Ask Julia: Why Does Grief Pull Couples Apart?
Two partners can lose the same person and grieve in completely different ways. Why that can drive a wedge between you, and the one thing that helps couples stay close through loss.
Written by
Julia Samuel MBE
In this article
Key takeaways
- Two people can lose the same person and grieve very differently. Researchers call this differential or incongruent grief.
- One partner may want to talk, cry and go over every detail; the other may want to keep busy, make plans and look ahead. These patterns are often, but not always, linked with gender.
- Each style can look like the wrong way to grieve to the other person, which is how resentment starts.
- My one tip: talk about how you each grieve, and allow each other to be different, instead of pushing your partner to grieve like you.
- After a stillbirth or the death of a baby, couples face extra layers of grief. Get specialist support.
Watch Julia answer
Read the full conversation
Interviewer: Is there any advice you can give to couples to help them through that process together?
Julia: Whenever a couple is bereaved, and it may be through a stillbirth, which has a particular complexity, but it can also be other deaths in a family, the couple may grieve differently. A man and woman tend to grieve differently. Women tend to be loss-oriented, that they emote, they grieve, they have this sort of ruminating Sherlock Holmes obsession with every minute of what happened. Men tend to want to get on, they tend to want to move forward, they tend to want to make plans, they're restoration-oriented. And so in a couple, she can think he's like a selfish git, and he can dread going home because she's kind of wet rag that never stops crying. In when there's a stillbirth, it's another level of complication, is that the mother often feels like she's a failure, that somehow she did something wrong, that her body failed her, and that he doesn't understand and doesn't get it. And also, there's the added complication of they still want another child. And so she has to overcome that barrier of fear to dare to let herself trust again, to dare to let herself be pregnant again, and then go through the pregnancy. And he probably wants a child much quicker than she does. He may be ready for it. I mean, not always by any means, because nothing is always. But for a couple, it's a very intense process. And the only thing that helps them is communicating, is telling each other and allowing each other to have their differences, to be different, and to voice them, and not try and kind of push the other one to be like the other one.
Transcribed automatically; may contain small errors.
Two ways of grieving
The grief researchers Margaret Stroebe and Henk Schut describe two orientations in grieving. Loss orientation means turning towards the grief: feeling it, crying, remembering, going over what happened. Restoration orientation means turning towards life: practical tasks, plans, getting on. Healthy grieving moves back and forth between the two.
In couples, I often see partners settle at opposite ends. One tends to be loss-oriented: they emote, they grieve, and they have a kind of Sherlock Holmes obsession with every minute of what happened. The other tends to be restoration-oriented: they want to get on, move forward and make plans.
In my experience, and in the research, women more often grieve in the first way and men in the second, but it isn't always so. The researchers Terry Martin and Kenneth Doka describe these as "intuitive" and "instrumental" styles of grieving, and found that both can appear in anyone.
How the differences turn into resentment
When you don't understand each other's way of grieving, it's easy to read it as a judgement about love. The partner who's keeping busy can seem selfish and uncaring. The partner who's crying every day can seem to be drowning, and home can start to feel unbearable to come back to.
The family researcher Kathleen Gilbert put the question couples ask each other perfectly, in the title of her 1996 study: "We've had the same loss, why don't we have the same grief?" Her answer was that every person's grief is shaped by their own relationship with the person who died, and by who they are. Families don't grieve in step, and couples don't either.
After a stillbirth or the death of a baby
When a baby dies, there's another level of complication. The mother often feels like a failure, as if she did something wrong, or her body failed her, and that her partner doesn't understand. There's often the question of another child, too. She may have to overcome enormous fear to dare to trust again, to let herself be pregnant again, and go through a pregnancy. Her partner may feel ready for another child much sooner. Not always, by any means, because nothing is always. But it's a very intense process for a couple.
And the only thing that helps them is communicating, is telling each other and allowing each other to have their differences, to be different, and to voice them, and not try and kind of push the other one to be like the other one.
— From my answer in the video
My one tip: talk about how you grieve, not just what you've lost
- Choose a calm time, and try talking side by side, on a walk or a drive, rather than face to face.
- Each describe what helps you. "Talking about her helps me." "Keeping busy is how I get through the day."
- Say what you need from each other, specifically: "Could you sit with me when I look at the photos?"
- Agree what you won't say. Not "you don't care", not "you need to stop crying".
- Make room for both ways. Time together to remember, and time when it's fine to do something ordinary.
- Check in each week: "How is it for you this week?"
- If you keep getting stuck, get help together. A counsellor can hold the space for both of you.
You're on the same side
Grieving differently doesn't mean loving differently, or loving less. When you understand your partner's way of grieving as their way of surviving, rather than as a rejection of you or of the person who died, you can stop fighting over the right way to grieve and start supporting each other through it.
How Grief Works can help
In the Grief Works programme, Session 12, Love and support, and Session 25, Changed relationships, help you understand how loss changes the people closest to you, and many couples go through the programme side by side. Our counsellors are available by 1-to-1 chat from 9am to 9pm every day.
Support for couples and families
- Sands (stillbirth and neonatal death) Helpline: 0808 164 3332
- Relate offers counselling for couples
- Cruse Bereavement Support: 0808 808 1677
- Samaritans: 116 123, free, day or night
Common questions
Why do my partner and I grieve so differently?
Can grief put a strain on a relationship?
How do I support my partner when we're both grieving?
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, "Grieving as a Couple" (video, 2 minutes)
- M. Stroebe and H. Schut (1999), "The dual process model of coping with bereavement: rationale and description", Death Studies, 23(3)
- K. R. Gilbert (1996), "'We've had the same loss, why don't we have the same grief?' Loss and differential grief in families", Death Studies, 20(3), 269 to 283
- T. L. Martin and K. J. Doka, Men Don't Cry… Women Do: Transcending Gender Stereotypes of Grief (2000)
- Sands helpline page, checked 17 September 2026
Article history
- 17 September 2026: Updated
- 3 September 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.
