Grief Without Death: When You’re Mourning a Life You Thought You’d Have

When we hear the word grief, most of us immediately think about death. We think about losing a parent, partner, friend or someone else we love. We think about funerals, anniversaries and learning how to live in a world where someone important is no longer physically present. But death isn't the only kind of loss that can leave us grieving. Sometimes we grieve a relationship. Sometimes we grieve a family. Sometimes we grieve a future we had already pictured so clearly that, when it disappears, it feels as though part of our identity disappears with it. And sometimes the hardest thing is that the world doesn't necessarily recognise that we're grieving at all.

When nobody has died, but you've still lost everything

This is something author Alice Readman knows only too well. Her book, My Story, I Am Alice: Break Up, Breakdown, Breakthrough, tells the deeply personal story of the sudden end of her marriage and the devastating losses that followed. Alice had been going through the adoption process with the expectation of becoming a mother. But when her marriage collapsed, she was no longer able to continue with the adoption on her own. The adoption process had taken two years. Suddenly, Alice wasn't only dealing with the end of her marriage. She was grieving the loss of her adopted children and the loss of the motherhood and family life she believed lay ahead of her. Nobody had physically died. Yet there was very real grief.

“No one physically died but I suffered a huge amount of grief and then [was] unable to be a mother.” — Alice Readman

Her experience highlights something we don't talk about nearly enough: You can grieve someone who is still alive. And you can grieve something that never had the chance to fully become yours.

We don't only grieve people — we grieve futures

One of the most painful forms of grief can be the loss of the future you thought you were going to have. Perhaps you've imagined growing old with someone and the relationship suddenly ends. Perhaps you've desperately wanted to become a parent and circumstances have taken that possibility away from you. Perhaps illness, infertility, divorce, estrangement, redundancy or another unexpected change has completely altered the direction of your life. There can be memories attached to what has already happened, but there can also be grief for all the memories you expected to make. The birthdays that won't happen. The holidays you'd imagined. The family traditions you'd thought you'd create. The ordinary Sunday mornings. The photographs that will never be taken. The version of yourself you expected to become. Losing an imagined future doesn't mean you were foolish for imagining it. It means it mattered to you.

The grief that can be difficult to explain

When someone dies, society generally understands that we're grieving. People may send cards, flowers or messages. We're given a language for what has happened. Other losses don't always receive that recognition. Someone going through divorce might hear: "You'll meet somebody else." Someone experiencing infertility might be told: "There are other options." Someone losing contact with a family member may hear: "But they're still alive." Someone whose plans for parenthood have disappeared might be encouraged to simply concentrate on the future. Often these things are said with good intentions. But grief doesn't disappear because there might eventually be another chapter. Sometimes you first need space to mourn the chapter that ended.

There is no hierarchy of grief

Recognising grief beyond bereavement doesn't diminish the devastation of losing somebody through death. It simply acknowledges that human beings can experience profound loss in many different ways. Grief can follow the end of a marriage. The loss of a pregnancy. Infertility. The end of a friendship. Estrangement from a child, parent or sibling. Losing a home. Losing a career. A life-changing diagnosis. Losing the possibility of becoming a parent. Or simply watching the future you had carefully planned disappear. The circumstances may be completely different, but the emotions can still be incredibly powerful. Sadness. Anger. Confusion. Jealousy. Guilt. Loneliness. Disbelief. Even the feeling that you no longer quite know who you are.

Break up. Breakdown. Breakthrough.

Alice's story doesn't end with the loss. The title of her book describes the journey itself: Break Up. Breakdown. Breakthrough. And perhaps that's another important conversation to have about grief. Moving forward doesn't mean pretending the loss wasn't important. It doesn't require erasing the past or deciding that everything happened “for a reason”. Sometimes moving forward simply means slowly discovering that there can be a life beyond the one you thought you were going to have. It might not look the same. You might not be the same. But that doesn't mean there can't eventually be meaning, connection, happiness and hope again.

If you're grieving something other people don't understand

Perhaps you're reading this because you've experienced a loss that doesn't fit neatly into society's definition of grief. If so, you don't have to justify why it hurts. Something mattered to you. Someone mattered to you. A relationship mattered. A dream mattered. A future mattered. And losing it can leave a genuine space in your life. Grief doesn't require a funeral. Sometimes grief is mourning someone who is still alive. Sometimes it's mourning the person you used to be. And sometimes it's mourning a life that existed only in your hopes, plans and imagination — but felt completely real to you nonetheless.

Read Alice's story

Alice Readman's My Story, I Am Alice: Break Up, Breakdown, Breakthrough explores her experience of the sudden breakdown of her marriage, the loss of her adopted children, the grief that followed and her journey forward. Find My Story, I Am Alice: Break Up, Breakdown, Breakthrough on Amazon Alice has also shared that the book is being released as an audiobook this month on Spotify and InAudio, providing another way to hear her story. Stories like Alice's are an important reminder that grief doesn't always begin with a death. Sometimes it begins with an ending. And whatever caused that ending, the grief that follows deserves to be acknowledged.