What is the grieving process like in complicated relationships?

The grief we suffer after losing someone can be accentuated if that relationship was complicated.

One of the characteristics of the psychological grief that people go through after losing someone they love is, as a general rule, the feeling that the experience with the other person is an unfinished story.. That is to say, a narration that has not reached a true outcome.

Even the relatives of a very old person or of someone who has been very ill for years tend to experience the death of that loved one as a false closure, a hasty and "artificial" way of putting an end to the relationship.

However, when the grief is produced by the loss of someone important to oneself but with whom one has had a complicated and emotionally ambivalent relationship, this distressing experience is even more intensified. It is partly for this reason that, although it may seem paradoxical, grief can become more painful when you lose someone with whom you did not have an emotional bond based solely and clearly on pure love.

In this article we will a review of the characteristics of psychological grief in complicated relationships, and its implications in psychotherapy.and its implications in psychotherapy.

What is grief?

Let's start by focusing on the concept of psychological grief. What is it? Summarized, it is the psychological state of discomfort that appears after an event that we interpret as a loss of someone or something that was important to us: a house, a job, a home, a job, a job, a job, a job, a job, a job, a job, a job.In short, it is the psychological state of distress that follows an event that we interpret as a loss of someone or something that was important to us: a house, a job, a university environment, beauty itself, a pet, an object with sentimental value because of what it symbolizes, or, in the clearest cases, a friend, a family member or a partner.

Thus, it can be said that psychological grief is the consequence of "leaving behind" something or someone with whom we had a strong positive emotional bond. It is a consequence, in part, of the problems of adapting to a new reality in which we no longer have access to that person or element so important to us, and of the challenge of emotionally managing the memories of what linked us to that loved one, place, physical feature or object.

Some of the most some of the most common experiences associated with bereavement are the following:

• Uncontrolled crying when vividly recalling experiences to which we would like to return.
• Tendency to focus attention on the past and not so much on the present.
• Constant comparisons between the reality that takes us through our memories and the one we experience in the here and now.
• Feelings of guilt for not having acted differently before the loss occurred.
• Feeling that we will never be able to live life in the same way again.

In most cases, the bereavement produces intense discomfort, but as the weeks go by it becomes more bearable until it reaches a point at which it no longer until it reaches a point where it no longer significantly damages the quality of life of the person who has been suffering it; however, in some cases it acquires psychopathological characteristics and it becomes necessary to seek psychotherapy.

Main characteristics of grief after a complicated relationship.

Earlier we saw that grief occurs when we encounter a situation in which we disconnect with a person, animal or aspect of daily life with which we felt very close, so that the loss overwhelms us emotionally because that bond was based on pleasant or exciting emotions that we tend to associate with the "positive" side of life: the pleasure of dinner with a boyfriend or girlfriend, Christmas with grandma, the experience of playing with our pet... However, this is a half-truth.

Sometimes, it is difficult to simply consider as "positive" the bond that unites us with a person who is important to us.. This is very common when we have gone through an unsatisfactory or conflictive couple relationship, or when we have grown up in an unstructured family with problems in the upbringing.

In fact, the experience of mourning the loss of someone with whom one had a complicated relationship is very common in the case of a breakup: in many cases, this separation is experienced as a bitter moment that has been preceded by a time of happiness with that person.

In such cases, it is common for apparently contradictory emotions towards the other person to overlap, since on the one hand there has been an overlapping of emotions towards the other person.On the one hand, we have felt illusion for the fact of starting that relationship or marriage, and on the other hand, a series of frustrating, sad or simply anxious events have led to an outcome that, seen from the past, is undesirable. How do we feel, then, with this loss?

Thus, if there is one thing that practically all cases of grief due to leaving behind a complicated relationship have in common, it is the clash between emotions that apparently pull one towards opposite sides, and that produce a feeling of sentimental and even intellectual instability (since it is difficult to explain what has happened). Let us see what are the main psychological elements of this process.

1. Heightened feelings of guilt

The dissatisfaction between what could have been and what has finally been the relationship makes many people feel very guilty for not having been able to return positive that relationship with the person left behind.

2. Anguish at the lack of a single way of interpreting the relationship.

As in a complicated relationship there is usually some kind of confrontation or clash of interests, it is difficult to be sure that our version of the facts is the right one.. This is very significant, taking into account that in mourning human beings tend to look for a stable way of interpreting and narratively vertebrate our memories of what we have lived with that person.

3. Feeling of dissociation with respect to the person who is left behind

In the mourning of complicated relationships, it is more common for the person to notice that the person he/she has really left behind is not the person he/she is grieving for. the person from whom he or she has really separated and the person whom he or she remembers and recreates in his or her imagination are different, and that the latter "is not the same person".and that the latter is "unreliable" because it is a means of self-deception.

Do you want to have professional psychological assistance?

If you are going through bad times in your personal life, in a family relationship or in a couple relationship, we invite you to contact our team of professionals.

At Psicomaster we serve people of all ages, working in psychotherapy from strategies and therapeutic resources as effective as the cognitive-behavioral model, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and EMDR therapy. We also offer psychiatry services. You will find us in our center located in Madrid.