No Legal Right, But a Human Right: Grieving the Death of an Ex-Family Member
Navigating the unspoken, complicated loss of ex-in-laws and post-divorce ties.
When a marriage ends, the public and the couple's conversation centers almost entirely on the tangible things. We talk endlessly about the legalities, the finances, and the restructuring of schedules for the children. But we rarely talk about the invisible threads, those things you cannot see as clearly. One such change is the way your family by law changes when you divorce, leaving a lingering, quiet sense of difference even if you try or want to stay close.
The Complicated Mosaic of Post-Divorce Family
I have been divorced for over eight years now. In that time, countless changes have unfolded. My separation and divorce were incredibly challenging. I remember the day after we separated; my ex-husband came to the kitchen and said, "Oh, I am going to miss your family." I said nothing in return. I couldn't bring myself to say, "I'm going to miss yours," because, for the most part, I wasn't. While we had been close at one time, over the years the family dynamics had become deeply strained, difficult, and painful.
This past weekend I was told that one of my ex sisters-in-law suddenly died and this has caused me to reflect on my relationship with her. She was, in so many ways, the embodiment of why family systems are rarely entirely black or white. At one point, I had been decently close to her. However, it was a complicated relationship. There were times she did and said things that were so maddening and frustrating, yet other times she was fine, even warm. It was as if she had a genuinely good heart, but frequently allowed herself to be blinded by things. She was incredibly hard to describe.
Light, Shadow, and the Context of Pain
As I reflect on her life now, I see the heavy context she carried. Even though she came from a place of entitlement, she had faced some really tough challenges: navigating cancer, mental health, enduring the catastrophic loss of a baby at birth, and weathering her own divorces. She also experienced an estrangement from her brother, whom she was once quite close to. It was hard for me to witness, and I want to add that it was not her fault the relationship soured. Pain can warp a person's edges. It can make them defensive, erratic, and hard to love, even while their core remains capable.
This past year, this loss along with others that were more confusing have made me think and about my own understanding of extended family loss.
I know my own grief patterns quite well now; normally, I am a blended griever, both expressive and intuitive, but I also need to do things and think it through (what we call instrumental grief). So, I cry, I feel overwhelmed, but I also clean and go for a walk. And then, like many, I withdraw and avoid things to help me not lean into that pain just yet.
Navigating Ambivalent and Disenfranchised Grief
Suddenly, the professional tools I use to help others and myself map grief felt entirely inadequate for my own experience. My grief didn’t look like tears or dramatic outbursts. It felt strange. Distant. Uncomfortable. Instead, I was met with a deep confusion, and I couldn't put my finger on it the way I could when I lost people or pets I loved with a simple, less complicated love.
In my field, we often talk about Dr. Kenneth Doka’s concept of disenfranchised grief, grief that society doesn't openly acknowledge, socially validate, or publicly support. We readily apply this to the death of an ex-spouse, but we rarely talk about the extended family members of a divorce. What do we do with the death of an ex-sister-in-law? Especially one who was such a complex mixture of light and shadow? They were once "family," and now they are legally not.
I was and am experiencing what we call ambivalent grief. This is the agonizing cognitive dissonance of grieving a person who was a source of both profound kindness and frustration. When a relationship is fractured by difficulties, the brain doesn't know which file to open when that person dies. The grief itself becomes fragmented and weird.
Unspoken Bonds and Selfless Graces
Despite her frustrating complexities, she was someone who had extended a hand to me throughout the years, but also recently. She actually helped me navigate information regarding her brother during a very difficult, antagonistic post-divorce landscape. Over the phone, she would often say, "Tell your children their aunt loves them." In fact, the very last text message I ever received from her read: "Tell them how much I miss them. I love them and that is what is important." She hadn’t seen my children in years, yet they were safely tucked away in her thoughts. Writing those words now brings a profound wave of sadness, but it is the truth of who she was. She still thought of them.
When I look back at the mosaic of her life, one memory stands out with blinding clarity. Years ago, when my own mother was dying, I left the hospital late one night, exhausted and terrified that my mom wouldn't make it until morning. At 4:00 AM, something woke my sister-in-law up. Without being asked, she drove to the hospital to check on my mom. She was a trained nurse, and in those dark, lonely hours, she sat at my dying mother’s bedside, held her hand, and was with her when she died. I talked about that with her not too long ago. I have carried that gratitude with me for years; what she did for me, my family, and especially my mom was a beautiful selfless thing.
A Human Right to Grieve
How do we grieve someone who was capable of such profound kindness, yet also, at times, so difficult? How do we grieve a relative who was legally severed from us by a signature on a divorce decree?
I am writing this because, in the divorce world, I feel compelled to make people understand the true gravity of these hidden, intangible losses. When we divorce, we are told to "move on," but we cannot easily amputate the history we shared with the people who used to sit at our holiday tables.
My heart aches deeply for her children, who are young and navigating the catastrophic shock of a sudden death. And as for me, I am learning to sit with a new kind of grief, one that is quiet, confusing, and doesn't fit into a neat clinical box. As a thanatologist, I spent years studying grief, only to have my ex-sister-in-law's death force me to reflect on this confusing aspect of my own grief. She taught me that we don't stop holding connections to the people who used to sit at our holiday tables, no matter how many legal documents say the relationship is over.
Navigating the death of an ex-family member, much like Grieving an Ex-Spouse: Understanding the Unspoken Loss forces us to confront a silent, unmapped territory of loss.
To anyone else navigating the aftermath of a changing family, wondering why you are grieving someone who was difficult, narcissistic, or distant: you do not need a legal right to a person to have a human right to grieve them. Relationships are a mosaic of light and shadow. You are allowed to hold onto the gratitude for the grace they showed you, protect yourself from the parts that hurt you, and weep for the shared narrative that is now permanently gone.
Your grief doesn't need to be tidy to be real. It just needs to be honored.
For extra resources you can listen to my podcast: How to Help Your Kids cope with the Grief of Divorce with Dr Annette Athy
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