When we hear the word grief, most of us immediately think about death. Losing someone we love to death can certainly create profound grief, but death is only one kind of loss.
We can grieve a marriage that ended, a friendship that changed, the family we thought we would have, our health, a career, a home, a sense of safety, or a future we had imagined for ourselves. We can grieve after discovering a betrayal. We can even grieve someone who is still very much alive.
I always say, “Sometimes it is harder grieving the loss of someone who is still alive.”
What do I mean by that?
When someone dies, as painful as the loss may be, there is a finality to it. We know why the person is no longer part of our everyday life.
But what happens when the person is still here?
Maybe it is a spouse who betrayed you. A parent who cannot be the parent you need. An adult child who has become estranged. A former partner who has moved on. A friend who is no longer part of your life. Someone struggling with addiction who seems like a different person. Or perhaps someone you love is physically present but emotionally unavailable.
You may still see them. You may hear about them. You may see their pictures on social media. You may even continue interacting with them while simultaneously grieving the relationship you once had,or the relationship you desperately wanted to have.
There may be no funeral, no sympathy cards and no socially recognized moment when others understand that something important has been lost.
And sometimes, there is still hope.
That hope can make grief particularly complicated. Maybe they will change. Maybe we will reconcile. Maybe I will finally get an apology. Maybe they will become the person I thought they were. Maybe our relationship can go back to the way it was.
You can love someone and still need to grieve who they are unable or unwilling to be.
Grief Is About Loss, Not Just Death
Grief is a response to significant loss. While bereavement specifically relates to death, grief can occur in response to many experiences that change our lives, relationships, identities, or expectations.
Some forms of grief may include:
Bereavement grief: Grief following the death of someone important to us.
Anticipatory grief: Grief that begins before an expected loss, such as when someone has a terminal illness or when we recognize that a significant change is coming.
Ambiguous loss: Loss without clear closure. The person may be physically present but psychologically or emotionally absent—or physically absent without a clear sense of finality.
Disenfranchised grief: Grief that may not be fully recognized or supported by others, such as the loss of an ex-partner, miscarriage, infertility, a friendship, a pet, a secret relationship, or another loss that society may minimize.
Relationship grief: Grieving a breakup, divorce, estrangement, changing friendship, family conflict, or the realization that a relationship will never become what you hoped it would be.
Identity grief: Grieving a former version of yourself or a role that once helped define you.
Life-transition grief: Retirement, children leaving home, relocation, career changes, aging, becoming a caregiver, or other major transitions can involve grief—even when the change was chosen or includes positive aspects.
Traumatic grief: Grief intertwined with a sudden, violent, frightening, or traumatic loss.
Betrayal-related grief: Grief that occurs when someone we trusted significantly violates that trust.
Sometimes several of these forms of grief occur at the same time.
Betrayal Can Create Its Own Grief Cycle
Betrayal is often discussed in terms of anger, trust, or forgiveness. What can be overlooked is the grief involved.
Infidelity, deception, abandonment, hidden behaviors, broken promises, financial betrayal, family betrayal, or another significant breach of trust can create multiple losses at once.
You may be grieving the relationship you believed you had.
You may be grieving the person you believed you knew.
You may be grieving your sense of safety.
You may be grieving plans for the future.
And sometimes you are grieving your confidence in your own judgment: How did I not know? What else wasn't true? Can I trust myself again?
This is one reason betrayal can feel so disorienting. The loss is not necessarily just the relationship. The story you understood about your life may suddenly feel different.
Even if the relationship continues, grief may still need to occur. Reconciliation does not erase what happened. A couple may choose to rebuild while also acknowledging that the relationship they had before the betrayal has changed.
Healing may involve building something new rather than trying to pretend nothing was lost.
What About the Five Stages of Grief?
Many people have heard of the five stages of grief:
Denial → Anger → Bargaining → Depression → Acceptance
These concepts can provide useful language for some of the emotions and experiences that accompany loss. But they should not be treated as a checklist or a roadmap that everyone must follow.
Grief does not necessarily happen in five orderly steps.
You might feel acceptance on Monday and anger again on Thursday.
You may experience sadness and relief at the same time.
You may think you have worked through something, only to have a birthday, anniversary, song, smell, photograph, holiday, court date, family gathering, or unexpected memory bring the grief rushing back.
