One of the most destructive grief myths is “the deeper the love, the greater the grief.” John and Elizabeth Edwards had, no doubt, a complicated relationship. He’d had an affair, another child, and the couple were separated, but stories tell us he moved back home to be with Elizabeth and their three children recently, as her condition worsened. So I anticipate that despite this late, public transformation to devoted family leader, there will be lots of talk about John Edwards’ transition to widower and likely, lots of judgment of how he grieves based on how he “should” feel.

Some widowed people buy into the myth that big love results in big grief. We long to be told our love was “special,” we romanticize our loves when they end in death, and we naturally idealize those who are no longer around to act real and challenge our glistening memories.

We find out, however, that this equation isn’t helpful. As we adjust to our life after loss, and the drama subsides, widowed people learn that there are no formulas for grief, no number of tears to shed per year of marriage, and there are no shortcuts. The only way out is through, we learn, even though we’d love to find a way around.

And I can tell you that among the hundreds of widows I’ve had the privilege of connecting with, hearing their stories and watching as they move through the years, in person and online through my social media outreach, I’ve known dozens who mourned partners who died during divorce proceedings, after affairs, during separations, and even years AFTER divorce. These spouses (and former spouses) feel the same type and degree of pain, and experience many of the same adjustments, as the widows with storybook marriage (both real and imagined). They deserve the title of “widowed.”

Why would anyone want it? We often say, “welcome to the club that no one wants to join.” But it does matter, because unmarried couples are routinely turned away from receiving support after they lose a partner. Because inconsistent acceptance of marriage by LGBT people means that they are nearly always taken less seriously by those who have sympathy for widowed people. And as little institutional and social support there is for grieving people, it’s important that everyone who needs it is included.

My own experience of marriage and the many stories I’ve heard make me doubt that relationships that are “difficult” in public are all that different from more private or easier ones, especially below the surface. Any long-term partnership develops organically. Each union is as different from another as one animal from another. Their triumphs are often formed in compromise; even when a couple gets along easily, outsiders can’t tell what’s going on inside each individual or inside their life together.

My friend Malena translated a Spanish proverb to me once, as “No one knows what is in the soup but the spoon.” It took me a while to figure out what this means: not only can you not tell what makes a relationship tick, but sometimes a couple that seems unhappy meets each other’s needs perfectly. (My parents seem to have used this recipe.)

“Happy marriages” aren’t always what they seem, either, and you really can’t trust the rose-colored glasses of a grieving person. Spouses tend to “saint” their loved ones the moment they die, no matter what happened before. We’ve all heard the old saying instructing us to “never speak ill of the dead.” Imagine the burden this puts on widowed people who find out about former lives or loves, drug abuse, or “love children” after their partner dies.

The guilt John Edwards may suffer as part of his grief may be stronger than that of a more faithful partner, but one never knows. Guilt is a natural part of most grief experiences — most of us fantasize that our loved one might still be alive if we’d acted differently, taken a different route that day, spoken up to a doctor — and we bear this weight until we come to forgive. The guilt is so magnified that it hardly matters what the irritant is: there’s simply no math that will tell you how someone may feel after a loss.

It doesn’t matter that John and Elizabeth Edwards had a difficult relationship. His experience won’t be affected much by the fact that they’d been separated.

Now the children’s experience… they have already been affected by the conflicting stories, and now one of the participants — most would argue, the more credible partner — isn’t around to share her side. These kids (the youngest is 10) are old enough to talk about everything they’ve seen. The challenge for John Edwards will be to be as honest as he can with them, about the good times and the bad times, to honor their relationship — and his — with his co-parent.

It is very hard not to say something really snarky here about how well John Edwards will follow through on this most important responsibility. We can certainly hope for the best.

The Edwardses were a political couple. Their relationship may have been, as many are, a rough and ugly collection of bargains with a glossy finish that held for a few years.

But grief doesn’t understand the niceties or intrigues of our complex relationships. It’s elemental, animal, and true. A different grief is borne by each person: our emotions vary in size, shape, and color, but they’re all extremely heavy. Experts can’t say that weakness in a relationship lessens the power of grief, or that unresolved issues will always result in a more difficult transition to a new normal. Like love, it’s never simple.

I won’t presume to judge John Edwards’ journey however it looks in the public eye, where I know, it will be relished to the great pain and frustration of widowed people everywhere. Perhaps this can become an opportunity for us to learn more about real grief, even if losing her means we won’t get any closer to understanding what drove John and Elizabeth Edwards as a team.

May she rest in peace.

Robin Moore 2010

Tags: anger, Depression, guilt, signs and connections