Why Relationships Disappoint Us & How to Find Real Intimacy

Relationships can be incredibly disappointing. Terry Real says this without cynicism, and it's the truth. I sincerely believe it’s one of the hardest truths for us to swallow.

We come into relationships with an unspoken list: all the things our partner should be, all the ways they should show up, all the ways they should heal us. When they inevitably fall short, it hurts. It feels personal, and deeply painful. Hearing 'no' sucks. Being disappointed is hard. It triggers all of our deepest fears about how we will "never be enough" for anyone, and we will "never get what we really need." And honestly, many of us struggle to even identify our emotional needs in relationships, as opposed to emotional wishes, which are often flimsy, at best, and completely unrealistic, at worst.

But the deeper truth is this: the ache is spiritual.

Our Longing for the Divine

What we really want, in the deepest recesses of our souls, though we rarely admit it, is someone endless. Endlessly available. Endlessly fascinating. Endlessly compassionate. Endlessly attuned.

In other words: we want a god or goddess, who worships us and our needs/wants/desires. Our understanding of wants and needs in relationships are also conflicting. We want a parent and a lover, a best friend and a confidant, a business partner (after all, running a household is a lot like running a business) and a sexpot. We want too much from one person. And we, often, don't hold ourselves to the same standards or expectations.

We want someone to complete us. Anybody remember the movie Jerry Maguire? "You complete me." (YUCK. Let's do a future post on working on completing yourself and offering a full, unencumbered wise adult to our partners.) Also, can we please keep in mind that Tom Cruise playing himself in every movie is not a good model for healthy relationships? Just sayin'.

We desire divine perfection dressed up as flesh and blood. We want a savior, a rescuer, and when that just doesn't exist in our partner, we are left yearning. Yearning doesn't feel good. It can often feel like desperation.

When we clash with the reality that the person across from us is as limited, flawed, and messy as we are (and that they aren't coming to save us from ourselves or rescue us from our pasts,) we despair.

Why We Struggle to Stay in Real Relationship

This longing for divinity isn’t just about romance, though it has largely been shaped by romantic comedies, poor examples of love in our own families of origin, and Hallmark card versions of love. This longing also affects how we view friendships, colleagues, family, even strangers online. We are restless, agitated and dissatisfied because no one measures up to the fantasy.

And here’s the cost:

• We don’t know how to hold nuance. You can look at our current political climate to see evidence of this.

• We can’t tolerate contradictions in others. People are not all good, or all bad. They have multiple parts to them, some of which have maladaptive and unhealthy ways of getting their needs met in present relationships.

• We choose to settle for good enough relationships, or we don't risk getting into them at all.

• We cling to individualism rather than risk being changed by relationship and community.

• We protect our egos instead of helping each other win, and we miss out on the learning and growth that can come from letting go of our understanding of the world. Our way isn't the dominant way. It's a way to see things. There are many perspectives.

In short, we resist the very thing we need and want most: real intimacy.

Intimacy Is Messy

This is where Terry Real’s Relational Life Therapy (RLT) addresses our cultural wound directly. RLT shows us that true intimacy is not founded on perfection, but rather on how two imperfect individuals handle their unavoidable conflicts.

That’s the guts of intimacy. Not a flawless partner. Not eternal bliss. But learning, over and over, how to repair, reconnect, and recommit. Relationships of all types are in constant cycles of harmony, rupture and repair. Therefore, we all have good experience with these three states in relationships, unless you're a hermit living in the desert.

Except most of us didn't learn anything about repair or any skills of how to get more of what we want and need in our relationships.

Our families of origin were either "totally normal, never really saw my parents fight" (a.k.a. you never saw conflict being repaired at all; or you ), or they were chaotic messes where people were harmed either physically or emotionally on the regular. In examination of our childhood experiences of rupture and repair, we can glean vital information on how and why we struggle on showing up fully in our adult relationships.

As children, we didn't have much choice in how we acted and reacted, which is why relational harm or attachment trauma is so hard to heal. As adults, we have choice. We can choose our actions and our reactions to our partners, our bosses, our friends, our colleagues, our church members, etc.

Learning how to ride the waves of harmony, rupture and repair is the crux of becoming a fully fledged person. Becoming a wise adult is work. This is messy work. But it’s sacred work.

