Dealing with a Miscarriage // Hump Day Q&A

Foreign. You know what time it is, sweetie?

It's hump day. Q and A time. Hump day. Q and A. Hump day Q and A. Welcome to the Naked Marriage Podcast. Hump day Q and A. We love answering your questions. So every Wednesday we're dropping a special podcast episode focused on one of your questions. You can submit your own marriage related question online@nakedmarriagepodcast.com or by sending us message on Instagram aveandashleywillis. We've got a great question today, so let's dive in.

I've been married for almost 11 years, and in the beginning, I was a horrible husband. Yet my wife stayed. And we've been working, working on our marriage. Last year, we had a miscarriage. She is now dealing with a lot of anxiety and depression. But I feel like no matter how I deal with her anxiety and depression, there's no solution for the. No solution to the anger that follows. Any thoughts of guidance and wisdom would be wonderful.

Oh, goodness.

Yeah. That's heavy. And thank you for writing that.

Absolutely. And I'm just so sorry for your loss. I mean, going through a miscarriage, it is. It's. It's devastating, you know, and there's so much hope with a pregnancy, and your heart's just swelling during the pregnancy. And then to experience that loss, it is so hard on both spouses. And it is hard on the marriage too, because you've gone through a loss together, and everybody processes that differently. And it sounds like, you know, your wife is having that anxiety and depress. And though I have not had a miscarriage, I have walked through anxiety and depression. And I know that there are just so many different emotions that kind of come with that. And I think with her, what she's tended to go to is anger. And that anger is not directed towards you as her husband. Her anger is at the loss of that child. And anger is a part of the grief process. I mean, it's literally one of the steps in processing grief. And so I think as her husband, I know you wanna help her. I know you're like, I wanna fix it. That's a very normal way. But the best thing you can do is to hold her and to level with her and say, you know what? I'm angry too. I'm angry too. I wanted that child too. And I don't even pretend to understand why we lost that child. You know, we won't understand till we get to ask the Lord himself one day. But in the midst of this, I just want you to know I'M in the corner with you, and I wanna hold you, and I'm not leaving your side. I'm not mad at you, and I know you're not mad at me, but I just am here for you. And. You know, when I was walking through anxiety and depression many years ago, the best thing Dave could do for me was to listen and was to tell me that I wasn't crazy. Cause I would often say, I know I'm crazy or I'm damaged or I'm never gonna get through this. And him just reassuring me that we were gonna get through this, that I wasn't damaged, that God was doing a work in me, and that I wouldn't feel this way forever and that we would heal from this, that just spoke volumes. But there were many nights when I would wake him up where he would literally not even say a word, but he would just hold me while I cried. And I think with your wife being angry, just listening to her process that anger is huge. I also think kind of the next step. And again, the grieving process takes, like, you never know how long it's gonna take. You know, not rushing that. That's huge. Not rushing. Her healing is huge. But I also think with the lingering anxiety and depression, encouraging her to have a counselor. I mean, to find a Christian coun she can talk to is major. And, you know, we actually have an organization. I know right now a lot of people can't meet in person. There's an organization called Faithful Counseling that we recommend here on the podcast. And you can actually, you know, tell her she can find a counselor, a Christian counselor that will, you know, Skype with her, talk to her on the phone. And it's private and it's confidential. And she can process this because this is something that. That she needs that extra help. I mean, this is professional help. And what is that website, sweetie, that she can go to?

That website is getfaithful.com nakedmarriage. Getfaithful.com nakedmarriage. It's a wonderful online Christian counseling option that could help her individually as she's processing the anxiety and depression. And it would also be good for you to meet individually with a counselor to just talk, kind of talk through how you could best help. So in addition to that, individual counseling, and by the way, Ashley and I have both, through the years, benefited from individual Christian counseling.

Absolutely.

And I just think that there's such wisdom in that, really, in every season of life. So we're excited about our partners there at Faithful Counseling and honored that they're partners here with this podcast. In addition to that, we offer coaching at Marriage Today. And our coaches are just, you know, really gifted encouragers who can help guide you in your marriage and really talk to you together. It's not so much the individual approach, but it's kind of guiding you together as a couple. And that's also available by phone or by Skype so you don't have to leave your home. You can talk to our coaches right from your computer. Their website is marriagetoday.com coaches. And the website that'll pull up will have a header that says Operation Hope. And that's really what they do. They help help you bring more hope to your marriage. And so check. Check out those resources. And yeah, we try to put as many resources in your hands with this podcast. The podcast itself is a resource. But very often the best thing we can do is point you to that next step, whether it's counseling, whether it's coaching. We have a lot of other resources available, many of them free@xomarriage.com and we'd love for you to check that out as well. So thank you so much for your question. And we're gonna pray and just believe that God's gonna continue to bring healing to that relationship as you continue to just love and serve each other. Sweetie, I think you have another resource you wanna share before we wrap up.

I do. I have an author friend of mine who has an amazing resource that I think would be a gift that you could give your wife to help her process this grief and even her anger. And it's a devotional that is specific to miscarriage. And it's called loved baby 31 devotions. Helping you grieve and cherish your child after pregnancy loss. It's by Sarah Philpott. We'll put that in the show notes. We'll be sure to do that. But I think that would be huge because I know that you feel inadequate right now. Cause you wanna help so bad. And you yourself are grieving. And I just wanna own the fact of that, too. I know you're grieving and you're processing, and then you're also trying to help your wife. And so God bless you for that. I mean, I think it's wonderful that you were so honest and wrote this question. Thank you all so much for listening to today's episode of Hump Day. Q and A. We love getting your questions and we want to answer your question. So if you go to nakedmarriagepodcast.com you can submit your question right there. Or you can follow us on Instagram avanashleywillis and you can give us your questions right there by giving us a dm. So we'll catch you next time on Hump Day. Q and A.

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