Hilarie Burton says she ‘took on so much guilt’ after suffering miscarriage with husband Jeffrey Dean Morgan
Hilarie Burton says she ‘took on so much guilt’ after suffering a miscarriage with her now-husband Jeffrey Dean Morgan nine years back.
The One Tree Hill actress, 37, told People Tuesday about the internal struggle she faced in the wake of the miscarriage, which she suffered in late 2011, about 18 months after they welcomed son Gus in March of 2010.
‘When you get blindsided by your body, that betrayal of your body is very hard to overcome,’ said Burton, who is also mother to two-year-old daughter George Victoria with The Walking Dead star, 53.
The latest: Hilarie Burton, 37, says she ‘took on so much guilt’ after suffering a miscarriage with her now-husband Jeffrey Dean Morgan nine years back
Burton said while she didn’t think she had PTSD following the tragic life event, other people told her she did.’
The Council of Dads actress said that the situation left her on guard whenever the slightest symptoms arose.
‘There’s this thing that happens to your body after a miscarriage,’ she said. ‘Every single ache and every single pain, all of a sudden you’re scared it’s a death. It’s got to be the worst-case scenario.
‘And I didn’t realize I had that, but every time I would have a cramp, I was scared it was something serious.’
Glam: The One Tree Hill actress and the actor, 54, were snapped last September in LA
Overcoming adversity: Burton said that her relationship with Morgan was tested during the troubled time
Burton speaks in detail on the topic in her new book The Rural Diaries, saying that she’d ‘been the worst version of’ herself in the wake of the incident, which led to issues with Morgan.
She wrote that at the time, ‘there was no romance’ in the relationship, as ‘the whole thing had become a science experiment’ which ‘came undone’ amid the difficult time.
‘He’d feel used and wouldn’t respond to me,’ Burton said, ‘and then I’d feel hurt and rejected. It was a vicious, unhappy cycle.’
Burton said of the relationship, ‘The things I needed to hear, he didn’t know how to say; and the things he needed me to be, I couldn’t be. I was just a vessel and I was empty. Any energy I did have was going to Gus. I had nothing left for Jeff.’
Stunning: The Council of Dads star was snapped in NYC last November
Fashionista: Burton was snapped in LA in a pink floral dress
Burton said that Morgan remained upbeat they would welcome another baby, telling her, ‘We’re going to get pregnant again. It’ll be fine.’ (The couple would go on to welcome George Virginia February 16, 2018.)
Burton said that she and Morgan – who wed last autumn after a decade as a couple – dealt with another pair of miscarriages, but made adjustments in their communication that went a huge way toward healing.
‘By the time the next couple miscarriages came around, Jeffrey and I figured out how to talk to each other,’ Burton says. ‘Until you go through trauma with someone, you don’t know what their language is and they don’t know what your language is.
‘It is painful to say that by the time we had our third miscarriage, we had figured out how to communicate and help each other and how to process together. If that’s the silver lining, you have to find those whenever you can.’
The Rural Diaries is available now; Burton and Morgan can be seen on Friday Night In With the Morgans, each Friday at 10/9c on AMC.