Dear Dr.  Betty, 

I want to be more loving towards my grown son, but ever since my daughter died in a car accident two years ago I have become distant from my remaining child. 

We had a good relationship prior to my daughter’s death, but we both have changed so much in our approach to life in the past year. I have been in a grief-counseling group and have explored my feelings of survivor’s guilt and sadness. My son has chosen to spend more time with his father (my ex-husband) and has become cynical, resentful, mistrusting and close-minded.

Do you have some ideas on how I can bring more warmth and love to our relationship?

Hopeful in the Hamptons

Dear Hopeful,

The grief of losing a child is one of the more difficult emotions one will face in a lifetime. I am sorry for your loss. It must feel like you have lost both of your children. 

I don’t have all the facts about the specifics of the distance between you and your son, but knowing that you did have a good relationship in the past indicates that you have a basis from which you can grow the warmth of love again.

To love is an act of faith that your love will produce love in another. Your love and unconditional acceptance may give your child room for a change of heart. Your life will be transformed as you reach out to him, and as you also do and appreciate the other things that you love. Focus on activities that ignite your life and give you power and feelings of inner joy.

One suggestion that I have for you when you need to handle your son’s negative thinking, is to refuse to participate in discussions of highly charged or provocative topics. Change such conversation to something related to your son’s skills and interests. 

It is natural that he would seek the counsel of his father during this time of crisis. Traditional father love offers a very different perspective than motherly love. Father represents the world of thought, of law and order, discipline, competence, independence, authority and mastery. These are skills that are needed to survive. When they are developed without balance however, one can lose the connection to friends and family members.

Another suggestion is to see his resentment and mistrust as a plea for help. He may be depressed and in need of professional assistance in opening to his grief, anger and all the emotions that loss conjures up.

Becoming sensitive to your son’s coping strategies as he deals with his sister’s death will help. He may be feeling too vulnerable to risk allowing you to offer the love and intimacy that he needs right now.

Through grief counseling, you are learning to take the difficulty and sorrow of your life as something to be overcome to make you stronger. You can be a model for your son as he comes to grips with his loss of faith.

Erich Fromm wrote the book The Art of Loving. He provides a time-tested guideline that will provide you with support as you reach out to your son.  Fromm reminds us that it takes a commitment to a disciplined and concentrated practice of loving actions.  This will require patience and will communicate to your son that you are now putting your relationship with him at the top of your list of concerns.

We all grieve differently, but the key to navigating such a difficult time is to continue to reach out to him in a variety of different loving ways.

My best to you! 

Dr. Betty