Miscarriage & Marriage
Miscarriage is hard. It is hard on women, and it is hard on their husbands.
When we got married, I definitely had not planned for all of this. I had dreams & plans, and none of this was in it. John didn't plan for this either. He didn't plan to see his wife in excruciating amounts of pain, or sobbing uncontrollably reading someone's baby gender reveal on Instagram. I think that to often we forget about the husbands in all of this. While they don't go through all the physical trauma that their wives do, they go through a lot of emotional trauma... between seeing their wives go through extreme pain (and the emotional aftermath of that) and the sadness of losing baby that they loved too. Miscarriage is extremely hard on marriages. I read about how divorces rates almost double in marriages with couples that have lost babies or experience infertility. How scary is that... So if you are currently walking through loss and you feel that way, here are some tips for you and your spouse! I am still learning but having gone through multiple miscarriages in our short marriage, I have some things that have helped us.
1. Realize that you may grieve differently. I grieve pretty openly for the most part but John doesn’t usually like to talk about it. That is okay!! It is okay to grieve and process differently than your spouse. I think that it’s pretty normal but I think that however you process your grief, you need to continually be pointing each other to Christ. That way you will be able to grieve differently but still stay connected to one another through Christ.
2. Go to counseling. I personally believe that even in the happy times of marriage, that you should have mentors that are older than you that are pouring into you and your spouse. I think there are always things that we can improve in our marriages. In times of mourning, I think that it’s even more important to seek wise counsel. My husband and I meet together & sometimes one on one with our mentors and it has been extremely beneficial to our marriage. They pour truth into our lives, and sometimes call us out when we are wrong...which we need! If you don’t have a mentor, find one!!
3. I think reading together & talking about your marriage, is also super beneficial. A book that we have loved recently is You & Me Forever by Francis Chan & Lisa Chan. This book is not specific towards grief but it has really challenged us in our marriage. Definitely a good read!
I hope that this encourages you in your marriage today. If you need prayer, I would love to pray for you! Sometimes it gets harder before it gets any easier, but keep persevering because in the end your marriage is a beautiful picture of Christ.
When we got married, I definitely had not planned for all of this. I had dreams & plans, and none of this was in it. John didn't plan for this either. He didn't plan to see his wife in excruciating amounts of pain, or sobbing uncontrollably reading someone's baby gender reveal on Instagram. I think that to often we forget about the husbands in all of this. While they don't go through all the physical trauma that their wives do, they go through a lot of emotional trauma... between seeing their wives go through extreme pain (and the emotional aftermath of that) and the sadness of losing baby that they loved too. Miscarriage is extremely hard on marriages. I read about how divorces rates almost double in marriages with couples that have lost babies or experience infertility. How scary is that... So if you are currently walking through loss and you feel that way, here are some tips for you and your spouse! I am still learning but having gone through multiple miscarriages in our short marriage, I have some things that have helped us.
1. Realize that you may grieve differently. I grieve pretty openly for the most part but John doesn’t usually like to talk about it. That is okay!! It is okay to grieve and process differently than your spouse. I think that it’s pretty normal but I think that however you process your grief, you need to continually be pointing each other to Christ. That way you will be able to grieve differently but still stay connected to one another through Christ.
2. Go to counseling. I personally believe that even in the happy times of marriage, that you should have mentors that are older than you that are pouring into you and your spouse. I think there are always things that we can improve in our marriages. In times of mourning, I think that it’s even more important to seek wise counsel. My husband and I meet together & sometimes one on one with our mentors and it has been extremely beneficial to our marriage. They pour truth into our lives, and sometimes call us out when we are wrong...which we need! If you don’t have a mentor, find one!!
3. I think reading together & talking about your marriage, is also super beneficial. A book that we have loved recently is You & Me Forever by Francis Chan & Lisa Chan. This book is not specific towards grief but it has really challenged us in our marriage. Definitely a good read!
I hope that this encourages you in your marriage today. If you need prayer, I would love to pray for you! Sometimes it gets harder before it gets any easier, but keep persevering because in the end your marriage is a beautiful picture of Christ.
Beautiful article....
ReplyDelete