My Work as an “Intimacy Merchant”

I am in the process of becoming certified in RLT because I believe this truth is urgently needed: in marriages and partnerships, in friendships, in communities, in the world.

I see my role as an intimacy merchant. I want to help people trade in their impossible longing for divinity and perfection in their relationships for something real: the transformative power of human connection.

It won’t be neat. It won’t be perfect. But it will be worth it.

The Invitation

If you’re tired of the endless dissatisfaction, in yourself, in your partner, in the world, it might be time to try a different way. I do work with couples who want more. And I don't mince words. I take sides, judiciously. I call out harmful patterns. I want real intimacy for every person I work with, and I believe it's possible for many of us, especially if we are committed to doing the work. There is a different path forward.

One rooted not in perfection, but in relationality. Not in individualism, but in connection. Not in fantasy, but in messy, glorious intimacy.

Because when we learn how to be real with each other, we don’t just survive relationships. We grow through them.

Take exquisite care of yourselves,

Megan

Disenfranchised Grief: What to Do When Your Loss Feels Invisible

Even Grief That Feels Small, Hidden, or 'Not Enough' Deserves Tending To, and Compassion.

Disenfranchised grief can feel lonely, like being at the top of a mountain with no companions to give credit to the difficulty of your climb.

Hello friends and colleagues,

I hope you are having a lovely week thus far. Our topic today is one of particular interest and importance to me. And here’s why: people come to see me for deep grief work. Some of them know exactly what they’re coming in for: the death of a child, the kind of grief that splits life into a “before” and “after.” Others arrive unsure why they’re hurting so much. Something in their world has shifted: a friendship ended, a pregnancy was lost, a dream collapsed, and the pain feels outsized, even confusing. More often than not, what we discover together is hidden grief, what Kenneth Doka (1989) called “socially unrecognized or unsupported” grief.

Here’s the hard part: when your grief isn’t acknowledged, you carry two burdens at once: the loss itself and the pressure to minimize it. You may catch yourself thinking, “This shouldn’t matter so much,” or worrying others will see it as “silly” or “stupid.” But grief without witness is pain without validation. It doesn’t stop hurting just because no one else sees it.

In this post, I want to give voice and space for those hidden losses. We’ll explore what disenfranchised grief looks like, why it hurts so damn bad, and what actually helps you feel better in real time. If your loss mattered to you, it matters.

What is Disenfranchised Grief?

It's a common misconception that the only 'valid' grief is the sadness and yearning that comes after experiencing the death of someone we loved dearly. Here's the thing: if that were the case, then I truly believe society would actually do a better job of supporting grieving people than we currently do. Our society fails mourners precisely because we narrow the definition of what it means to grieve and what is 'appropriate' to grieve. We often struggle to witness to pain in our society. It's uncomfortable and gritty and requires people to step outside of themselves and their experiences and feelings in order to create room for the spiritual experience that is grieving, no matter what the impetus was.

Disenfranchised grief happens when someone's loss is unseen, minimized or stigmatized. From a brain perspective (O’Connor), grief is a learning process: your brain keeps reaching for the person, future, or identity it expected. When that bond breaks through death, miscarriage, a relationship ending, the brain has to update its map of reality. Without validation, that learning process takes longer and feels disorienting.

Here are some examples of grief that often go unnoticed:

• Miscarriage, infertility, birthing trauma, or perinatal loss

• Loss of a beloved pet

• A break-up, a situationship ending, a friendship fading out

• Changes in health, identity, or future dreams

• A job loss or unexpected retirement

• A faith shift

• A move

• The death of an ex-spouse or an abusive parent

What matters is the meaning the loss holds for you, not how it measures up on anyone else’s scale.

Why It Matters

Grief unseen is like physical pain without treatment. It lingers and compounds. If you feel unmet, unanswered, in your loss, you will feel the pain of abandonment on top of the yearning, sadness and depression that is present because of what is missing from your life. Remember, to your nervous system, abandonment can feel like a threat. If you don't want to feel bad forever, then you need to not feel alone forever. And we need to acknowledge the two layers of your pain: the loss and the invalidation.

