I married my late best friend's husband It wasn't planned or expected, AMA

[Elenarodriguez]

I know the title probably sounds wild, so I'll try to explain

My husband and I have actually known each other since high school. He was married to my best friend, who was also my childhood friend. The three of us had known each other for years, and she and I were incredibly close. Our families were close too, and I was basically an aunt to her kids

I got divorced about 10 years ago and have two kids. My husband had three kids with my best friend.

About six years ago, she passed away after a long illness. During the last part of her illness, I spent a lot of time with her and helping take care of the kids. After she passed, I stayed very close to her children and continued being there for them, just like I always had been

A few years later, my husband and I started developing feelings for each other. It wasn't something we planned or expected, and honest it was incredibly complicated emotionally........We dated for a few years before eventually deciding to get married

We've now been married for a while, and surprisingly, it's actually a really good marriage. Our kids are part of our family, and we've tried to handle everything with as much love and respect as possible

I still miss my best friend. I don't think marrying her husband somehow replaces her or changes what she meant to me. She will always be part of my life and the history of our family

I know some people will think what we did was wrong, while others may understand it

So... AMA

Married within 2 years of your friend’s death after dating ‘for a while’ suggests you got together very soon after her death which seems pretty distasteful - I guess her children weren’t his priority which is sad.

Talking about a time limit is one thing, phrasing it like "how long does it take a body to cool down" is another.
Speaking about a dead loved one in those terms is, imv, crude and thoughtless.

By the way nobody from Team Outraged has come on to tell the rest of us what the acceptable time frame is for "shagging your bestie's husband" as someone else put it.

Can you help? Not that I'm in the market. Just curious.

I dont belong to 'Team Outraged', so sorry I cant help.

I'm sorry you lost your friend
That must've been so tough.
I think every situation is different. Perhaps it was just meant to be ...

OP the wonderful thing about your thread is that you need give not one moment of thought to the ghastly opinions of the deluded. I would suggest people making the disgraceful comments, have never been in the position of being widowed.

I was unexpectedly widowed and am now in wonderful relationship, anybody who thinks I formed this new relationship too soon can naff off and I certainly did not seek anybodies permission.

I would like to know who exactly decreed that 6 months was too soon for you to have a relationship with your best friends widower. It is absolutely up to the two people involved and nobody else. Anticipatory grief can occur months or years ahead of a person actually dying.

I wish you all the very best in the life you never expected.

Hear hear

Totally agree. Whilst of course on the one hand I'd want my DH to grieve me/miss me if I died, I also wouldn't want him to be paralysed with grief forever and if someone could ease the pain and help him move forwards without me I absolutely would want that....and there is no set timescale for these things.

I am a widow. Losing a spouse is a profound loss and people cope in different ways. For some that means entering a new relationship, or having sexual encounters very quickly after the loss, for others this isn’t the right path. I belong to a few widow’s support groups and this story is far from unusual, and there are many other stories that others would likely deem unacceptable.

You have done nothing wrong OP and I wish you every happiness.

There is no time that would be perfectly acceptable IMO. I wouldn’t touch my best friend’s husband with a barge pole, whether she was dead or alive. I would haunt her if she started shagging mine after my death.

However, it’s a spectrum. You start shagging your dead friend’s husband an hour after her death? Obviously treacherous. You start shagging them 10 years later after bumping into them in the pub? Less of a problem. Still “weird” tho.

Do you think there is any amount of time that would be unacceptable?

6 months, crikey you two didn’t hang about!

my best friend just died, I cannot imaging sleeping with her husband in 6 months. That is just distasteful. Their family were grieving. Your job was to help support them in their grief, not jump into his bed.

this kids will see the timeline as they get older and even if they don’t say anything to you they will know about it!

What's wrong with big boobs, cardigans, and thin lips?

No, I haven't been widowed, but if I knew when I died my husband was going to go straight from grieving me with my best friend's intensive support to banging her, within 6 months, I'd be devastated. It feels disrespectful, and would make me think he'd always wanted to bang her, or vice versa, and that he didn't love me that much as my role was so easily filled by someone else, so quickly.

Personally, when my husband dies (and he almost certainly will die before me as he's 9 years older), I won't want to date again – there's no one else who will fit me as perfectly as him after 20 years together, and even if I tried, it wouldn't be fair to compare someone else to him constantly and have them fall short.

That aside, people say that when a relationship ends (especially painfully), it's important not to jump straight into another relationship before you've had a chance to process your emotions and regain your equilibrium. That's even more true with a loss, I think, and in this particular case there's no way the husband processed his feelings before throwing himself into shagging OP.

It seems dreadfully entangled and codependent, and I wonder if in future years, he'll have regrets.

Exactly this. Just because the widow has entered in to another relationship quickly doesn't mean he's over his wife (if ever). It's just a way of coping/gaining comfort to help ease the grief which can take years. Everyone deals differently with loss.

People on this thread are incredibly judgemental

If i die, i want my husband and young kids to live happy lives and even better if it’s with a woman i trust to look after my kids and love them as much as i do.

WHERE did I say they are WRONG ?

You used the description in a clearly derogatory way. Don't try to insult everyone's intelligence by pretending you didn't.

Oh well, yes you're right, I did. But I stand by it because I think so many people are unfairly judging OP.

This is really common. My dad used to be a priest and said often that the dying partner tacitly maybe even sometimes explicitly gave permission for the person to marry their friend.

I think that is such a beautiful story w

Widows fire is a thing. People want physical comfort. There is a huge difference between saying goodbye to someone for 3 years and unexpectedly and there is no right or wrong time frame for someone to grieve or move on. The grieving person will always grieve, it doesn’t stop with a new partner.
Ot is entirely for the people involved to decide what time frame is right for them and not randoms.
different cultures move people on instantly for social support.

Exactly it can make you realise how short life is and death ends your marriage. It's about the happiness of the living. I am glad Op and the husband found happiness

Your timings are all over the place. In your op you said a few years after her death you developed feelings and then married a few years later. You said you’ve been married 4 years and she died 6 years ago. Now you’re saying you were sleeping together 6 months after her death. None of this matches up at all.

I think if the OP had told the truth in her first post, some replies would be different.
I mentioned earlier that a friend of mine died, and her husband did marry his late wife's best friend, albeit it was a few years later.

But grief can bring people together. The OP said there were no romantic feelings between them when his wife was alive, and I believe her.

When you post an AMA, putting yourself out there to be questioned, you're pretty much asking for judgement.

(Especially with OP's fudging on the timeline. In the OP she said it took a few years to develop feelings for each other, before they began dating, making it seem like it was 2 or 3 years later...and then in a later comment she changed it to them shagging within 6 months and being official by a year? Bizarre, and changes the whole context. I half expect her next post to reveal they were actually having an affair while her BF was alive.)

I'm not sure why people giving their opinion on a subject OP brought up requires the use of a rather misogynistic stereotype, either. You could be judgemental of people's judgement without that.