Grief is one of those experiences that we all encounter, yet very few of us are taught how to live through it.
We tend to think of grief as something that happens when someone dies. We attend the funeral, we send flowers, we offer condolences, and then, after a while, there can be an unspoken expectation that life should gradually return to normal.
But grief doesn't work that way.
In my work as a mental health counsellor, I have come to see how differently people experience loss. Some people cry constantly. Others feel numb. Some become angry. Others become incredibly busy. Some talk about their loss every day, while others cannot bear to talk about it at all.
And sometimes, months or even years later, something unexpectedly brings the loss back to the surface.
A song.
A smell.
A birthday.
A familiar place.
A photograph.
A conversation.
And suddenly, the grief is there again.
This does not necessarily mean that something has gone wrong. It may simply mean that something mattered deeply.
Grief is not only about death
We often reserve the word grief for bereavement, but grief can follow many different kinds of loss. We can grieve:
the death of a loved one or a beloved animal
the end of a marriage or relationship
moving away from a home, city, or country
losing a job or career
losing an identity or a role that once gave life meaning
a diagnosis that changes the future we imagined
estrangement from someone who is still alive
the loss of safety or trust
miscarriage or infertility
a friendship that has ended
the future we thought we were going to have
In my work with couples, I see another form of grief that is often overlooked: grief within relationships and grief after relationships end.
When a marriage or long-term partnership ends, the loss is rarely only the person.
We can grieve the relationship we had, but also the relationship we wished we could have had. We may grieve the version of our partner we fell in love with, the version of ourselves we were in that relationship, and the future we spent years imagining together. There may be the loss of a shared home, familiar routines, friendships, family traditions and financial security. But there may also be much more intangible losses:
The holidays you imagined celebrating together.
The places you thought you would travel to.
The children you imagined raising together.
The grandchildren you imagined one day meeting.
The ordinary mornings and evenings you assumed would continue.
Growing old beside the person you thought would be there.
And alongside the sadness, there can be an exhausting stream of questions:
What if I had done something differently? What if I had communicated better? What if I had been more patient? What if I had left earlier? What if I had stayed? What if they had changed? What if we had gone to therapy sooner? What if I had noticed the signs?
Some of these questions can be valuable. They can help us understand ourselves, recognise patterns and take responsibility for what genuinely belongs to us. But sometimes the what ifs become an attempt to negotiate with the past.
The mind keeps returning to the same moments, searching for the one decision that could have produced a different ending.
And underneath the question may be something even more painful:
“Could I have prevented this loss?”
Sometimes the answer is yes. We all have things we wish we had done differently in relationships. But recognising our part is not the same as taking responsibility for the entire outcome. A relationship is created between two people. We can take responsibility for our own choices, behaviours and patterns, but we cannot single-handedly create the relationship we wanted.
There is also another kind of relationship grief that I think deserves more attention. Sometimes we are not grieving a relationship that was good and then ended. We are grieving the relationship we kept hoping it would become. Perhaps you spent years hoping your partner would become more emotionally available. Perhaps you kept waiting to feel chosen, understood, desired or safe. Perhaps there were moments when you saw glimpses of the relationship you wanted, which made it easier to keep hoping.
When that hope finally disappears, there can be a profound sense of loss.
You are not only accepting that the relationship has ended. You may be accepting that the relationship you imagined may never happen. You are grieving something that existed primarily in possibility.
And sometimes grief exists inside a relationship
Grief is not always what happens after a relationship ends. Many couples can also experience grief while they are still together.
A diagnosis can change the life they imagined.
Infertility can alter the future they had pictured.
The birth of a child can change the relationship they once knew.
A partner's illness, addiction, injury or significant life transition can change the roles the couple once had.
Even growing older can involve grieving earlier versions of ourselves and our relationship.
Sometimes couples come to counselling saying they want to “fix” their relationship, but underneath the conflict, there is grief.
Grief for the honeymoon period that ended.
Grief for the relationship they thought marriage would give them.
Grief for years spent disconnected.
Grief for trust that was broken.
Grief for a version of themselves they no longer recognise.
And before a couple can decide what comes next, there can sometimes be a need to acknowledge what has already been lost.
Grief does not always tell us to leave, and it is also important to remember that grief within a relationship does not automatically mean the relationship needs to end. Sometimes acknowledging the loss allows couples to mourn an old version of their relationship and begin creating something different. The goal is not always to get back to how things were.
Sometimes the question becomes:
“What can we create from here?”
That is very different from pretending that nothing happened.
A couple may need to grieve what they had hoped their relationship would be before they can honestly decide what they want their relationship to become.
And sometimes, when a relationship does end, the work is different.
It may be about grieving without turning the grief into endless self-blame.
