When the Glue Is Gone: How a Child’s Loss Shakes a Marriage

They say the loss of a child is one of the greatest tests a marriage can face. I know now how heartbreakingly true that is. Before our daughter Sana passed, Idris and I weren’t perfect. In many ways, we were very different—emotionally, mentally, spiritually. We didn’t always connect deeply as partners. But Sana was the bridge between us. She brought a shared purpose, daily rituals, laughter, and even conflict that felt worth working through because of her. After she was gone, the air between us grew heavy. There was no longer a buffer, no giggle down the hall or text message saying, “Pick me up, PApa” Without her, we were left staring at each other across an emotional divide that felt too wide to cross. It wasn’t anger or blame—it was grief in its rawest form, showing us just how hollow our bond had become without Sana to hold it together. We grieved differently. He turned inward; I turned toward memory. There were days we barely spoke, not out of malice but because there was nothing to say that could make it better. And there were days when I wanted to scream: Don't you miss her the way I do? Why don’t you cry? But I’ve learned that silence can be its own expression of pain. I now see how easily grief can erode the thin threads holding people together. Especially when the one person who made us feel like a family is no longer here. We remain connected, somehow—not through romance or shared dreams, but through the echo of our daughter. She was, and still is, the soul between us. But when the glue is gone, it takes everything we have just to keep from falling apart completely.