How To Navigate Your Marriage After Baby Loss
Many young people dream of growing up, falling in love, getting married, and having children. It’s a holy and beautiful dream, but sometimes that dream can feel broken when a couple loses a child through miscarriage, stillbirth, or pregnancy loss. This can be one of the first traumatic life events new couples experience.
Losing a baby causes deep grief and pain, and often puts stress and strain on marriages. A pregnancy or infant loss affects both the husband and wife, and divorce rates increase by 22% after a miscarriage and 40% after a stillbirth.
Marriages must be navigated with tenderness, love, and intentionality after the pain of losing a child. Here are several ways to navigate your marriage after the loss of a pregnancy or infant.
Navigating your Marriage After a Miscarriage
With early miscarriages, couples, unfortunately, might not have a reason for the loss. This can cause a lot of questions about life, about God, and the future of “having children”. Don’t be afraid to lean into these questions together. Never dismiss loss because it is early. Instead of saying, “you were only 5 weeks along”, say “you were already 5 weeks!” Remember, that baby is valuable and wanted.
Navigating Your Marriage After a Stillbirth
When a stillbirth happens later in pregnancy or even at birth, as with miscarriage, the couple is faced with a baby that is born not into this world, but into the arms of Jesus. Couples who experience this type of loss are not only gripped with grief and pain; they are usually also facing an unknown medical issue that caused the infant to pass away before birth. With stillbirth, a few additional steps must be taken. You will probably be asked what kind of testing, if any, you would like done. You will also probably be presented with the choice of having a burial either privately, or sometimes even hospitals do have this option. Allow God to guide you, as you make these difficult decisions.
Navigating Your Marriage After an Infant Loss
When an infant passes away after birth, it is a devastating loss for couples. The grief is overwhelming at times and the void in their life is ever-present now that their child is gone. Both the husband and wife can easily fall into depression, bitterness, and anger-filled resentment. The death of a child is a devastating thing and should not be taken lightly. No matter at what point you are experiencing a pregnancy loss or infant loss, it is important to be on the same team as your spouse.
*Here are some tips and ways you can invest in your marriage during these painful moments:
Pray & Talk Together
If you’re experiencing loss of any kind, it is important to lean on each other, pray together, and encourage each other through their grief. Communication is SO important - try a daily check-in with each other (ex: What were the highs and lows of your day?). When you’re able to express your honest emotions with your spouse, you know how to best care for one another. PS, it goes BOTH ways!
Be Compassionate
Wives often bear the biggest burden in the loss of a pregnancy, as they feel like their bodies failed them. Husbands need to be compassionate and tender with their wives and remind them that they are not failures due to the loss of the pregnancy. Wives, create a space for your husband to grieve in ways that feel natural to him. Maybe it’s taking a hike and being alone for a few hours a week.
Honor Your Child Together
One of the things that couples can do together is to create a remembrance of the pregnancy that ended in miscarriage. Some couples write poems as a remembrance, plant trees, or buy a special keepsake to honor and remember the baby that awaits to meet them in heaven.
If you are looking for ways to honor and remember your child after a miscarriage, here is a list of ideas to keep them close to your heart.
Find External Support
This is a crushing time emotionally, physically, and quite often spiritually for couples. Couples who experience this type of loss need the support of family, friends, and Pastoral care. They will also need to seek help and guidance from medical professionals and find stillbirth/pregnancy loss-related support groups to help them navigate their grief. A lot of couples find comfort in holding their baby and taking photos as a memento of this precious, yet deeply tragic time in their lives.
Don’t Place Blame
If you are experiencing the tragedy of a stillbirth, it is vital to remember to never blame your spouse for the loss. You need to be gentle with each other, support and encourage each other, and pray together. Stillbirths have many causes that are out of your control, and blame will not change what happened.
Hold a Memorial Service Together
Planning an intimate memorial service with close family and friends can be a good way to grieve together as a couple. This is a very vulnerable time for couples, and they will question themselves, each other, and God as to “WHY” their child has passed. These emotional responses are a normal part of the grieving process, and having spiritual care from Pastors and counselors can help couples through this process.
Be gentle with yourself and with your spouse, and lean on each other for comfort.
Attend Counseling
Specialized grief counseling by a trained counselor or coach is essential at this time to help couples navigate through this tragic loss. Being supportive, encouraging, and comforting to each other is key. We are HUGE advocates of counseling. Remember, every good team needs a great coach!
Join a Loss Support Group
Joining a loss support group can also help you navigate through their grief and learn how to avoid the pitfalls of the loss undermining their marriage. Foreknown hosts digital support groups for both women and men. Click here to join the next one.
Make Intentional Time For Your Marriage
The death of a child is a devastating thing and should not be taken lightly. No matter at what point you are experiencing a pregnancy loss or infant loss, it is important to be on the same team as your spouse. CHOOSE YOUR SPOUSE above all. No one will be able to understand your grief quite like your spouse, yet it is important to remember that you will grieve differently. Remember, your spouse is your God-given help-mate. Do everything you can to choose one another.
Take time to pray and mourn together. Go on intentional dates where you can spend time together and talk. Consider attending a retreat together where you can focus on your marriage. Foreknown’s “As One” Couple’s Weekend is designed for those who have experienced loss - to bring you together when grief pulls you apart.
Your marriage is worth taking care of in these painful moments. Do everything you can to pursue each other in these seasons.
Remember, God Cares For You & Your Marriage
Matthew 5:4 states “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted…”. Hold this truth in your hearts and minds as God sees your grief, and He will carry you through.
God cares deeply for you in this painful time, and He will carry you, your marriage, and your spouse through this tragedy. Lean into your spouse as God has given them as your helpmate. Trust them and pursue them. God will guide you both as you trust in Him.
Need more support? Here are your next two steps:
Sign up for your 7 Days of Hope Emails so you can start processing your pain. These daily emails will guide you through pain and point you towards a path of hope. After your seven days are over, you’ll get a weekly email designed to help you on your healing journey with encouragement, connection, and helpful scriptures as you heal.
Start the Your Journey to Joy Course. This self-guided course will connect you to Foreknown Co-Founders Alyson and Kelsi as they lead you on a journey through your pain. This content has helped hundreds of women find hope, create a plan, and start a process of healing after pregnancy loss with Jesus.
