Grieving What’s Still Here: How to Cope with Ambiguous Loss

We often think of grief as something that follows death: a response to a clear, defined loss. But what happens when the loss isn’t clear? When someone you love is still physically here, yet profoundly changed? When a relationship fades but never truly ends? When life itself looks familiar but feels foreign?

This is what psychologist Pauline Boss termed “ambiguous loss.” It’s the kind of grief that defies resolution, because there’s no clear line between what’s gone and what remains. And yet, for many, it’s one of the most painful and confusing forms of loss there is.

What Is Ambiguous Loss?

Ambiguous loss is a term used to describe losses that lack clarity or closure. It occurs when someone or something important is psychologically absent but physically present or physically absent but psychologically present.

Examples include:

• A loved one with dementia, addiction, or mental illness who is still here but not the same.

• A missing person or a loved one who’s emotionally unavailable.

• Divorce or separation that leaves emotional ties intact.

• Infertility, miscarriage, or adoption disruptions.

• Chronic illness that changes who you are or what you can do.

• The loss of identity after retirement, caregiving, or major life transitions.

In all these situations, you’re continuing to live with uncertainty. You can’t grieve the way you would after a death, because the loss isn’t final and yet, you can’t go back to the way things were.

Why Ambiguous Loss Hurts So Deeply

Ambiguous loss is disorienting. Our brains crave closure with clear beginnings, middles, and ends. But ambiguous loss has no ending. The person may still be alive, the relationship may still exist, or the situation may still be ongoing.

This kind of “both/and” experience (both presence and absence) leaves people suspended in what Boss calls “frozen grief.” You may feel stuck, unable to fully mourn or fully move forward.

Common emotions include:

• Confusion (“Why can’t I move on?”)

• Guilt (“How can I grieve someone who’s still here?”)

• Anger (“This isn’t fair. I didn’t get a choice.”)

• Hopelessness or yearning

• A deep sense of disconnection from others who don’t understand

Examples of Ambiguous Loss in Everyday Life

You don’t have to experience a dramatic event to know ambiguous grief. In fact, many people experience it without realizing what it is.

• When a parent develops dementia, you may grieve the parent you once knew…the laughter, shared memories, and sense of safety that have faded.

• When you’re caring for a partner with chronic illness, you might grieve the life you used to share, even while you love them fiercely.

• When you go through infertility, you may grieve a future that existed only in your imagination.

• When you lose your sense of identity through job loss, disability, or major change, you might mourn the version of yourself you can no longer be.

Naming the experience doesn’t take away the pain, but it brings understanding and with understanding comes compassion.

How Ambiguous Loss Differs from Grief After a Death

Grief after a death has a socially recognized process: people gather, send sympathy cards, offer condolences, and mark the loss with rituals.

Ambiguous loss, on the other hand, is unrecognized and unsupported. There’s no funeral for a parent with Alzheimer’s, no ceremony for the loss of your independence, no Hallmark card for a missing sense of self.

This lack of validation can deepen feelings of isolation. You may question your feelings or minimize them (“It’s not like they died”) even though your emotional pain is very real.

Coping with Ambiguous Loss: 6 Paths Toward Healing

Healing from ambiguous loss isn’t about finding closure, but rather it’s about learning to live with uncertainty and still find meaning.

Here are six ways to begin that process:

1. Name the Loss

The first step toward healing is recognition. Ambiguous loss thrives in silence and confusion. Naming it helps you understand what’s happening and gives your emotions context.

You might say to yourself:

“I’m grieving the version of my partner that illness has taken away.”

“I’m mourning the future I hoped to have.”

“I miss my old self even though she’s still technically here.”

The way we talk to and about ourselves is important because words bring validation. 

2. Release the Need for Closure

Grief after a death often has a clearer narrative: loss, mourning, adjustment, acceptance. Ambiguous loss doesn’t follow that path. You may need to release the expectation that things will ever be resolved.

That doesn’t mean giving up hope. It means acknowledging that both love and loss can coexist. You can hold sadness and gratitude in the same breath. You can keep loving someone even as you grieve who they were.

3. Find Small Ways to Create Meaning

When life feels suspended, meaning-making can ground you. You might:

• Create a ritual to honor what’s been lost.

• Write a letter to the version of the person or life you miss.

• Light a candle or keep a photo nearby as a quiet acknowledgment.

• Engage in acts of service that reflect your values and bring purpose.

Rituals give the loss form, turning invisible grief into something more tangible.

4. Reconnect with Your Support System

Because ambiguous loss is often unseen, connection is vital. Talk to someone who can hold your story without trying to fix it. This may be a friend, therapist, or support group.

You might say, “I’m struggling with a kind of grief that doesn’t have an ending,” and let people in on what you’re carrying.

Even one person who understands can remind you that you’re not alone in the in-between.

5. Practice Self-Compassion

Ambiguous grief is emotionally exhausting. It can drain your energy and self-esteem. Treat yourself with the gentleness you’d offer someone else in your shoes.

That may look like:

• Allowing tears without judgment

• Resting without guilt

• Speaking to yourself with kindness (“I’m doing the best I can in an impossible situation”)

Remember: your feelings are a normal response to an abnormal kind of loss.

6. Hold Space for Both Hope and Reality

Ambiguous loss lives in tension between what is and what could be, between holding on and letting go. Healing means learning to tolerate that tension without demanding resolution.

You might still hope for moments of clarity, connection, or renewal and that’s okay. Hope doesn’t erase the grief; it gives it light to keep moving.

When the Loss Is of Yourself

Sometimes, ambiguous loss isn’t about another person…it’s about you.

People living with chronic illness, disability, or burnout often grieve who they once were: energetic, capable, carefree. They might feel disconnected from their own body or identity.

If that’s you, please know this: You haven’t disappeared. You are evolving…painfully, yes, but meaningfully. Grieving your old self is part of making space for who you’re becoming.

Allow yourself to mourn the life you had, while still nurturing what remains. Healing may look less like “getting back to normal” and more like finding new ways to live fully even within limits.

How Therapy Can Help

Working with a therapist can help you name and process ambiguous grief in ways that restore a sense of agency and meaning. In therapy, you might:

• Explore how uncertainty affects your emotions and relationships.

• Learn grounding skills for moments of overwhelm.

• Build tolerance for not knowing.

• Reconnect with purpose, even without closure.

At Still Waters Counseling, we often remind clients: you don’t have to “move on” from ambiguous loss. You only have to keep moving with it.

If you’re living with ambiguous loss, you’re not overreacting or broken.

You’re grieving what’s been changed, blurred, or left uncertain. And while the world may not recognize that loss, your heart feels it all the same.

Give yourself permission to name your grief, to honor what was, and to trust that meaning can still grow in the space between what’s gone and what remains.