How men and women grieve

Grief is solitary - even when other people around them are grieving, each parent can feel alone and normal patterns in their relationship may be disrupted. Couples often experience an inability to communicate feelings of grief to one another, to express the awfulness of their feelings. A mother's response to the loss of a child is frequently different to that of father's.

Women naturally tend to be loss-oriented and are often more concerned with their feelings. They focus on their loss and the emotions they are experiencing. They frequently need to recall, be reminded of and share memories of the child who has died.

In contrast, men are more likely to be restoration-oriented. They want things to be repaired and to return to normal as soon as possible. Traditionally men are not encouraged to express feelings and so they instinctively try to suppress them and endeavour to be strong, as society demands, and function normally. This response may unfortunately be misinterpreted by their partner as not caring about their child who has died and cause resentment.

These different ways of dealing with grief can put a significant strain on a relationship and it is very helpful for men and women to understand that their partner's response to grief is natural and to find ways of sharing their feelings and reaching out to one another. Women need help to develop some form of restorative response to enable them to move on from the intensity of the pain and men need to be helped to allow themselves to share and explore their painful feelings.