Have any of you ever struggled with losing the connection you had with an ex partner’s child due to a break up? I recently experienced my first relationship with someone who had kids and that part has been really hard. I wasn’t their parent, but I had started to help take care of them and they were getting attached to me. I felt almost like a parent or a close relative. I felt like we were becoming family.

The relationship wasn’t a long one, so luckily the connections didn’t have time to run as deep as they could have, but this has still been one of the hardest parts of this breakup.

Is this common? And how do you deal with this kind of grief?