Influencers Matt and Abby Howard found their marriage shifted after they suffered a pregnancy loss.
“I think we’ve had relatively good lives and two or three years ago I remember having this conversation with you about, like, ‘Wow, things have gotten so good,’” Matt told Abby, both 27, on a Wednesday, December 17, episode of their “Unplanned” podcast, playing an “Agree or Disagree” game about various statements. “It was, like, ‘What could possibly go wrong?’ I feel like this was the thing [that was] for us.”
He added, “It really changed my perspective, like, it really is so sad how … awful this world can be. It’s so hard to work though that with your spouse, but we’re getting through it and things are looking up.”
The social media stars announced in September that they lost their third baby weeks after confirming Abby’s pregnancy. (Matt and Abby also share sons Griffin, 3, and August, 2.)
While addressing the miscarriage on Wednesday’s episode, Matt posited that their marriage has “changed for the better.”
“It’s what John Delony says. He says, ‘When things like this happen, you’re kind of building a brand-new marriage,’” Abby replied, referring to the radio personality. “It’s, like, that marriage is gone and this is a new marriage we’re building together. I really do feel that way in regards to us in this marriage because of the way that [we faced an] immense grief.”
According to Abby, no one besides Matt can relate to her level of sadness since they were the “only ones that got to experience” their late baby girl.
“It was very isolated to us is what it felt like,” Abby added. “That was a very bonding experience. Miscarriage is unique in the sense, too, [and] it can be very damaging to marriage because one person’s ready to ‘move on’ before the other person is. We just had to grow so much in the our emotional intelligence of our own selves that also has grown our emotional intelligence of one another.”
Abby and Matt have also since worked on their communication skills and boundaries.
“I’m proud of us because we have both started going to therapy frequently,” Matt said. “We’ve both been going to marriage therapy, and I think our communication has taken a leap.”
As Matt and Abby navigated their grief, they adopted a puppy with their sons.
“We talked about [getting a dog] for four years before actually pulling the trigger, but it was, like, ‘Yeah, we just went through a pretty effed-up thing, let’s get a puppy [and] this will make us happier,’” Matt said, agreeing with the notion that they “trauma-bought” a pet. “It kind of worked.”
Abby concurred with her husband, speculating that they wouldn’t have dog Pretzel “if [she] hadn’t had a miscarriage.”
“It changed the timeline of our life,” she said. “She absolutely was not a replacement, but it changed the timeline of when we were going to get a dog because of all these different factors that were no longer a factor in our life.”
