Grieving a Mother or Father After a Difficult Relationship
Updated: Sep 25
In short: If you’re grieving your mother or father and the relationship was difficult, distant, or even hurtful, your grief is still real, even if it feels completely different from what you see in others. This is called ambivalent grief: a mix of loss, relief, anger, guilt, and grief for what never was. There’s no fixed rule and no wrong feeling.
Many people who come to me ask, looking down: “Is it terrible that I also feel relieved?” No, it isn’t. That’s exactly what this article is about.
What Is Ambivalent Grief?
Ambivalent grief describes having conflicting feelings about someone who has died, at the same time: love and anger, loss and relief, longing and resentment. Unlike grief after a harmonious relationship, which is mostly pain over someone’s absence, people grieving a difficult mother or father often grieve two things at once: the real person who died, and the bond they wanted but never had.
That second layer is often overlooked, by others and by the grieving person themselves. You’re not just grieving a person. You’re grieving a missed possibility.
Why This Kind of Grief Often Goes Unseen
Grief researcher Kenneth Doka coined the term “disenfranchised grief”: grief that others don’t see as “real” or “appropriate,” because the relationship doesn’t fit a familiar social pattern.
With a difficult parent-child relationship, many people experience exactly that. Others expect straightforward grief (“She was your mother,” “He was your father”) without knowing what the relationship was really like. If you also feel relief, distance, or even indifference, you can quickly feel wrong or ungrateful, even though those feelings are completely valid.
Common Feelings With Ambivalent Grief
Grief for the actual person, despite everything
Grief for the relationship that could have been, but never was
Relief that a painful conflict or constant tension is over
Guilt about that very relief
Anger, sometimes only after the death, when a real conversation is no longer possible
Confusion, because several of these feelings are there at once and seem to contradict each other
Numbness, because the feelings are so contradictory that at first you feel nothing at all
None of these feelings rules out the others. You don’t have to choose. If you mostly feel empty, you’ll find more in Why Can’t I Grieve? Feeling Numb After a Death.
Grieving What Never Was
Often the hardest part isn’t the death itself, but the final end of a hope. While your mother or father was alive, there may have been a quiet chance that something could change: a conversation, an apology, a moment of real closeness. With their death, that chance is gone. Grieving that hope is just as valid as grieving the person.
Why Guilt Is So Common
Guilt often comes from comparing your reality with a cultural ideal: the loving, harmonious parent-child relationship that so many stories treat as normal. If your reality looked different, it’s easy to feel you did something “wrong,” in the relationship or now in your grief.
It helps to remember: a difficult relationship with your mother or father is not your failure. Children aren’t responsible for how their parents treated them, not in childhood and not as adults. That clarity alone often takes some of the pressure off.
The Funeral and Family: Setting Boundaries
Expectations often collide around the funeral. Relatives may expect you to give a eulogy, grieve visibly, or handle everything. Maybe you don’t want to go at all, or only briefly.
You get to decide how much you can carry. You can attend without speaking, or say goodbye in another way, like visiting the grave alone later.
You don’t owe anyone an explanation of your relationship. A sentence like “Our relationship was complicated, and I’m saying goodbye in my own way” is enough.
Bring someone you trust who knows how you’re really doing.
Estranged Parents: When You Hadn’t Spoken in Years
Some people hadn’t been in touch with their mother or father for years before the death. The news often comes from someone else, sometimes weeks later. That can bring shock, relief, guilt, and grief all at once, along with the question of whether going no contact was “right.” Estrangement was often a necessary form of protection. Grieving now doesn’t contradict that decision.
You Don’t Have to Reconcile
After a death, you often read that “making peace” or “reconciliation” should be the goal. For some people that’s true. For others, it’s just another burden. You don’t have to forgive in order to live well. It’s enough to find a way of relating to what happened that costs you less energy.
How to Cope With Ambivalent Grief
Let Yourself Have Conflicting Feelings
The most important step is giving yourself permission to feel several seemingly contradictory things at once. You can grieve and feel relieved. That’s not disloyalty to your mother or father. It’s an honest reflection of a complicated relationship.
Grieve the Relationship You Missed
It can help to deliberately make room for the relationship you wished you’d had. You might write about it, talk it through in grief counseling, or create a ritual where you acknowledge that unmet wish.
Find People Who Don’t Judge
Because this kind of grief is often misunderstood, it matters to find people or support that won’t judge you or expect you to grieve “normally.” Being around people who allow for contradictions is a huge relief.
Be Patient With Yourself
Ambivalent grief often takes longer, because several layers are being processed at once: the loss, the history of the relationship, and sometimes old, unresolved wounds. That’s not a sign something is wrong with you. It reflects how complex what you’re carrying really is.
When the Relationship Involved Abuse or Deep Harm
With especially painful relationships, such as emotional, physical, or other abuse, grief can be even more complicated. Some people mainly feel relief and very little grief, and then feel judged for it, by themselves or others. That’s a valid reaction too. You don’t have to grieve someone who harmed you in the way others expect. In these situations, professional support is especially valuable, because it gives you a protected space to sort through your feelings without judgment.
When to Get Professional Support
If the conflicting feelings leave you paralyzed, if guilt takes over, or if there’s no one you can talk to honestly about what this relationship was really like, online grief counseling or therapy can help. There you can show the full range of what you feel without having to justify it. In a grief group for losing a mother or father, you’ll often meet people who’ve been through something similar.
You can read more about losing your mother in Losing Your Mother: Psychological Effects and What Helps. What it’s like to lose both parents is something Nadja shares in her interview.
If you’re having thoughts of not wanting to live, please reach out right away. In the US, call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline). In other countries, contact your local emergency number or a crisis line.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it normal to feel relief when your mother or father dies?
Yes, especially if the relationship involved conflict, distance, or harm. Relief doesn’t rule out grief. Both feelings can exist at the same time.
Why do I feel guilty when I know the relationship was difficult?
Guilt often comes from comparing yourself to cultural expectations of a “normal” parent-child relationship. It says nothing about whether you did anything wrong.
What’s the difference between typical grief and ambivalent grief?
With ambivalent grief, conflicting feelings like grief and relief show up at the same time, often together with grief for a relationship that was never what you hoped it would be.
Do I have to go to the funeral if the relationship was difficult?
No. You get to decide what you can handle. Some people attend without speaking, others say goodbye later in their own way. Both are okay.
Do I have to grieve a mother or father who hurt me?
No. There’s no obligation to grieve to a certain degree. Your response, whether deep grief, indifference, or mostly relief, is valid.
Sources
Wikipedia: Disenfranchised grief
Kenneth J. Doka: Disenfranchised Grief: Recognizing Hidden Sorrow
Your grief doesn’t have to make sense to anyone else. In online grief counseling, all of it is allowed: the grief, the relief, the anger. Get in touch.
Theres Kirisits is a certified grief counselor and the founder of t.rau*raum. She offers online grief counseling and grief groups in English or German, including on weekends and holidays, with a first session available within 48 hours. She also leads workshops on grief in the workplace. About Theres
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