When the Relationship was Strained

by Julia Rajtar, MAPS, BCC

When Mom died, my grief was used up. She was my mom, yes, and I was her daughter, but nothing ever seemed good enough for her. She did not express her emotions; I never heard her say I love you, unless I said it first. I am a hugger; my mom is not. Hugging her never fully felt like a warm embrace; it was more like someone holding you with their white gloves they couldn’t get dirty. But now I seem to miss her a lot and hold this mixed bag of feelings.

My husband drank a lot. I know it affected me, our children, our marriage, and I didn’t realize until years later that it also affected my grieving. I never really talked about him after he died, nor did I talk about my grief. Like his drinking, I tried to keep it hidden, a secret, including all my pain after he died.

My adult daughter had a problem; she had a substance use disorder. That really strained our relationship. I loved her dearly, and I wanted to do whatever I could to help her, but sometimes, I had to set boundaries between us – that nearly killed me. I encouraged her to seek help and took her to get it, but the trust was broken, as was the relationship. After she died, I felt like I couldn’t grieve my loving child as I needed or wanted. I tried to separate her disease from who she really was, my child. That was easy for me but not so for others. I felt like others judged me as a parent.

My dad grew up in a loving family, but his childhood was messy growing up in a war-torn country. He experienced a great deal of abuse and emotional pain as a child of one nationality in a foreign country, mercilessly teased and taunted by the children in the dominating country. I often wondered if that’s why he treated me with disdain when I didn’t measure up to his standards. To the outside world, he looked like a model citizen, but within his immediate family, his strictness and anger created emotional boundaries between us. As much as I tried to put up a wall, knowing more criticism was coming my way, it still hurt me deeply, my whole life, even after he died.  Why couldn’t he just say one nice thing? And why did I feel so relieved after he died?

There are some who can say we had a perfect relationship. Yet many experience grief differently because of the strained relationship we had with the person who died. We feel we cannot express that part of our grief, and the difficult and painful emotions that follow, because we knew the person who died so differently from the public’s eye. While others share their sorrow over the death, just as we do, we also share deep regret for what wasn’t, sometimes shame, sometimes the feeling of not being loved or good enough, and often an immense sense of relief that can generate just as immense a sense of guilt for feeling that way.

For those of you who found yourself carrying the grief of a strained relationship after your person died, consider joining us for our webinar on Thursday, October 1st, “Grieving When the Relationship was Strained”, with Heather Stang, MA, C-IAYT.  For anyone who has not had this experience, we can always learn about grief and grieving for ourselves, and how to support others in this situation.  Please join us and register at the link above or from our website.