You may never experience some of these responses at all.
That does not mean you are grieving incorrectly.
Denial
Denial can look like shock, numbness, disbelief, or difficulty fully absorbing what has happened.
This can't be happening.
Maybe this isn't really over.
There has to be some explanation.
Sometimes our minds need time to absorb a reality that feels too overwhelming to process all at once.
Anger
Grief can involve anger toward the person who hurt us, the person who died, ourselves, family members, medical professionals, circumstances, or even our faith.
Anger can coexist with love.
Being angry at someone does not mean you never loved them. Loving someone does not mean you cannot be angry about what happened.
Bargaining
Bargaining often lives in the land of if only and what if.
If only I had noticed sooner.
What if I had done something differently?
If I change, maybe they will come back.
If I forgive this, maybe everything can go back to normal.
Bargaining can represent our attempt to regain some sense of control over something that has left us feeling powerless.
Depression or Deep Sadness
There may be a point when the reality of the loss feels especially heavy. Sadness, loneliness, fatigue, withdrawal, crying, difficulty concentrating, changes in sleep, and a reduced interest in things that once brought pleasure can accompany grief.
The word depression in the traditional grief-stage model does not automatically mean that someone has a clinical depressive disorder. Grief and major depression can overlap in some ways, but they are not synonymous.
Acceptance
Acceptance does not mean that you approve of what happened.
It does not mean you no longer miss someone.
It does not mean the betrayal was okay.
It does not mean you have forgotten.
And it certainly does not mean you never feel sad again.
Acceptance is more about recognizing: This happened. I cannot change that reality. Now I have to determine how I want to live with what happened and move forward.
Sometimes acceptance is quiet. It may simply be noticing that the loss is no longer controlling every moment of your day.
So, How Long Is Grief Supposed to Last?
This may be one of the most common questions people ask about grief.
There is no universal timeline.
There is no date on the calendar when you are required to be “over it.”
Grief is influenced by many things: the significance of the loss, your relationship with the person, the circumstances surrounding the loss, trauma, previous losses, your support system, your culture, your life circumstances, and what else is happening around you.
You also don't necessarily “finish” grief.
For many people, grief changes.
At first, it may occupy nearly every part of the day. Eventually, there may be more space between the waves. You begin having moments when you laugh without immediately feeling guilty. You become interested in things again. You start imagining a future that looks different from the one you expected.
Then something reminds you of the loss, and suddenly the grief feels close again.
That does not mean you have gone backward.
It means something important happened to you.
Grief can revisit us during anniversaries, holidays, milestones, weddings, births, graduations, retirement, or ordinary Tuesday afternoons when we suddenly wish we could call someone who is no longer available to us.
The goal is not necessarily to erase grief. Often, it is to learn how to carry the loss differently.
No Timeline Does Not Mean We Ignore Suffering
Saying there is no universal timeline for grief does not mean that someone should simply suffer indefinitely without support.
Sometimes grief becomes so intense, persistent, or disruptive that a person has difficulty functioning in daily life. Following a death, clinicians can also assess for Prolonged Grief Disorder when specific diagnostic criteria are present.
More importantly, you do not have to wait until your grief reaches a particular level of severity before asking for help.
Therapy can provide a place to talk about the parts of grief that other people may be tired of hearing about—or never understood in the first place.
It can also help when grief is tangled together with betrayal, trauma, anger, guilt, estrangement, family conflict, unanswered questions, or complicated relationships.
You Don't Have to “Get Over It”
People sometimes arrive in therapy believing they should be doing better by now.
It has been six months.
It has been a year.
Everyone else has moved on.
Why am I still upset?
Perhaps a better question is not, “Why am I not over this yet?”
Instead, we might ask:
“What did this loss mean to me, and what do I need as I learn to live with what has changed?”
Healing does not require forgetting.
Moving forward does not require pretending the past did not matter.
And acceptance does not require approving of what happened.
Whether you are grieving a death, divorce, betrayal, estrangement, friendship, family relationship, health change, lost dream, or someone who is still alive, your grief deserves space to be understood.
There is no perfect way to grieve.
There is no required order.
And there is no stopwatch counting down the amount of time you are allowed to miss what you lost.