Can marriage survive the loss of a child?

I write this not knowing from personal experience, but from what I have read, talked about with others, and seen. To lose something so precious as your child is hard to even comprehend, but to continue a relationship with your spouse or anyone would truly be a challenge.

When I think of my children I think of them as the filling that completes our family sandwich.  My husband and I are the bread and they are everything in between.  They challenge us to be our best selves and they have the best seat in the house when seeing us at our worse.  They don’t judge, they don’t hold on to it to through in our face later they just inquire or want to know how to help make things better.

Now as much unconditional love and affection they give they can also work a nerve or bring me to tears from the decisions they make, but life would not be what it is for me if I didn’t have them, challenging and encouraging me to be my best self, even at my worse.

I blame myself sometimes for things that I know are out of my control and I even try to blame my husband when things don’t go as planned.  I look to him to make things better or to reassure me when I just can’t see the light.  The pressure that must put on him.  I think it without hesitation because I see us as a team a unit.

My family is my circle. When others join that circle I become consumed with my own feelings, so imagine if someone left this circle, I would be devastated, which comes to the question, can marriage survive loss of a child?

From those I have spoken with or read about, loss comes with heartbreak that is not easily mended. You want a solution to your pain and that one person you have depended on emotionally cannot make things better.  They seem to be a constant reminder of the loss. Your conversations change, your goals, and expectations become ways to dismiss the pain. You want back what you can’t have and in your mind no one can understand, not even the other parent who has suffered the same loss.

It becomes even harder to love your significant other because you feel guilt for loving, being happy, or feeling any emotion that means you are ok.  Time is the factor and sometimes marriages are not strong enough to wait for the person to become who they once were or some variation.

Depending on how you deal with loss and pain and how your partner deals with loss will depend on if your marriage can sustain the hardest loss imaginable.

• Time is what is needed.
• Time is what will determine if your marriage can survive a loss especially one of a child.
• Understanding
• Dealing with your pain and not requiring you partner to deal with their pain as you would
• Commitment to each other and the love of your child can help pull you through the most difficult times.  Remembering that you all are suffering the same loss, but how you deal with things may be different, which does not mean you are not both suffering.

So can marriage survive loss of a child? Please share your thoughts!