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The author describes the effects of mourning on family relationships. Mourning is a normal reaction to loss, and its function is to restore the ability to love, which was impaired by the trauma of loss. In deviant, interminable mourning, the bereaved is unable to relinquish the lost object, and the capacity to love others is not restored. Under favorable circumstances, a bereaved family can shift the roles and relationships to compensate for the loss. Sharing of grief and pain can then lead to the strengthening of family ties. In cases of interminable, deviant mourning a split and a deterioration occur in the bereaved family. The author describes two families illustrating interminable mourning and split. In the first family the mother, after the death in war of her oldest son, became depressed, withdrew emotionally, and imposed a regime of permanent mourning in the home. Two of the children and the father resigned themselves to the situation and found substitute interests, but the youngest daughter rebelled and finally attempted suicide. Family counseling failed because of resistance but the threat of possible suicide by the daughter forced the mother to become reinvolved in the family. In the second family the father became seriously disturbed after the death of his teenage daughter. Family counseling was ineffective, but the patient was able to use supportive therapy to work through his feelings of loss, to overcome his reluctance to face ambivalence, and to recognize the split he had caused in the family. Interminable mourning splits off the mourner, who clings rigidly to the deceased, from the rest of the family. The mourner monopolizes the grief, and interferes with its expression by the other members of the family. The split, in the author's experiences, can be traced to previous latent tensions in the family. It is often difficult to work with a split family, and individual therapy with the mourner may be more effective.