"He worries that I might die too": A thematic co-occurrence analysis of interdependence after partner/parental death

The death of a partner and parent creates profound upheaval for surviving families, reshaping everyday functioning and requiring renegotiation of roles and routines. This study examines how interdependence changes in surviving parent-emerging adult child dyads (ages 15-25) following partner/parental death. Open-ended responses from 45 parent-child dyads were analyzed using thematic co-occurrence analysis, guided by relational turbulence theory. Parents and children described interference and facilitation from one another, as well as partner influence explicitly linked to bereavement-driven role and routine reconfiguration (bereavement-evoked interference and facilitation). Co-occurrence findings revealed a ubiquitous facilitation pattern and an additional pattern shared across parents' interference from a child and children's interference from a parent. Findings clarify how bereavement reorganizes family interdependence and offer practical guidance for supporting surviving parent-child dyads as they renegotiate roles, routines, and coping following death.