“Why aren’t you over it?” asked my patient’s best friend. “It’s been a full year since you discovered your husband’s affair with his personal trainer. You’ve separated and filed for divorce. Move on!”

The expectation that one should find closure a year after suffering major losses is commonplace. Somehow, the notion exists that people grieving losses ranging from betrayal, divorce, breakup, emigration, racism and the death of parents and spouses should have wrapped up their sorrow in a tidy packet and moved on. Yet rarely does a grieving person feel better or “over it” that soon.

Losses and the grief that ensues are often trivialized by others, an experience the mental-health counselor Kenneth J. Doka calls “disenfranchised grief.” For example, women who are flooded with sorrow after suffering miscarriages frequently have their suffering dismissed by their obstetricians, who claim that miscarriages are par for the course.

Years ago, my gynecologist told me that he, too, was guilty of downplaying his patients’ miscarriages. That is until his wife had one and told him never to make light of these heart-wrenching events again. Miscarriages haunt pregnant parents who’ve miscarried throughout their successive pregnancies. Closure can be found only when future pregnancies are successful, but the earlier losses are never forgotten.

Immigrants are another group of people expected to “get over” homesickness for their homelands. They are silenced, even shamed as ungrateful if they express that sorrow to long-term residents of their new land. Some unkind people will tell immigrants who miss their countries of origin, “If you’re not happy here, go back.” But immigrants to the United States may still miss their birthplace while loving this country for the opportunities it has granted them. Rarely does anyone feel just one way about significant life changes, especially losses.

My husband, Phiroz, came from India 55 years ago to Ann Arbor, Michigan. Growing up in Bombay (Mumbai) was a joy for him. He dearly loved his parents and extended family and treasured his school and college years. But India lacked opportunities for educated young people, so he came here for graduate school.

Phiroz loves his life, family and friends here in the United States. He’s grateful to be a citizen. Yet he misses the special pleasures of his childhood, the tastes and aromas of his mother’s Persian-Indian cooking, extended family joint meals, cawing crows perched on banyan trees, violet skies and summer holidays with his grandparents at their country home.

Early theories about grief suggested that full recovery from significant losses was the optimal and attainable endpoint. Sigmund Freud’s formula for a healthy grief response promoted closure by detaching from the deceased person or other losses. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s five stages of grief — denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance — imply that one can successfully recover by journeying through her five stages step-by-step.

New ideas on coping with loss, however, especially the theories of the social scientist Pauline Boss, suggest that grieving is a nonsequential, ambivalently experienced, complex network of feelings. Full recovery is not the goal. Boss’s six guidelines include “making meaning out of loss, relinquishing one’s desire to control an uncontrollable situation, recreating identity after loss, becoming accustomed to ambivalent feelings, redefining one’s relationship with whatever or whomever they’ve lost, and finding new hope.”

It’s now five years since my patient divorced her unfaithful husband. She retired from her career and moved into a light-filled apartment that feels “cozy and comfy” to her. No longer do tears of anguish streak down her cheeks. She’s dating a kind, engaging new man who lost his wife five years ago. They take long walks together, travel, and enjoy chatting over coffee at her favorite local coffee house. He’s warm and gracious. And always willing to pause any conversation to address her anxieties about his trustworthiness. He understands that learning to trust again after the profound betrayal she suffered is a slow process.

Let’s embrace our loved ones and others with empathy and warmth. Judging how long people should take to “get over it” has no place in the realm of human understanding.

Patricia Steckler (pattisteckler@gmail.com) is a retired psychologist, who was in private practice for 40 years.