|
While no person can deny the pain that is caused to women who miscarry, there is very little said about the feelings caused in others, those people who care for the woman, and who would have had an active interest in the life of the child.
A miscarriage can affect the partner in two ways - firstly, their own feelings about the loss, and secondly, on an indirect level, their on-going relationship. Women often want to be alone, find a decrease in their enjoyment of sex, have feelings of despair and inadequacy as a woman, and many complain of the lack of feeling and obvious grief in their partner, which in turn makes them feel worse. And so a cycle goes on.
Men are not widely known for seeking therapy for grief or relationship difficulties. Some men are very hurt by the apparent way in which their partner has 'shut-them-out'. Others can not understand the grief being expressed on a child that has not 'existed'. A common way for men to show they care is through intimate contact, and when this is rebuffed, as often happens after a miscarriage, more relationship problems occur.
Most men are ‘action’ people. They see a problem and they ‘fix’ it, and there are very few men who can comfort a woman in a woman’s way. They see the miscarriage more in terms of hurt for their ladies and want to protect them from that. Because they can’t, they have problems in themselves. Communication and commitment are the key here. A miscarriage carries the same amount of grief as if it was any other loved one, that had passed on.
Grief has to be worked through, and will not disappear overnight. Women need to feel that they are still special and loved, both as a partner and as a woman. They often see miscarriage as a form of ‘failure’ and this needs to be addressed. They may not want to be intimate, simply because of the fear of getting pregnant again, or they may suffer from depression. If problems continue to grow, or appear to worsen anyway you would need to seek help from a relationship counselor. The contact for these can be found in most phone books.
|
| |
