When Joy Feels Like Betrayal -E431

There’s a moment many grieving parents experience, but rarely say out loud.

A moment where laughter returns, or a sense of lightness breaks through… and almost immediately, it’s followed by guilt.

In this episode, Bruce and Kristin explore the complex and often conflicting emotions that arise when joy reenters life after child loss. Why does happiness feel like betrayal? Why do we question our right to feel anything other than grief?

Through personal stories, including Bruce’s first unexpected laugh after loss and Kristin’s experience during a pregnancy after losing her son, this conversation gently unpacks the tension between love, loyalty, and healing.

They talk about:
• The emotional “whiplash” of joy and guilt
• The pressure to appear visibly sad
• The fear of forgetting, or being seen as “over it”
• How grief and joy can exist side by side, not in opposition
• And the slow, often reluctant permission to live again

If you’ve ever felt guilty for smiling, laughing, or simply feeling okay… this episode is for you.

Joy is not a betrayal.
It’s love, continuing to find a way forward.

Transcript

The First Laugh After Loss

SPEAKER_00 0:45

Welcome to Don't Forget to Breathe. I'm Bruce Barker, and I'm joined by my co-host, Kristen Glenn. Today we're talking about something many grieving parents experience but rarely admit out loud. There comes a moment, maybe months later, maybe years later, when you laugh again, or you feel a moment of lightness, and almost immediately another feeling shows up right behind it. Guilt. A quiet voice inside that says, How can I feel happy when my child is gone? For many parents, joy can feel like betrayal. Like if we allow ourselves to experience happiness again, we are somehow leaving our child behind. Both Kristen and I have lived through that moment after losing our children. And what we've learned over time is that grief and joy don't cancel each other out. Sometimes joy is simply life finding a way to exist alongside the love and the loss we carry. So today we're going to talk about that tension, the guilt, the confusion, and the slow realization that maybe joy isn't a betrayal after all. Hey Kristen, so you know, we're talking about when joy feels like betrayal, and I've talked about this in previous podcasts, about I lost my funny. Like I'd always been that that that was a comment, you know, that that people had said, and because I was always a always a funny guy, and then I just felt like I lost my funny. And then at some point there was a time when, and I couldn't give you a specific time, date, anything like that, but I just remembered as the first time I laughed after Kristen had died, and then had that like this immediate emotional whiplash and feeling like, what did I do? You know, that it felt like betrayal. Like, how could I laugh when she's not here? I just I remember catching myself that and questioning, Am I allowed to do that? Did you have a moment like that after Zach died? Something that you can remember when the joy, and depending on where we are in our grief journey and and where our listeners are, joy catches up with us, but then it catches us off guard. Did it really does? Did that happen with you?

SPEAKER_01 3:09

Yeah, mine's pretty pretty vivid, I would say, Bruce. It is, you know, I was very young when Zach died. We hadn't planned on really having any other children, maybe ever, or for a long, long time. And yet when he died, it I felt very compelled to refine that identity. And we did what everyone said not to do when you're grieving and made big changes. We moved, we had another pregnancy, we, you know, made a lot of decisions. And I remember being at the baby shower for this next baby, and everybody was kind of over the top excited about this next baby, and it made me angry because I felt like this doesn't fix me. Don't feel like this is going to be what makes me whole, what makes me not miss my son. I want this baby desperately, but this is just his sibling. It is not his replacement. And I had been even upset that we were having a baby shower, because I think after you go through these types of tragedies, just to think that I didn't even believe that I was gonna ever hold another baby.

unknown 4:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

I, you know, I was in my mid-20s and it just seemed impossible that I was ever going to have that level of joy. And I remember being at that baby shower that they were hosting for me, and everyone seemed so over the top happy. And then I caught myself thinking, I am happy.

SPEAKER_00 4:45

Okay, Kristen, tell me more about that the feeling with the baby shower that you didn't you were resentful or you didn't want it, or did it feel like it was canceling out?