It may be about making peace with what cannot be changed.
It may be about separating the person from the future you imagined with them.
And eventually, it may be about making room for a future that you could not have imagined when the relationship first ended. Because sometimes what we are grieving is not simply who we lost. It is who we thought we would become together.
There is no universal timeline
Perhaps this is one reason grief can be so difficult to measure. We often expect ourselves to be “over it” by a certain point, especially when the loss happened a long time ago.
“It happened two years ago.”
“It was only a relationship.”
“I should be stronger.”
“Other people seem to have moved on.”
“But I have a good life.”
This is true not only after the end of a romantic relationship, but also with other forms of loss.
Imagine someone who has built a rich and meaningful life and is deeply grateful for what they have, but still becomes tearful whenever they speak about a parent who died several years ago. They may find themselves wondering why the grief still feels so close to the surface when so much time has passed.
Perhaps the more useful question is not:
“Why haven't I gotten over this?”
Perhaps it is:
“What did this relationship mean to me?”
Because sometimes the intensity of grief tells us something about the depth of the attachment. When we have loved someone deeply, their absence does not become insignificant simply because time has passed. We may continue to miss them, remember them, and feel their absence at particular moments. The goal does not necessarily have to be reaching a point where talking about them no longer brings tears. Sometimes the tears are simply evidence that the relationship still matters.
Grief and love are connected
We sometimes talk about grief as though it were the opposite of love, but grief exists because something mattered. When we lose someone we deeply loved, we don't lose only their physical presence. We lose their voice, their routines, their particular way of seeing us, the experiences we shared, and the possibility of future experiences together. We may lose the person who remembered who we were before we became who we are now. And sometimes we are grieving not only the person but also the version of ourselves that existed in a relationship with them. This is one reason grief can feel so disorienting. We are not simply missing someone; we are learning to inhabit a world that has changed.
The things we say with good intentions
When someone is grieving, we often reach for phrases like “Stay strong,” “Keep busy,” “Time heals,” or “You need to move on.” They usually come from care, but they can unintentionally send the message: “Your grief is uncomfortable, and I want you to feel better.”
Grief doesn't need to be fixed or rushed. Crying, anger, numbness and sadness are all part of being human. Staying busy can help, but constant distraction can also keep us from what hurts.
Time may soften the intensity of grief, but it doesn't process the loss for us. Healing can involve making space for what we feel, making sense of what happened, and gradually learning to live with what has changed.
And perhaps healing doesn't mean letting go. Someone who has died can remain part of our inner world. A relationship that ended can still have mattered. A place we left can remain part of who we are.
The goal is not necessarily to “move on”, but to learn to live again.
Moving on can sound like leaving the person, relationship, home or former life behind. Learning to live again allows the loss to become part of our story without becoming the whole story.
You may eventually laugh without feeling guilty. You may make new friends, fall in love again, travel somewhere new or build a different life. None of these things mean that what you lost did not matter. Perhaps healing is not about letting go of what mattered, but learning to carry it differently.
What can actually help?
Talk about the person or the loss. Find someone who can listen without immediately trying to make you feel better.
Allow memories. Photographs, music, objects, places and stories can help us stay connected to what mattered.
Write. You might write about what you miss, what you appreciated, what you wish had been different, what you never got to say, or what you want to carry forward.
Notice what you are avoiding. Avoidance can protect us temporarily. But when we continually push away memories or emotions, exploring them gradually and with support can sometimes help.
Stay connected. Grief can make us withdraw at precisely the time when we need connection most.
Let your body participate. Grief isn't only something we think about. It can live in the chest, throat, stomach, shoulders and nervous system. Walking, movement, breathing, rest and other forms of gentle somatic regulation can help us stay connected to ourselves while difficult emotions move through us.
Seek support when you need it. You don't have to wait until grief becomes unbearable before talking to a counsellor.
Grief changes because we change in relation to it. Sometimes it becomes softer. Sometimes it becomes less frequent. Sometimes it remains surprisingly intense around particular dates or memories.
You are not broken because you are grieving. You are responding to loss.
Healing may not mean becoming the person you were before the loss. Perhaps it is about slowly discovering how to become yourself again, while making room for everything that the loss has changed.
Warmly,
Iza | Individual and Couples Counselling💫
Iza is a Clinical Mental Health Counselor (MA & MSc), trauma-trained and multicultural, working with adults and couples through an emotionally focused, body-based and culturally sensitive lens. Her work brings together psychological approaches, somatic awareness, attachment and relational perspectives, with a particular interest in how our relationships, experiences and losses shape our inner worlds.
Based in Shanghai, Iza works with people from diverse cultural backgrounds and supports clients through periods of change, relationship difficulties, grief and personal growth.