From a brain perspective, grief is a ‘learning problem.' Your nervous system keeps reaching for what was lost or for what you never had, and without acknowledgment, that relearning takes even longer.

How Disenfranchised Grief Shows Up

When grief isn’t recognized, you don’t just feel the loss. You feel the vacuum around it. That gap shows up across emotions, thoughts, the body, behavior, and relationships.

Emotional Costs

• Shame or second-guessing (“Why am I this upset?”or "Most people don't seem to understand what I'm going through, so it must not be a big deal.")

• Irritability, short fuse, numbness, or sudden spikes of sadness.

• Ambivalence: wanting to talk about it and also wanting to hide away or be alone with it.

Thought Patterns

• Rumination and mental replay of what happened or what might’ve been.

• Self-doubt: “Am I overreacting?” “Does this even count?”

• Global conclusions (“I’m too much,” “I should be over it by now.”)

Body

• Sleep changes, fatigue, headaches, muscle tension.

• Stress loops after invalidating interactions (tight chest, shallow breath).

• Startle or hypervigilance when reminders pop up.

Try a Micro-reset: 60–90 seconds of paced breathing (inhale 4, exhale 6) before/after grief work or hard conversations.

Behavior

• Overfunctioning (fixing, caretaking, working late) or underfunctioning (avoidance, oversleeping, watching your comfort show on repeat, procrastination).

• Isolation to protect the grief from minimizers in your life.

• Compulsive Googling for proof that it “counts.”

Here's a tiny pivot: set a 10–15 minute container for grief tasks (journal, letter, ritual), then re-enter the day.

Relationships

• Over-explaining to earn legitimacy; feeling depleted when it doesn’t land.

• People-pleasing or pulling back from those who “don’t get it.”

• Resentment toward well-meaning “at least…” comments.

When you're dealing with minimizers, here are some boundary scripts:

• “I’m not looking for fixes, just a few minutes to be heard.”

• “This is important to me. Can you sit with me without trying to reframe it, or make it better?”

• “I’m going to skip this topic for now. It feels too raw.”

Red Flags for “Stuck” Grief (Consider Extra Support):

• Marked impairment in daily functioning beyond 1–2 months.

• Persistent self-blame, hopelessness, or relentless rumination.

• Strong physiological distress to reminders that isn’t easing with time and support.

Grief-informed therapy (including EMDR) can help the brain integrate the loss and reduce the intensity of your emotions.

What Helps (Practical Steps for Increasing your Bandwidth)

A. Name it.

• Script: “I’m grieving X. It matters to me.”

• Journal prompt: “What did this loss mean to me? What did it change?”

B. Choose witnesses wisely (quality > quantity)

• Identify 1–2 safe people/spaces (therapy, support group, spiritual mentor).

• Boundary script for the minimizers in your life: “I’m not looking for fixes. I just would like a few minutes to be heard. Are you available to listen?”

C. Create a small ritual with a beginning, middle, end

• Options: write a letter you won’t send, plant/stone/place marker, candle with a specific phrase, grieving music or movie scene playlist you retire after use.

• Keep it brief (5–15 minutes); repetition teaches the brain the new map (O’Connor).

D. Give the loss a form (containment)

• One-page “loss map”: what was lost, what remains, what needs care.

• Box or folder for objects/notes; decide review cadence (monthly/quarterly).

• Create an imaginary container in your mind where you can put grief or its negative emotional cousins or sharp memories, so you can function in the day to day moments. Tell the items in the container that you are coming back for them. You just need a little space right now.

E. Care for your nervous system and your body

• 60–90 seconds of paced breathing (inhale 4, hold for 4, exhale 6).

• Alternate nostril breathing

• Running in place or pretending to run in place if you feel jittery or anxious energy.

• TIPP emotion regulation skills (Temperature changes, Intense Exercise, Paced Breathing, Progressive Muscle Relaxation)

• Grounding through toe yoga. Not joking, try it! Next time you feel distressed put your feet on the floor and wiggle your toes back and forth and side to side. Notice how different you feel when you just pay attention to one part of your body.

• Gentle movement on hard days. Find ways to walk if you can. Walking is bilateral stimulation.

• Eat a protein, fat and carb at regular intervals throughout the day. Examples would be a jerky stick, with olives and some fruit. A balanced meal will help your blood sugar regulate and decrease your overall emotional reactivity.

