LOVE REACTION: Loss can emphasize the value of the presence of others, and the bereaved spouse may turn to the partner for a renewal of intimacy and love. If the partner is puzzled by such a need, by a request for romance at this time of sadness, or if the partner overtly or covertly rejects such a longing for love and its manifestation through sex, hostility and anger can result, worsening the grief reaction and even jeopardizing general health.
Sometimes the grieving partner “tests” his or her own relationship for love at the time of loss, making sure his or her most important source of social and intimate support is still intact. An unsuspecting partner may “flunk” this love test, never knowing that he or she has been tested, and the grieving partner sinks further into depression at what he or she sees as yet another loss.
SEXUAL WITHDRAWAL: Bereavement Brings with it a range of physical and emotional reactions. Nausea, disequilibrium, muscle and joint pain, chronic headache, sweating and chills, bowel and urinary disruption, and other symptoms of bereavement are not uncommon and may delay return to sexual intimacy.
Emotionally, guilt or self-blame regarding the loss may result in a self-imposed compensatory celibacy, a paying of penance for imaginary or real responsibility for the loss. The partner’s attempts to break through such withdrawal may be perceived as insensitivity, and the partner may become a target for projection of the blame and self-recrimination felt by the bereaved.
Sometimes a compulsive searching is part of the grieving process; searching for the lost person and the feelings lost because of the bereavement. This cognitive and emotional wandering results in a distractability that represents yet another form of sexual withdrawal. It may show in listlessness, lack of attention, fading in and out of attention, failure to listen, and long periods of passivity and for the marital partner.
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Tags: General health