Ambiguous Grief: Grieving Someone Who’s Still Alive

There’s a form of grief that feels especially disorienting. The person you are grieving is still alive. They may even still be in your life. And yet something inside the connection has changed so deeply that your body reacts as though you’ve lost them.

This is ambiguous grief - the grief of someone who is present but no longer available in the way they once were.

It can happen when a relationship shifts, when someone becomes distant, when a friend changes direction, when a parent becomes emotionally unreachable, or when someone you love steps into a different life that no longer includes you in the same way.

There’s no clear moment of loss.

No ritual.

No goodbye.

Just a slow fading, a quiet drift, or an invisible wall you can’t quite name.

Your mind may tell you that nothing “bad” has happened. You might even feel guilty for grieving when the person is still here. But grief isn’t logical. It responds to emotional truth, not circumstance.

And the emotional truth is this:

the relationship you had is gone, even if the person remains.

Ambiguous grief often creates a strange tension inside. You may feel longing mixed with confusion, sadness mixed with loyalty, love mixed with disappointment. You might find yourself replaying old memories or trying to understand where the shift began. You may hold onto small signs of closeness because part of you isn’t ready to accept the new shape of the connection.

This form of grief hits the nervous system in a unique way. Because the loss is unclear, the body doesn’t know how to orient. There’s no closure. No clean break. The system stays in a kind of emotional limbo - waiting, hoping, bracing.

You might notice:

• a heaviness in the chest

• waves of longing or nostalgia

• confusion or self-blame

• difficulty letting go

• feeling “ghosted” even without abandonment

• sadness that comes and goes

• wondering if you’re imagining things

• feeling lonely even when the person is near

Ambiguous grief is painful because the heart doesn’t have anywhere to place the feelings. You can’t fully mourn what’s lost because part of you is still attached to what remains. You can’t fully reconnect because something essential has shifted. You exist in the in-between, grieving a connection that has changed form.

And yet, this grief is valid.

It’s valid to grieve the emotional closeness you once shared.

It’s valid to grieve the version of the person you knew.

It’s valid to grieve the role they played in your life.

It’s valid to grieve the story you had to rewrite.

With time, ambiguous grief becomes a lesson in acceptance - not the kind that demands you move on, but the kind that gently teaches you where your heart can rest now. It shows you how to honour what was true while making space for what is.

Breathwork can help soften the confusion around this kind of grief, helping the body find its own way out of emotional limbo and back into presence.

If you’d like to explore that with support, you’re welcome to join me for a grief-tending breathwork session.

Explore Sessions