What Doesn’t Help (and What to Do Instead)

• Comparing pain (“others have it worse”) → Both/And: My pain is real, and others suffer too.

• Arguing your case to minimizers → Protect your reps: share with one steady witness.

• Self-punishing for “not over it” → New frame: I’m learning to live with this.

• Doom-scrolling triggers → Containment: set a daily cutoff; use a 10–15 min grief container.

If You Love Someone with Disenfranchised Grief

Say:

• “I believe you.”

• “What did this mean to you?”

• “Do you want company or solutions?”

Avoid:

• “At least…,” fixes, timelines, silver linings, etc.

Do:

• Sit quietly; hold time.

• Offer a small task (drive, meal, errand).

• Support a simple ritual they choose.

If your grief has felt invisible, let this be your permission slip to be seen: it’s real because it’s yours. You don’t have to rank it, defer it, or defend it. Start small: name what was lost, choose one steady witness, create a brief ritual, and give your nervous system a few minutes of care per day. There’s no finish line here; the goal is function and relief, not “moving on.” With consistent, gentle reps, the brain does learn the new shape of your life, and the pain becomes more bearable, think less gunshot wound, more sensitive skin around a scar, over time.

If you want company in that process, I’m here. We can make space for the loss, reduce the cacophony of shame and second-guessing, and build real skills that actually help you feel better, whether through weekly therapy or focused EMDR work. When you’re ready, reach out. Your grief has a place with me, in my office, anytime.

Take Exquisite Care of Yourselves,

Megan

EMDR and Grieving a Child's Death: Can Therapy Help When Nothing Else Does?

If you're reading this, I suspect grief has come to rest over your home, and more specifically, you may feel adrift in the sea of child loss and the subsequent grieving process. And part of you may be wondering, "Is there anything that will actually help?" I have seen and experienced the desperation that drives people to search for any way through the fog. They want to feel less pain, they want more peace, and they are often afraid of what will happen when they achieve those goals. They want to leave the stormy sea of a love lost, and yet, they fear what awaits them on the other side.

For some grieving parents, EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy) offers a lighthouse in the fog, a beacon in the dark night of the soul they feel trapped in. Not by erasing the pain, but by helping the mind and body release what’s become stuck—flashbacks, guilt, physical grief, and the unbearable memories that won’t let go.

EMDR can be the lighthouse you need to make it through the storm of grief.

Is Grieving a Child's Death Even Treatable and What is EMDR?

So what is EMDR therapy, and how could it possibly help with something as complex and sacred as grieving your child?

EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It’s a trauma-focused therapy that helps the brain and body reprocess distressing memories and sensations—particularly those that feel “stuck” or overwhelming. Unlike traditional talk therapy, EMDR doesn’t require you to retell your story over and over. Instead, it gently supports your brain in doing what it naturally wants to do: move toward integration, healing, and meaning.

In this post, we’ll explore:

• What the latest neuroscience says about grief and how it affects your brain (drawing from Mary-Frances O’Connor’s research). Check out this wonderful TED Talk she gave a few years ago about her research.

• The ways grief lives in the body, and how EMDR can support somatic release

• Common beliefs that keep parents stuck—like “It was my fault” or “If I stop grieving, I’m betraying them”—and how EMDR can help shift those

• Soulful perspectives on grief, including Francis Weller’s Five Gates of Grief, and how EMDR can help you move through them with compassion

• What the research actually says about EMDR and grief recovery

Whether you’re newly grieving or years into a heartbreak that hasn’t softened, this post is here to offer clarity, grounded hope, and a gentle path forward—without asking you to let go of the love you’ll always carry.

What Grieving Parents Often Carry

At the risk of repeating myself and preaching to the choir, I do think it's important to define the commonalities of the experiences of grieving parents. Like I've written about in this post previously, child loss brings out certain universal themes: of loneliness, of separateness, of regret and guilt and shame. When children die, parents are confronted with a hard truth: we have very little control in this world. You can do everything right, and sometimes, devastation parks itself at your door.