SPEAKER_01 4:57

Oh that's good. That's that's exactly like a like an accounting sheet. You know, it was somehow I felt like people that hadn't lived this somehow felt there was a debit and then now there was gonna be a credit or something weird, like a catch up. And I didn't want to be viewed as a first-time mom. You know, I was like, I've done this. I'm having to rewind my life to this pregnancy and newborn time, and I am a mom of a nearly four-year-old. So even having, you know, a lot of times women don't even have baby showers for a repeat baby. And yet it was just this over-the-top excitement from well-meaning, loving people. But it kind of caught up to me. I remember in the shower, feeling like I am so wanting this baby. I'm so blessed to be able to be pregnant. I knew people that that was never reality for and wanted it. And so I remember that like last month of the pregnancy finally going, well, I might as well let this joy in. It seems to be surrounding me. But I spent the first months and months and months just rejecting it. I think rejecting it because I was trying to protect myself. How dare let joy in because it can be taken in an instant. Yeah. I think I was rejecting it because it felt like a betrayal for my love for Zach. I think I was rejecting it because I was surrounded by people that seemed much more excited about this baby than they ever did with Zach's pregnancy. And that I I resented that.

SPEAKER_00 6:44

Like it was a little over the top, like it was very intentional.

SPEAKER_01 6:47

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 6:48

Not natural.

SPEAKER_01 6:49

Didn't feel natural. Yep, that's exactly right. So this this topic really does bring up those memories of just feeling so conflicted about allowing joy in, really, really wanting this next baby, but needing the universe to say, this is a next baby. This is a sibling. This is not a replacement. You know, at the baby shower, there wasn't one mention of Zach. There wasn't one, there wasn't one moment where people would say something along the lines of, oh, Zach's baby brother or baby sister is being born, which would have happened if he was alive. And I wanted this baby to be viewed as the next part of our family, not a restart or something. But I did let Joy in and I did feel really, you know, caught off guard by that and felt guilt ooing and awing of the baby showering, really getting into that. And then, you know, just kind of leaned into it, I think. I think at that that was a really turning point for me of realizing I don't want this baby to not be surrounded by the same joy that Zach was at this develop, you know, at this developmental time of his life, he could not have been wanted more when I was pregnant. Like I and then he was surrounded by so much joy for every, every minute he was on this earth. And I thought how unfair it it would be to this next baby to bring this baby into a world of sorrow, into only sorrow. I knew I would, you know, hold her and cry tears on her all the time, but but I just I just know how much a mother's well-being emotionally and hormonal releases and everything impacts baby's well-being. And then that also became like guilt of if I'm this full of sorrow, I'm going to impact this baby's ability to be happy later in life. And and she doesn't deserve that.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

Interesting. Because you have a medical background in this this whole arena with as you were just saying, with these hormonal releases and yeah, I work in women's health.

SPEAKER_01 9:04

I I'm not a clinical person, but I've worked in that area for 30 years, so I definitely do know that that is that's a real thing. Um that the stress hormones and everything definitely increase the baby's stress hormones. And I there was a aha moment where I thought I don't I don't want to do that.

unknown 9:25

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 9:26

So let me ask you, why do you why do you think joy feels so uncomfortable to grieving parents early on? I mean, is it guilt? Is it loyalty or or something else? What do you think that is?

SPEAKER_01 9:38

Probably both, don't you think? I think it is like, how can I be joyful? People will think I'm not missing them, I will forget them. You know, these worries of the vividness of them fading. Also, I think there's some guilt in they didn't get to experience this. Why am I standing on the ocean and they didn't get to see this? Or taking this next baby to Disneyland, he didn't get to go to Disneyland. I I think there's some of that, and it's like you and I've talked about, we grieve for ourselves, but we also grieve for our children that their lives that chapters were taken out of their lives that were supposed to be full of so many things. So do we go on to live and take them along with us? I think that's started kind of being where I want to be in this next chapter of my life is I want to feel as much joy as possible because I want to take him with me. But I think early on it was like, I can't experience things because he didn't get to. What about what about for you? Where do you think it landed?

