A startling statistic, but one that I can easily understand – is that some 80% of marriages end up in divorce after the death of a child. The pain is overwhelming and the need to be angry and blame someone – anyone – is widespread. Couples also mourn differently, and where there is judgement instead of acceptance and mutual support, marriages often collapse under the weight of the loss.
I can say with certainty that my wife saved our marriage by not blaming me for encouraging her to travel with me to Florida. I asked if she were angry with me or blamed me for Ariel’s suicide, and she quickly replied, “I made my decision – you didn’t force me to travel with you, and even if I had decided to stay home, Ariel’s depression was so severe that he may have found different opportunities to end his life.” My wife’s maturity and ability to live with her loss without placing the blame on me is to a great extent why our marriage has survived the loss of our son.
Another key to our staying together is our understanding that we are different people and that we mourn differently. As mentioned, my wife is a more private person than I, and that has characterized her mourning over the loss of our son. While she kept her feelings to herself, she provided much needed support and love to our children. I, on the other hand, became the public persona of our family, speaking to others about suicide, loss, resilience and during the past two years, suicide prevention. I have no regrets about my decision, but I am keenly aware that my children feel more comfortable with their mother’s acceptance and love than with my determination to educate about suicide prevention.
An illustrative example of how my wife and I learned to accept each other’s own mourning process centered around Ariel’s suicide note. In it, he implored his former girlfriend to not feel guilty and then added a generic statement saying that “nobody is to blame.” Ariel then requested that we (without mentioning us as “Mom” or “Dad”) take $40,000 out of his trust fund and allocate $10,000 to four different children with whom he had worked at the Jerusalem Shelter for Battered Women.
Ariel was in pain and decided to end his pain, yet still had the amazing ability to empathize with others in pain. His final act was violent, and my wife and I, his siblings, friends, and wider community have all been badly scarred. He hurt himself and so many people around him, but I cannot forget for a moment that his penultimate act in life was to help children in need, a stunning act of hesed. (lovingkindness).
How can I be so angry and so proud of my son at the same time? Part of the anger is because nowhere in the suicide note was any family member mentioned by name. Ariel wrote his former girlfriend’s name and specified the four names of the children to whom he wanted us to transfer funds. But not one member of his own family was mentioned. My therapist had an interesting interpretation about Ariel not including us in the suicide letter. She felt that Ariel knew exactly what anguish he would be causing us, so in an attempt to deflect his own guilt, he chose to focus on the positive things in his life – the love of his former girlfriend and the love of the children at the Miklat.
I was not convinced or happy with this interpretation. I was, and remain, hurt and extremely angry. When asked by my therapist what would I say to Ariel about this if I had an opportunity to do so, I responded: Are you freaking crazy! How could you do this!? You have emotionally scarred your siblings, and you do not mention their names or ours in your suicide note and don’t even say goodbye.
I shared this with my wife and her response was straightforward and raw: “Who the fuck cares what was written in a suicide note or about interpretations of that note -my son is dead.” Just as she had saved our marriage by not blaming, this was my opportunity to listen to my wife’s pain and accept that pain without judgment, even though I was in a totally different place, filled with rage at our son for not mentioning family members. I simply listened. I strongly believe that the ability to truly listen to the pain of the other is critically important – in any marriage – and especially in a marriage where a child has died.
Ariel lived the last two years of his life with us at home, barely leaving the house. After years of a tumultuous relationship with the entire family, but especially with me, we had become closer during those last two years. He asked us to play a family card game every Shabbat afternoon, asked me to have a football catch in the back yard like in the old days, and smiled from ear to ear when I told him that he was a “hatich,” a really handsome guy.
How then, could he not say goodbye to me? I would have preferred not to find any suicide note, but to see that Ariel had the wherewithal to write names and to give funding instructions, but not to say goodbye is a source of great pain even now, nine years later after he wrote the suicide note and ended his life.
I need to hold this rage, disbelief, and pain alone – and somehow also hear and hold my wife in her pain. I respect her way of mourning and do not try to convince her that my pain is more real than hers. We mourn differently and we give one another space to express our pain differently.
This is really demanding work, and we do not always manage our differences with aplomb. One therapist encouraged me to not just accept our differences, but to celebrate them. This was great advice, but has not always been easy for me to follow. Nonetheless, nine years after Ariel’s suicide, our marriage remains intact, and that is a blessing for which I am extremely grateful.