In my therapy office, parents tell me that their grief feels physically heavy, "like an elephant sitting on your chest," and they can find themselves dealing with uncomfortable, intense body sensations (chest tightness, panic attacks, unpredictable breathing patterns, stomach aches, sleeplessness or sleeping all the time), like their somatic alarm system is constantly ringing now.

Grief isn't a mental health problem, or diagnosis, to be solved. It isn't just emotional- it's a physiological, neurological, and spiritual process.

The Science: What Happens in the Grieving Brain

"Am I going crazy?" I remember the first time this question showed up in the therapy room with a grieving parent. Spoiler alert: I was the grieving parent, and I remember the alarm I felt, after the death of my first daughter directly after her birth, when I could feel 'phantom kicks' from my uterus six months postpartum. Logically, I knew my child was gone. I knew I wasn't pregnant, and my body was still producing very real feelings of being kicked from the inside like I had experienced in my pregnancy with her.

What was happening there? Well, I think we can look at the emerging brain science and how the grieving brain works. Neurologically, your brain has to learn that the person you are grieving is gone and learning isn't linear and it's based in your attachment to that person. Your love, your connection, your attachment to them expects that person to return. When they do not return, your brain responds as if you are being abandoned. And attachment begins in utero, so it made sense that my body was trying to figure out that my daughter was gone by producing 'phantom kicks'. They ceased as soon as I realized what they were.

Grief, as an emotion, is a difficult and complex thing for your brain to produce. According to Dr. Mary-Frances O'Connor, she states in her book 'The Grieving Brain,' "it involves brain regions that process emotions, recall episodic memories, percieve familiar faces, regulate the heart, and coordinate all of the above functions... but in one study, grief did not active the amygdala." (2022).

So, if you're feeling disoriented, disconnected, and like life is surreal while grieving, it makes sense. Your brain is trying to solve a problem that has no discernible solution. Namely, your brain is trying to figure out and place your person in an updated visual map inside your memory. And, while many people believe in an afterlife, none of us know exactly what it looks like and therefore, our mind cannot picture our person there accurately, which leads to intense distress.

What EMDR Can Do For Grief

1. Reduce the Intensity of the Traumatic Memories

EMDR can help your brain update the learning process, using imaginal exercises, rewriting old scripts keeping you stuck in the grief and giving you pieces of your person back, before the loss. It can help you see your child again, in ways that your brain has forgotten, because your mind was overwhelmed by the unsolvable problem of death. Child death is often riddled with trauma, and for many parents, they can develop PTSD symptoms in the aftermath of grieving, which slows down an already excruciating process. Think of all the moments from the loss of your child, where you still feel frozen in terror. EMDR can help you activate those memories and not be re-triggered into a fear response. You'll never be fond of the memories. They'll never feel good to remember, but EMDR can help release you from the utter devastation and fear they activate within you currently.

2. Free your Body from Somatic Grief

With trauma, physical symptoms are necessary in order to obtain the formal PTSD diagnosis. The fancy wording in the DSM-V is a "marked physiological reactions to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event(s)." In reality, this can look like intense stomachaches, nausea, panic attacks, feeling like you're dying when you are retriggered, jaw tension, trouble sleeping, and heartache. EMDR, through gentle exposure, can help you reduce these symptoms over time by revisiting the memories and subsequent body sensations and just noticing them. Somatic symptoms require witnessing and tending to, not white-knuckling your way through.

3. Shift Unhelpful and Untrue Beliefs You Hold in Relation to the Death of your Child

   “It was my fault”

   “I should have done something different”

   “If I stop hurting, I’ll lose them again”

   EMDR uses a structured protocol to help you examine these negative beliefs, where they were installed within you, and gently redirects to viewing yourself differently within the context of this unimaginable loss. We literally say at some point, "What would you like to believe about yourself instead?" when we encounter these old unhelpful beliefs in EMDR sessions. And, then, using bilateral stimulation (eye movements, tapping, or music/sounds), we move towards a newer, more neutral way of thinking about the death of your child.

4. Create Room for an Ongoing Bond with your Child, Even After the Ultimate Separation

   Healing from your child's death doesn't mean forgetting-- it means integrating the before and after scenes of your life. You were one person before your child died. And now, you are a different person, who still has to keep living. Part of that new way forward is forging a bond with your child, even when you are separated by death. EMDR helps you hold your love and memories without being consumed by suffering.

