Marriage & Parenting After Infant Loss | Episode 167 with Becky Banik

Episode 167

This week on the podcast I am honored to be talking with Becky Banik about her experience navigating marriage and parenting after the tragic loss of her son Joey. Becky shares candidly and honestly about the difficulties and challenges her marriage faced as well as what has helped in the year since they lost their son.

We talk about the most challenging aspect of navigating the marriage relationship after loss and the advice she would give you about how to navigate those challenges. We talk about the importance of acknowledging and recognizing that people change after loss and grief and so its important to get to know each other again, and what that practically looked like for Becky and her husband. Becky shares how she grieved differently than her husband and the ways they navigated those differences, how the 5 love languages played a vital role in learning to understand each other and meet each other's needs and really hear other. We also talk about the very important role that counseling played in saving their marriage. And if you love a grieving couple, sprinkled throughout this entire conversation are very, very helpful, practical ways to support a grieving couple.

And I love that Becky ends our conversation with this encouragement “it’s worth the fight.” Such hopeful wisdom from someone who has been there and is still fighting for it even today.

This conversation will remind you that you are not alone in the difficulty of grieving with your spouse or partner while also giving you incredibly practical and helpful wisdom and tools about how to grieve and grow together – I am sure it is going to bless you.

QUESTIONS we discuss IN EPISODE 167

What do you think is the most challenging aspect of navigating the marriage relationship after loss?
What advice would you give a grieving couple about how to navigate those challenges?
In what ways did you and your husband change after you lost Joey? You talked to me about how important it is to realize people are different after grief and that relearning who someone is/what the relationship looks like is hard work but essential. What did that look like in your relationship? What advice would you give other couples?
How did you grieve differently and how have you navigated those differences?
What are some practical things you did in your marriage to give space for each other to grieve?
Tell me how counseling transformed your marriage?
What would you tell friends & family about what it looks like to support a grieving couple (dads often get missed or overlooked)?
You had living children when your son Joey died, tell me what you have learned about parenting after loss? What wisdom would you give another grieving mom with living children?
You wrote this to me: “kids are resilient and it can be easy to overlook what grief looks like.” – What advice would you give about how to not overlook your living children’s grief?

MEET Becky

I am a wife to my wonderful husband of 4 1/2 years, Jacob, and mama to five beautiful children. Molly (14), Caroline (11) and Maddie (almost 4) live with us at home, their brother Joey is waiting for us in Heaven, and we are prayerfully awaiting the arrival of another little one in a few months. We live in northeastern Pennsylvania where my husband and I are both high school teachers. When I'm not teaching or making sure everyone gets where they need to be, I enjoy reading, crocheting and hope to get back into my past love of running after we welcome our newest little one.

In loving memory of Levi Michael Gonzalez

Our dearest Levi, June 23rd will be five years. Five years since we held you in our arms but couldn’t bring you home. Five years since you made us parents. You beautiful boy. You have changed our lives. Even though you’re not with us physically, spiritually you’ll be with us forever. You have changed so many lives with just your story. Even though you couldn’t be with us, we’re so glad you’re with Jesus. Forever we will love you always.

A special thank you to the Gonzalez family for sponsoring this episode. We celebrate Levi and we remember him with you.