a betrayal. Why that guilt comes, what the "new normal" really means, and how to build your life around the loss rather than away from it.
Written by
Julia Samuel MBE
In this article
Key takeaways
- The new normal isn't putting the past away. It's living in the world as it is now, with the person you lost still part of you.
- Grief often changes both your inner world and your outer life: friendships, home, work, relationships.
- Many people fear that feeling better means their partner has become less important. It doesn't.
- My one tip: don't try to shrink the grief. Build your life around it, and keep ways to return to them whenever you need to.
- I call this accommodation. It's an active process, not a sign that you've stopped caring.
Watch Julia answer
Read the full conversation
Interviewer: Julia, you refer to the new normal and this is basically where you learn to become accustomed to your new way of living. It'll never go back to the same as it was before, but could you explain a little bit more about what that means and how we can move into this new normal in a healthy way?
Julia: I think the new normal is kind of navigating yourself in the world as it is now and through grief there will have been huge amounts of change. So you may have lost friendships, you may have moved house, you may have a different job, you may have started a new relationship. So not only has your internal world really changed and been turned upside down, but also that can be matched by your external world being extremely different. And that doesn't mean that you don't carry your past. So our present is always informed and connected to our past and we can kind of be thrown back at it at any moment. So the new normal isn't like you've got over the past or it is completely behind you, but it's informing you and you've integrated it as part of you as you're in your present new situation in place in life. So one of the things clients often talk about which seems very helpful is that when they're in the intensity of the grief, people say to them all the time, you'll be okay, time is a healer, you know, you'll get on with your life, you're a survivor, all of those things. And when they're in the thick of it in those first months and months, if you look at the person that's died and you look inside them, they kind of feel like it's all of them. All of them is the person that's died. And the accommodation I talk to people about isn't that the person becomes less important. So that's really important that they don't become diminished and less because then that feels you feel guilty, like you've somehow abandoned them, you don't care about them anymore. But the person and the shape of them, they often feel like there's a heart shape inside them remains the same. But in the accommodation and in your new normal, you build your life around the loss. So you can still go back and access it at any point and it's still very much part of you, but you build your life around the edge.
Transcribed automatically; may contain small errors.
People who have lost a husband, wife or partner ask this most of all, and the guilt that comes with it can be heavy.
What the new normal really is
The new normal is navigating yourself in the world as it is now. Grief brings huge amounts of change. You may have lost friendships. You may have moved house, or changed job, or started a new relationship. So not only has your inner world been turned upside down; your outer world may be completely different too.
That doesn't mean you stop carrying your past. Our present is always informed by and connected to our past, and a song or a smell can throw you straight back into it at any moment.
So the new normal isn't like you've got over the past or it is completely behind you, but it's informing you and you've integrated it as part of you
— From my answer in the video
Why feeling better can feel like betrayal
In the first months, people say all sorts of things to the bereaved: you'll be okay, time is a healer, you're a survivor. And yet, when you're in the thick of it, your grief can feel like all of you. Your partner feels like all of you.
So when the intensity begins to ease and you laugh at something, enjoy a day or make a plan, it can bring a wave of guilt. It can feel as though they've become less important, as though you've abandoned them, as though you don't care any more.
the accommodation I talk to people about isn't that the person becomes less important.
— From my answer in the video
This matters so much. Your partner doesn't become diminished. Many people describe a heart shape inside them that holds the person they loved, and that shape stays the same size.
Growing around grief
The grief counsellor Lois Tonkin described this beautifully in 1996. She told the story of a mother who had drawn her grief as a circle filling her whole life. She had expected the circle to shrink over time. It didn't. Instead, her life grew larger around it. The grief stayed the same size; there was simply more life around it.
Researchers call the ongoing relationship with the person who died "continuing bonds", a term from the influential work of Dennis Klass, Phyllis Silverman and Steven Nickman, who showed that healthy grief keeps a connection to the person rather than cutting it.
you build your life around the loss. So you can still go back and access it at any point and it's still very much part of you
— From my answer in the video
My one tip: build your life around the loss, not away from it
- Picture it. Draw a circle for your grief, then a bigger circle around it for your life. You're not making the grief smaller; you're adding to the space around it.
- Add one small thing this month. A class, a walk with a new friend, a morning volunteering. Something that belongs to your life now.
- Keep a doorway back to them. A regular ritual, like lighting a candle, playing their music or visiting a place you loved, so you know you can return whenever you need to.
- Name the guilt when it comes. "Feeling better doesn't mean I love him less."
- Take them with you. Say their name. Tell new friends about them. Let them come into new places with you.
- Expect to be thrown back sometimes. That isn't going backwards. It's part of carrying someone you love.
When other people rush you
Other people often want you to be further along than you are. Their timetable isn't yours. Accommodation takes its own time, and it doesn't have a finish line. What you're building, slowly, is a life that has room in it for joy, for new people and new plans, and for your partner, who remains part of you.
How Grief Works can help
In the Grief Works programme, Session 21, New normal, Session 22, Continuing relationships and Session 27, Life grows are all about building your life around the loss while keeping your person close. Our counsellors are available by 1-to-1 chat from 9am to 9pm every day, and in our weekly small-group meet-ups you'll find people facing exactly this question.
If you need to talk to someone now
- Samaritans: 116 123, free, day or night
- Cruse Bereavement Support: 0808 808 1677
Common questions
What does "new normal" mean after someone dies?
Is it wrong to feel happy again after my partner died?
What are continuing bonds in grief?
How we wrote and reviewed this article
Julia Samuel MBE wrote this article from her own answer in the filmed conversation above, adding research and practical guidance. Lines marked "From my answer in the video" are her words as she spoke them.
Sources
- Julia Samuel, filmed Grief Works conversation, "How Do I Move Forward Without Leaving Them Behind?" (video, 2.5 minutes)
- L. Tonkin (1996), "Growing around grief: another way of looking at grief and recovery", Bereavement Care, 15(1)
- D. Klass, P. R. Silverman and S. L. Nickman (eds), Continuing Bonds: New Understandings of Grief (1996)
- Julia Samuel, Grief Works programme: Session 21: New normal; Session 22: Continuing relationships; Session 27: Life grows
Article history
- 17 September 2026: Updated
- 4 August 2026: Published
About the author
Written by
Julia Samuel MBE
Psychotherapist and co-creator of Grief Works
One of the world's most respected grief psychotherapists, with over 35 years' experience. Former Vice President of the BACP, MBE for services to the bereaved, Founder Patron of Child Bereavement UK, and bestselling author of Grief Works and This Too Shall Pass.