   
   

A Soul Framework: Francis Weller’s Five Gates of Grief

Not all grief stems from death, but when a child dies, nearly every gate of grief described by author and soul-worker Francis Weller is flung open. In his book The Wild Edge of Sorrow, Weller names five gates through which grief enters our lives:

1. Everything we love, we will lose

2. The parts of us that have not known love

3. The sorrows of the world

4. What we expected but did not receive

5. Ancestral grief

Child loss often begins at Gate 1, but for many parents, grief doesn't stay neatly confined. Gate 2 may open when the loss triggers past wounds—perhaps a voice inside says you're unworthy of joy, or blames you for things outside your control. Gate 4 becomes impossible to ignore: all the birthdays, milestones, and moments you’d imagined sharing with your child are suddenly gone. You are grieving not just a life, but a future and an identity.

EMDR doesn’t close the gates, but it can help you walk through them more intentionally. In sessions, we may explore how current pain connects to old shame (Gate 2), or how grief over your child’s absence blends with deeper grief for a world that doesn’t feel safe anymore (Gate 3). EMDR gently creates space for you to feel these layers of grief without drowning in them. It invites the body, mind, and spirit to honor what’s true—and to find breath and beauty again, even amid the ache.

What the Research Says About EMDR and Grief

While EMDR is best known for treating trauma and PTSD, a growing body of research supports its effectiveness for complicated or prolonged grief—especially when that grief includes traumatic elements, like child loss.

Here’s what the research shows:

• A 2006 study by van den Bout & Kuenhof found that EMDR reduced distress, guilt, and avoidance behaviors in grieving clients, helping them move toward integration.

• Research by Malkinson (2010) demonstrated that EMDR reduced symptoms of Prolonged Grief Disorder by targeting trauma memories and meaning-making blocks.

• Solomon & Rando (2007) wrote that EMDR “appears uniquely helpful for mourners suffering from trauma-related grief,” especially when used alongside traditional grief therapy.

• Even the World Health Organization recognizes EMDR as a best-practice treatment for trauma—which often lives at the heart of a parent's grief.

So no, EMDR won’t erase the love or undo the loss, and it won't take away your memories of your child—but it can reduce the emotional and physiological burden that keeps your grief from softening, and creates space for you to live again.

What to Expect in EMDR Therapy for Grief

If you’re considering EMDR, know that it’s not a quick fix—and it’s not something done to you. It’s a collaborative, client-led process that honors your pace, your readiness, and your relationship with your child.

In EMDR therapy, we often move through the following phases:

• Preparation and resourcing: We start by building safety, trust, and nervous system regulation tools before any trauma is addressed directly.

• Identifying targets: We gently uncover the memories, beliefs, or body sensations that still feel “charged” or stuck. I use the metaphor that your brain has a harried, disorganized secretary up in your memories, just sticking files in random drawers in your memory filing cabinet, and making it hard to close the drawers.

• Reprocessing: Using bilateral stimulation (eye movements, tapping, or sound), you revisit distressing memories in a controlled, supported way. The goal is to help your brain store the memory differently, to put it in the correct file in your brain so you can close the filing cabinet,—so it no longer floods your system when it’s triggered.

• Integration: We work toward new beliefs that feel truer and kinder, helping you carry the loss without being crushed by it.

EMDR doesn’t push you to “move on.” It helps you move with. It’s not about forgetting—it’s about reconnecting: to yourself, to your love for your child, and to your right to experience peace again.

Grief Deserves Gentle Witness, Not a Deadline

If no one has said this to you lately: you’re not doing grief wrong. The ache in your chest, the fog in your brain, the moments of guilt or disbelief—they all make sense in the aftermath of losing your child. Grief this profound doesn’t follow a timeline, and it doesn’t need to be fixed. But it does deserve tending. It deserves space. And you deserve support that can hold the weight of it with you.

EMDR won’t erase your love or undo your story. But it can help ease the panic, soften the guilt, and create room to remember without being shattered. If that sounds like something your heart is ready for—or even just curious about—I’d be honored to walk with you.

You can learn more about EMDR therapy here or reach out here if you feel ready to take that first gentle step.

Take Exquisite Care of Yourself,

Megan