SPEAKER_00 10:46

Yeah, I think guilt for sure, and I think the sense of loyalty, why grief can feel like some form of loyalty, like that you need to hang on to it.

SPEAKER_01 10:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

And if I'm feeling joy and I am healing in the healing process on on the emotional side, that it's tied to how it was for me, like tied to that love and suffering being tied together. Like, okay, if I'm if I'm feeling positive, then I'm being disloyal to Kristen. That took a lot of it took a lot of work, it took therapy to get to the point of separating that. That it had nothing to do with loyalty. I wasn't dishonoring her because I went and enjoyed something that it wasn't a betrayal of her.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

And isn't that interesting how different that is? For me personally, it's been very different with other losses in my life. Another really significant loss in my life was the loss of my father, who my dad was just my my best buddy, really was so close to him. And when he died, I didn't feel any disloyalty when I was happy. I felt like he would really want that. Like I felt like I was honoring him by being joyful.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:08

But maybe it's because it's such a reversal, this loss of our children, that, you know, we have children hoping we'll get to see them, enjoy all that life has to offer. The have the most beautiful, happiest, connected life possible. And we feel those things about our children where, you know, we want our parents to be happy, but we don't feel it as deeply as we do with children. So maybe it's because I don't I don't feel disloyal to my grandma, my dad, other people I've lost when I'm happy.

SPEAKER_00 12:43

Right. It almost feels like when the pain softens, does that mean love is softening too? Right. Just the again for me, this was early on. And I know that that's not the case now. But early on, and I think early on for parents that are listening to us early on in their journey, that it can feel that way. And that's why we're talking about this.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 13:09

Yeah, there's this um, and we've heard this, we've talked about this, this term over it. And I wonder if, because we we hear this so much in society, and if we start to feel positive and we start to feel joy, does that mean we're over it? Or do we feel like we're sliding into this little trap?

unknown 13:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:29

I mean, that that's only I mean, I know that that's not true, but emotions and feelings are real.

SPEAKER_01 13:36

For sure. I remember meeting with a mom and she said those those words of, I f I just feel like I I must suffer. I must continue to to suffer because I loved him with my whole heart. And if I'm not suffering when he's not here, how can I appear to have any joy? And I think there's some judgment from outside folks. I think that same mom was the one that said that she went to work one day. And her boss said, Oh my goodness, you're you look great. And she had like, you know, kind of done her hair or put makeup on, and her boss said something along the lines of, I'm so glad you're better. And I'm so glad that, you know, that you're not feeling so sad or whatever. And she said that was the last day she put makeup on. She said, if I need to look like a grieving mother for people to believe that I'm a grieving mother, bring it on. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna try to to out have this kind of mask on, but I think people around us are looking for any visible signs that are you over it? Are you better? Are you safe to approach? You know, kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 14:45

And I and I don't think her situation and her feeling is unique, uh, because don't you think that parents sometimes feel like they have to stay visibly sad to prove how much they love their child? Like, is that a role that guilt plays in that? Like instead of just feeling your feels and how and and there's moments of joy, and as we've talked about in previous podcasts, joy and and grief being hand in hand and being in the same moment sometimes. But that took a lot of work to get to that point to realize that. So especially early on, that you just feel like you have to stay visibly sad, like in her case. I don't think that's I don't think she's a unique case. I think it's she's the standard.

SPEAKER_01 15:31

I do too. And I think that was one of the beautiful things that could happen in support groups is for people early on to be able to witness people that had had losses, you know, maybe years ago, and see that this has become a forever part of who they are. And they started the meetings by talking about some joy in their lives. And I think it felt sometimes very bizarre to newly grieving people because it's it's all encompassing in the beginning.

SPEAKER_00 16:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:05

It's every thought, every minute, every breath, it's all I could think about. It's all I could feel. It was my first thought, my last thought, my every minute thought. And then now to feel like it's it's just as big of loss in my life. That the jajar has kind of gotten bigger. Like, you know.

