Rebuilding Your Relationship After A Miscarriage: Advice for Men

When a couple experiences a miscarriage, dealing with grief can have a major impact on the relationship. While it is often an overlooked topic, men can have a difficult time dealing with miscarriage too. Often, a man may feel left out of the emotional support often provided for women after miscarriage occurs, which can understandably cause frustration, isolation and even resentment.

Coping with pregnancy loss can be an overwhelming time for a man, as he experiences conflicting emotions. This guide is designed to help you rebuild your relationship with your partner, as well as to help you cope with miscarriage.

Men and Miscarriage
Many men feel that despite the sorrow a miscarriage causes, dealing with miscarriage has strengthened their relationship with their partner. You may feel that you and your partner are the only ones who truly can understand what it is to cope with the emotions associated with pregnancy loss and that this can provide your relationship with a more intimate bond.

However, miscarriage can put a strain on even the strongest relationships. You and your partner will often express your grief differently; for example, you may feel angry while she may feel sad, or you may wonder why it’s taking your partner so long to come to terms with the miscarriage, while she may feel anxious as to why life hasn’t gotten back to normal yet. This can create tension in your relationship as you both struggle to come to terms with the causes of the miscarriage and attempt to deal with the ensuing grief.

In addition, sexual intimacy is also often affected by the loss of a baby. While you may feel that intercourse is a way in which to provide your partner with affection and comfort, your partner may not feel emotionally or physically ready, or vice versa. In many cases, both individuals in the relationship associate sex with pregnancy and therefore another potential miscarriage, or you may feel guilty for thinking of your own happiness while dealing with miscarriage grief.

Tips on How to Rebuild Your Relationship After A Miscarriage
While miscarriage will affect your relationship with your partner, it is important to remember that you can rebuild your relationship after pregnancy loss.

Coping with your emotions is an excellent starting point in rebuilding your relationship. Some ways in which men can cope with miscarriage include the following:

• talk about it: try confiding in someone whom you trust about your feelings regarding the miscarriage. This may be your partner, or a relative or friend. While you may feel uncomfortable opening up at first, talking about your emotions can really help you sort through your feelings, which can in turn help you keep your relationship with your partner healthy and strong.
• give it time: don’t feel frustrated at yourself or your partner if the grief sticks around longer than you thought it would. It’s common for couples dealing with miscarriage to have a bad day some time after they thought they’d recovered sufficiently. Negative emotions can come and go; just remember that a better day is right around the corner.
• seek help: if you feel bogged down in grief and don’t think you can move on, visit a bereavement counselor in order to work through your emotions.

In addition, there are steps that you and your partner can take together in order to cope with pregnancy loss:

• talk to each other: confiding in one another is one of the most important things couples can do after experiencing a miscarriage in order to cope. Sharing your feelings and truly listening to one another can help you understand what the other person is going through.
• acknowledge your loss: oftentimes, couples will downplay a miscarriage in order to deal with the ensuing grief, particularly if they lost the baby early on. This can make coping with miscarriage grief even worse. Acknowledge your loss together, as well as the emotions you’re feeling.
• accept the differences: you and your partner will often experience different feelings and reactions about the miscarriage, which will likely change over time. Try to accept that this is very normal and try to be understanding of what your partner is going through. Although you may be experiencing different emotions, you can still support one another.
• rely on a support system: family, friends, colleagues, health care professionals and miscarriage counseling support organizations can all be excellent sources of guidance, information and support.
• take stock: going through a miscarriage will often make you re-evaluate all sorts of things about yourself, your relationship with your partner, as well as your priorities. Accept the fact that the miscarriage has had a lasting effect on your relationship, but remember that you have the power to influence whether this effect is for better or worse by communicating with as well as supporting one another.