Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think my friends DH has moved on since her death a bit quickly?

228 replies

goingupinfumes · 22/03/2013 13:03

My very good friend died suddenly 5 months ago and has left behind two very young DD and her hubbie, he's already formed a new close relationship - I feel a bit like "it's none of my business" but at the same time I feel a bit Hmm.

I would never ever say anything but I wondered if anyone who has been in this awful situation could help me to feel a bit more balanced and calm about what I feel is disrespectful to my lovely lost friend.

OP posts:
Booyhoo · 22/03/2013 17:26

why is it ridiculous for me to use my knowledge of my own family to suggest that it isn't always wrong (as stated above by someone else) for someone to date again after 5 months?

HollyBerryBush · 22/03/2013 17:27

expat that's a bit of a dis-service to both step mothers and adoptive mothers who provide an incredible range of maternal feelings, skills and love non-blood children as though they were their own.

motherinferior · 22/03/2013 17:27

Hmm, well, my Indian grandmother killed herself when she had very small children and a baby; those children too were farmed out to relatives and then gained a new stepmother. It was not, shall we say, win-win.

Booyhoo · 22/03/2013 17:28

no-one should MI. but people do all sorts of things for people they care about when they are going through an awful situation. people come to all different kinds of arrangements. it isn't like he would grab a woman off the street and tell her she was now a mother until hsi children were grown.

motherinferior · 22/03/2013 17:28

Adoptive mothers choose to be mothers. Step parents - and I know some fabulous ones - take on the partner, and along with the partner the children, and that can go very well or it can go very badly and most likely it will be mixed. Importing a replacement parent is not quite the same.

auntmargaret · 22/03/2013 17:29

Because a hypothetical death and reaction is very different from the real thing? Because unless you've been in the situation, with bereaved children, you don't actually know what that's like?

AThingInYourLife · 22/03/2013 17:30

"I'm saying Dsis and i would most likely have been far happier if he had in that situation."

Only if the new model was nice to you.

Which is very far from a certainty in the kind of woman who is happy to be so obviously used.

expatinscotland · 22/03/2013 17:30

Exactly, MI.

motherinferior · 22/03/2013 17:30

HBB, you do know the welfare state was set up in 1945, don't you? I was born in 1963. Just saying.

HollyBerryBush · 22/03/2013 17:32

mother it didn't have the depth it has now

Society would not have looked kindly on an able bodied man voluntarily giving up a service position - it simply didn't work like that in the 60's

motherinferior · 22/03/2013 17:33

Look, I haven't been through a bereavement of that nature. I have seen a lovely friend of mine, who was widowed while she was pregnant go through hell and then marry again (actually to a relative of her DH) and I was very very happy for her. But I still think five months is cutting it bloody fine.

Booyhoo · 22/03/2013 17:33

ok so no, experience, no opinion? that's what you're saying? jsut so we all know for future threads.

motherinferior · 22/03/2013 17:34

I have to say as well that if a bloke asked me out and I realised his wife had only died five months before I would run like the wind.

Booyhoo · 22/03/2013 17:35

and can we have a time period for which we wont be judged should we move on after bereavemnet please. 5 months too soon- 6 months ok?

Tailtwister · 22/03/2013 17:36

I've often wondered about the new partners in these situations. My DF's next door neighbour lost his wife just months after his second child was born. She was diagnosed with cancer soon after the birth and it was a hugely traumatic time for the whole family. He hired a nanny after she died and ended up in a relationship with her for a while. They attended a few dinner parties together and Dad said the majority of women were openly hostile towards her. They ended up splitting and although he's had a series of relationships since, none have really stuck.

porridgewithblueberries · 22/03/2013 17:39

It's difficult to answer.

My mum died when my brother and I were teenagers. Her death was at the end of April (funeral on May 1) and by July, my dad had met and was half-living with another woman. By the time I had left to go to university he was living with her full time.

My step-mother was a very cold woman and disliked my brother and myself intensely. I barely saw my dad during that time.

He left five years ago now - in that time he's had two other relationships, both of which crossed over. He's never been single. Part of me pities him, another part feels frustrated and upset that I lost my dad when I had lost my mum as well.