SPEAKER_00 16:25

And I don't think it's a it's certainly not a quick thing. And I know you know, we we had a a previous episode that we talked about time doesn't heal, but there's a a place in this journey that time plays a factor in. And I think and and tell me, you know, if you agree or disagree, but joy returning isn't just suddenly it's all there. It's like trickling in a little bit at a time in little ways that maybe at first we don't notice, and then maybe we start to starting to allow it and instead of closing the door to it. But early on, for sure, not not in sorry, not interested in that. But as time along our journey path, I guess is maybe a better way to say it, when joy can creep in and trickle in a little bit at a time.

SPEAKER_01 17:22

And I think the realization of knowing that it doesn't take away the grief.

SPEAKER_00 17:27

Right.

SPEAKER_01 17:27

Because you and I both know that we're not gonna give up our grief. It is forever part of us. So it's not that there's an equation that now this much joy equals less grief. It's just oh, now I have joy and just as much grief. But it makes my life feel more worth showing up for every day. It makes me feel like I want to I want to survive. Instead I have to survive. And we learn that the companion of grief is forever present, and that we can also have on the other side of us sitting the companion of joy, and that they can all be part of every decision we make, every vacation we go on, every sunset we watch, because we're longing to share it with our children, and no amount of suffering that we do is going to bring them back.

SPEAKER_00 18:26

Right. It's not like it's on a scale. You've got joy on one side of the scale and grief on the other, and then we know that joy doesn't replace grief, and we learn to live with them being side by side, and we've we've discussed that in previous episodes. So basically, if you want to look at that scale, on one side there's joy and grief, and on the other side, there's joy and grief. They coexist.

SPEAKER_01 18:50

Yeah, no, that's good. Instead of viewing it as like a a scale that you have one on one side and one or the other, it's like here they are together and here they are together.

SPEAKER_00 19:00

Right. Um it did take time, but again, it wasn't like we said, it wasn't time healing. It took time to realize and took time to accept and to be in a place where I could understand that joy and grief were together and were going to always be together.

What Our Children Would Want

SPEAKER_01 19:18

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 19:19

I know we talked about this before about thinking about what our children would want for us.

SPEAKER_01 19:24

Yeah, I'm interested to dive into that because your child was so much older than mine. So when people said to you, Bruce, Kristen would want you to be happy, Kristen would want you to find love, Kristen would want you to be healthy, whatever words they said, Kristen would want fill in the blanks. How did that land with you?

SPEAKER_00 19:46

It didn't land well early on because again, I hadn't done any any work on my grief. I was angry thinking that the arrogance of them thinking they knew what Kristen would think. That's what I was wondering. Later on, I mean I understand and they were and they were well-meaning with what they were saying. Do I think that as time has gone on? Sure. And I can look back to go, she probably did think that I don't know, a week after, and going, okay, dad, I want you to feel joy. I know you're not going to right now, but that's what I want.

SPEAKER_01 20:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:27

But it took me time to get there. And for me, it was years to get to that place of knowing and accepting that she does and continues to want the best for me. And that's, you know, we talked about in uh I now keep referring back to other episodes because we talk there's so many of these things that that cross over.

SPEAKER_01 20:50

Yeah, they're so intertwined for sure.

SPEAKER_00 20:52

Yeah, just knowing that she would want that for me, does want that for me, and and decisions that I make now and living my life now, many of those thoughts and decisions are with her in mind. Almost as if we have a conversation. And I go, what do you think? So I take her into account and I take her into consideration with how I live my life and the influence that she continues to have on me.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

That's beautiful. I too resented those comments in the beginning. One, because, like you said, it felt that I think arrogance was yeah, a good word choice that you had of don't don't pretend to know what Zach would want. And also because he was so young, don't project these very adult thoughts towards a toddler. He didn't think profound thoughts about his mom's happiness. He didn't think anything other than his really own happiness, because that's what toddlers are supposed to do. So they not only kind of were putting thoughts of what Zach would want for me, but they were making him a different age or maturity than he truly was. He was just a little boy. He what he wasn't having big boy thoughts yet. He was just a toddler. And so it just it didn't feel like an honoring of him. But now it's profound for me. It's something I think about a lot. Of I've done a lot of things in my nonprofit work and my grief work that I Feel his presence. I feel him saying, let's give it a try, Mom. Let's leave this behind. This is no longer serving you. It's okay. Let's go. You and me. That feels so beautiful to have him accompanying me and guiding me. And I don't mind now thinking about that, but in the beginning it was it was a painful thing. It was also kind of a forced, quick, be happy. Zach would want you to be happy.

