Losing a spouse vs. Losing a parent or child
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Anonymous
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I’ve lost a child. There is no pain like it.
I’ve had another child. The love for one doesn’t negate/balance/remedy the pain of loss for another. It does force you to keep going, for them. I’ve lost a husband through divorce. No pain like that either. While he is still alive, divorce did feel just as painful as the loss of life. There is no value in choosing to force rank pain. It’s all relative. And it all requires healing. |
Anonymous
| I honestly would likely move away from both of them. Grief is terrible. But for any one person to say “my grief is worse than yours” is so horrible that I probably couldn’t continue a friendship with either one. |
Anonymous
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My mother died the year I graduated from college. My sister was still a teenager and my father is a terrible person.
Whenever I was having a tough time with the loss (and it happened a lot....I was so close to my mom), my grandmother (my mom's mother) was sure to tell me that she had it worse because you're supposed to lose your mom at some point, but you shouldn't lose a child. It kind of made me feel terrible. In therapy later, my therapist told me that grief is not a competition. |
Anonymous
I’m so sorry for your loss. DH’s sister was murdered by her spouse four years ago. His mother didn’t know how to answer the how many children do you have question until she heard a bereaved friend’s answer. She now says, “ I have 3 children; one is deceased.” Perhaps this would work for your parents. |
Anonymous
I'm so sorry for you both. All the best. |
Anonymous
Thank you for your kindness. We think about her every day. |
Anonymous
I think there's some truth to this. My uncle died before either of my grandparents...and only a few years before he would have become a father-in-law and then a grandparent himself. My aunt will never remarry, but she seems to have found a peace within herself. I think because losing a spouse feels primarily like something that happens *to* you. My grandparents never recovered from the loss of their adult child. Until her death, she couldn't think of my uncle without tearing up. I think because she felt the loss not just as something bad that happened to her, but as a sort of cosmic injustice that he should be taken early and before his time. Interestingly, my aunt lost her father young and her sister's husband died unexpectedly just a few months after my uncle. I think she is very sanguine about the loss of her father, as are my cousins. They are able to talk about him and his death in a way my grandparents were never able to do. |
Anonymous
| ^^PP again. The second "she" refers to my grandmother. |
Anonymous
| A good friend lost her husband in two years ago from an aggressive cancer. They were truly each other’s best friend and love of their life. She has taken up some new hobbies and her college friends have been there for her. That said, she has lost a lot of weight and there is just a constant sadness in her eyes and weariness about her. |
Anonymous
+2 The only answer that makes sense here. Especially the part about how partner loss is less because that person is "replaceable." What in the ever-loving F? How is this different than saying you can "replace" a child too, by having another one or adopting? Right, you can't...that person is gone. |
Anonymous
| Fil lost his daughter and then lost his wife. For him, the wife was the harder loss. |
Anonymous
| Loss of a child is worse, no question and I’d forgive a friend grieving the loss of a child things I would not forgive in anyone else. Your friend who lost the spouse is truly an idiot, and it’s borderline unforgiveable to attempt to minimize the pain of some who lost their only child, particularly since widow friend has remarried. Widow friend should pray she never learns what it is like to lose a child. And both spouse and I would choose the children over each other in a heartbeat - it’s not even a question. |
Anonymous
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As a man with two toddlers, I would say a mother losing a child is the hardest. I cant imagine the pain both of us would feel if something where to happen but my wife would be inconsolable. I think there is just a special connection between mother /child that cant be replaced. My grandmother lost a husband and two grown sons (one 25 and the other my father at 34). The other 6 siblings said they would never put anyone through that pain that my grandmother went through but always said it was the two sons and not the husband.
Seeing my mother lose my father was tough as well. Strong woman to raise two kids. I agree with the pp that you cant compare levels of grief but if I had to somehow rank them I would say 1. mother losing child, 2. father losing child, 3. spouse losing spouse. |
Anonymous
| I lost a child and a parent. The loss of our child was just so unexpected and felt so unjust. It changed me and my perception of the world around me forever. I’ll never be the same again. And it was an indescribable sharp deep pain for the first six months. The pain eventually dulled, but 8 years later, I still feel the loss deeply and will always have sadness in me. I was much older when losing my parent, and I knew it would happen eventually. It was sad, but there was no comparison there. |
Anonymous
+1 
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