Continuing bonds: what people do with the relationship afterwards

For much of the twentieth century, the dominant model of grief held that the task was to detach from the deceased — to work through the loss and let go, so as to invest in new relationships.

People who continued to feel connected were regarded as failing to complete the process.

That model has been substantially revised.

What changed

Research from the 1990s onward, most influentially work on what became known as continuing bonds, found that the majority of bereaved people maintain a relationship with the person who died — and that doing so is generally compatible with adjustment rather than a sign of pathology.

Cross-cultural work reinforced this. Many cultures have ongoing formal relationships with the dead as a normal part of life, through ancestor practices, household shrines and annual observances.

The detachment model turned out to describe a particular cultural expectation rather than a universal psychological requirement.

What continuing bonds actually look like

People report a wide range and most of it is unremarkable.

Talking to the person, aloud or internally. Extremely common, and people frequently conceal it because they assume it is odd.

Asking what they would have thought about a decision.

Feeling their presence, or sensing them at particular moments.

Keeping possessions, wearing something of theirs, maintaining a place in the house.

Continuing habits that belonged to them — cooking their recipes, supporting their team, keeping their garden.

Visiting a grave or a place, and speaking there.

Marking anniversaries.

Writing to them.

Dreams, which many people find comforting and some find distressing.

None of these indicates a problem. The evidence suggests that whether continuing bonds are helpful depends less on their presence than on their character — bonds that are comforting and integrated help; bonds characterised by yearning that prevents functioning generally indicate difficulty.

The tasks model, and its limits

Various models describe grief in terms of tasks: accepting the reality, processing the pain, adjusting to a changed world, and finding a way to maintain a connection while continuing to live.

That last task was explicitly revised in later versions of these models, from relocating the deceased and moving on, to finding an enduring connection while embarking on a new life.

The revision is telling. The field moved from detachment to integration.

The oscillation model

Another influential account describes grief as moving between two orientations: confronting the loss, and dealing with the practical changes and new life that follow.

People oscillate between them, and both are necessary. Someone entirely focused on the loss is not adjusting; someone entirely focused on practicalities is avoiding.

This describes what people report considerably better than a linear progression, and it explains why grief feels like moving forward and backward rather than through stages.

Meaning making

A further strand of research concerns the attempt to make sense of a loss.

The findings are mixed and one is reasonably consistent: people who are able to find some meaning tend to adjust better than those who cannot, and being unable to find meaning is associated with more prolonged difficulty.

Important caveat: this does not mean a loss must be given a purpose, and it does not mean the loss was for the best. It means that people who can construct some coherent account — of the person's life, of what it meant, of what continues — generally fare better than those left with something entirely senseless.

Sudden, violent and untimely deaths are harder in exactly this respect, which is part of why grief after them is more complicated.

And it is worth saying explicitly that nobody is obliged to find meaning, and that pressure to do so — to find the lesson, the silver lining, the growth — causes harm.

What this means practically

You are not required to let go. If talking to them helps, talk to them. If keeping their chair helps, keep it.

Nor are you required to maintain a connection. Some people do not, and adjust perfectly well. There is no correct form.

The relationship changes rather than ending. Most people describe it becoming quieter, less constant, and eventually something they carry rather than something that occupies them.

Others' opinions about how you grieve are not authoritative. A great deal of unhelpful advice — that you should be over it, that the possessions should go, that talking to a photograph is unhealthy — reflects an outdated model rather than any evidence.

When it is a problem

The distinction that matters is between a bond that is integrated and one that prevents living.

Signs of the latter: an inability to accept the death at all; preserving rooms and possessions entirely unchanged over years in a way that dominates the household; persistent intense yearning that does not diminish; and an inability to engage with anything else.

Where this persists well beyond a year and is disabling, it may meet criteria for prolonged grief disorder, which is treatable with specific approaches.

That is a different thing from keeping a jumper in a drawer.

The thing worth saying

Most people, eventually, describe something similar: that the person remains part of their life, in a form that is no longer painful most of the time.

They think about them, sometimes deliberately, sometimes because something reminded them. They talk about them. They notice what they would have said.

That is not a failure to move on. That is what moving on turned out to look like.

Where grief remains severe and disabling well beyond a year, effective treatments exist. Speak to your doctor or a bereavement service.