SPEAKER_00 23:03

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 23:03

And I I heard one, I think it was a dad at a couples retreat that I facilitated say, I think he'd want me to be pretty sad. You know, his teenage son had died, and he was like, no, I think he'd want me to be pretty upset for a long time. Because he'd be pretty upset if I died. So let me be sad. And I was like, Yeah, that's that's good too. That's reality, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:24

Like, yeah, I think one of the things that just we as human beings sometime we want permission. Some people don't, but we kind of want permission to do things if we're not sure if it's the right thing.

unknown 23:40

Right.

SPEAKER_00 23:41

And I think that's where we are in this, is because of where you and I are on our journeys and what we have seen and what we have experienced during that journey to get us to this point that we know that joy is not betrayal. We know that the moments of happiness that we have don't cancel out grief, that they're together. And we know that our children, they remain part of our lives. You know, as you just pointed out, and as I had said, they're part of that decision making. So there's going to be joy along that way as well. So I think it's about giving yourself permission when you're ready, giving yourself permission to feel joy because it's not betrayal. Doesn't mean you're going to have those little pings of guilt, especially the first time, or pings of oh uh being disloyal the first few times. But as the journey continues and the healing, as we've talked about, is a as a verb, as that continues, you will begin to feel the joy without the guilt, and feel the happiness without the guilt. Because those feelings, the feelings of of peace and our happiness, doesn't mean your child's forgotten because they are with you the whole time.

SPEAKER_01 25:12

Well, and I feel that Zach was our first child, and only at the time of his death, and I feel like he taught me how to embrace joy. I'd never had joy like what he taught me was available. So it feels like it's almost a betrayal not to take his lesson of Mom, this is how to be fully present, you know, this is how to really see life from a little boy's three-year-old perspective. I'm gonna teach you how to find joy in everyday things. And now part of me feels like maybe it was a betrayal uh the times I didn't find joy. Maybe maybe my sadness is more of a betrayal to him than the joy actually was, because he he taught me that. Yeah. He taught me joy. He gave me more joy than I'd had in the first two decades of my life. I'd never experienced joy like being his mommy. So maybe the greatest way we can honor them is to continue to live and to allow as much joy as you've said to seep in as possible.

Permission To Feel Joy

SPEAKER_00 26:29

Yeah, that's beautifully said. So to our listeners, I mean, if you're listening today and and you felt that moment of guilt when happiness appeared, you're not alone. Every single one of us, I believe many, if not all, grieving parents experience that. And we've mentioned this before, but maybe in this particular subject, and if it really resonates with you, if you want to share your story and introduce your child to the world, we invite you to reach out. You'll find all our contact information we'll talk about after the episode. But joy isn't a betrayal of our children. It's the love they gave us, and it's still finding a way into our lives. As we close this conversation, maybe this is what we hold on to. That moment when joy shows up and catches you off guard, it doesn't mean you're leaving your child behind. It doesn't mean the love has lessened or that the grief has faded. It simply means you're still here. And life somehow is still finding its way to you. Grief and joy were never meant to compete. They were always meant to coexist. So if you felt that guilt, that hesitation, that quiet question of, am I allowed to feel this? Please know you are not alone. And maybe, just maybe allowing joy isn't a betrayal at all. Maybe it's just one of the ways we continue to carry them forward. Thank you for being with us today. Until next time, be gentle with yourself. Take care of each other, and please don't forget to breathe.