The Shock of Learning New Information After a Death

Soon after her husband died, Rita began to find flowers and notes at his graveside. She soon realized that her husband had a long-standing affair for many years prior to his death.

Rita was shocked. She had believed her husband Jack to be highly ethical. He had been active in their church. The realization that there was another side to him was a devastating event—even traumatic. Rita kept asking, “Who was he—really?”

When we love someone, we of course mourn their death. Yet sometimes after a loss, we find out information about the individual who died that makes us doubt whether we knew them as well as we thought we did. As a result, our grief can become very complicated as we ruminate about the relationship we had and the person we knew.

Another client, Mary, had such an issue. After her husband died, she found out he had children from a prior marriage—a marriage that she never even knew existed. Matt found out that his wife, who handled their finances, had a substantial bank account that he never knew existed. Was she planning to leave him? he wondered. Why would she have a secret account? Was there a secret never shared?

This shock isn't exclusive to the death of a spouse. After his death, Lee’s now-adult children realized that their father had been deep in debt because of a gambling problem. “All his life, Dad presented himself as an upright, even uptight kind of guy," one of the children told me. "Now we wonder who he really was.”

Rick and Karen were deeply proud of their son, Charlie. He was an honor student who won a generous scholarship to a great university. Then, in his sophomore year, he died in a car crash. In the autopsy, it was discovered that he had been using a variety of drugs.

Coping with Post-Mortem Identity Changes

These changes in our perception of the person’s identity after death can be troubling. In my clinical work, I speak of it as a change in post-mortem identity. Simon Shimshon Rubin, an Israeli professor, researcher, and writer, describes it as a kind of relational trauma—noting it as destructive as other forms of trauma.

There are no easy answers to handle such situations. Sometimes we can find ways to express the unresolved feeling that emerge as these new facts are disclosed. To some, it might be writing a letter to the person or speaking to an empty chair. Matt, for example, chose to privately read his letter at his wife’s graveside—expressing both his disappointment and continuing love.

Others may find it useful to speak to a counselor to sort out their many mixed emotions and feelings. Rick and Karen felt it useful to go to counseling. “She helped us explore what we knew, what we expected, what we feared, and what was a total surprise. She helped us end the cycle of blame and recrimination that was tearing at our relationship.”

And sometimes it simply helps us to realize that human beings are complex and that we may never really know or fully understand someone else—and that all we have is to search our own spiritual roots and beliefs to find the source of our own forgiveness. For both forgiveness and love sustains any and all meaningful relationships.