My dad loved my mum, and he loves me, and yet it's love that in all honesty means very little, if it wasn't strong enough to speak up for a lonely teenage girl who desperately wanted a supportive parent then it's a pretty useless love. I do love my dad and pity him as I said, but I have to admit I do think it borders on lacking respect to the deceased party.

AThingInYourLife · 22/03/2013 17:39

I know, me too, mother.

"Hello, my last wife just packed it in. I'm looking out for a new one. You are nearby and desperate. How would you like a couple of children? It's a bargain - they're pre-gestated."

NorthernLurker · 22/03/2013 17:42

I've known this situation to happen a couple of times. In no case was it because of a lack of love the dead women. I think a supportive, caring new partner is a positive thing to have in grieving children's lives tbh. That's not to say everybody gets it right and I do think that for some men it is weakness that leads them down this path but who among us can boast of unlimited strentth in the face of whatever horror life throws our way? Aren't we all weak in some way or other?
I don't think the grieving have to comply with an external timescale either. People who say 'too soon' need to learn to mind their own business.

motherinferior · 22/03/2013 17:42

Is this the right time to say last night I dreamed I went to Manderley again? Grin

Booyhoo · 22/03/2013 17:46

i agree NL

Xmasbaby11 · 22/03/2013 17:47

YANBU to feel that way. I imagine a person would need a couple of years to really be in a place where they are ready for a serious relationship. However, I haven't been in this situation and anecdotally, men do move on more quickly. It is a good thing if he (and DC) is happy, but difficult for others to accept. My uncle was widowed in his early forties and never met anyone else, which is very sad.

leniwhite · 22/03/2013 17:49

My mum died when I was in the middle of university and my stepdad started throwing her clothes out a week later. He's very pragmatic and not one to stew about things, the opposite to me really.

He met a new lady about 6 months after her death and they are still together 8 years later. I felt as if nobody understood because although he was married to my mum for 13 years, I was her only child. Many of her close friends were so upset at her loss that they refused to see me because they found it too painful, and I ended up feeling like nobody was there for me at all. I was diagnosed with the same condition she was killed by 7 months after she died and I really wanted to lean on my memories and anything comforting, but it was all gone, including some things to her SC, which I'll admit made me very upset at the time.

Of course I understand his right to deal with his grief in his own way and his total right to be happy, but I don't think I was wrong to feel badly about it at the time because I just wasn't equipped/supported emotionally to deal with how she seemed so suddenly erased. It doesn't really matter if people think it's U or not - it's how you feel and as long as you accept that you'll be able to also deal with your grief eventually. You said you'd never comment about his moving on so it's not as if you're trying to make him feel bad, but it's absolutely ok to express your emotions away from him and even to cry when you get news like his relationship. I'm pretty sure he would have anticipated that it would be a shock for you. As Auntmargaret said her DC will look to you as a link to her - those memories will really matter - so make sure you keep your relationship with them. I have so many unanswered questions about my mum even now and you'll find a lot of comfort in talking to them about your friend in times to come.

I really wish you the best and so sorry for your loss ??

Xmasbaby11 · 22/03/2013 17:49

I have seen this happen with friend's fathers, and it is actually very hurtful and difficult for their grown up children.

Xmasbaby11 · 22/03/2013 17:50

Friends' fathers

Dozer · 22/03/2013 17:51

Am in the "it's way too soon for the DC to meet their parent's new gf / bf" camp. A matter of months is not enough for bereaved DC, including teens, to have to deal with a parent's new gf/bf IMO.

Also think it'd be v hard to be a single parent, maybe working, and have time/energy for a new relationship and DC.

It's obviously important whether the new person is good to the DC, and this might be hard to work out while in the "honeymoon" phase of a new relationship, and without introducing them to the DC.

Have recently discussed this with DH, he has direct experience from the DCs' point of view from his teens. We (it's easy hypothetically!) felt it would be disrespectful to the deceased one and unfair to our bereaved DC for the one who was left to "move on" too soon, but whenever a relationship and introduction to the DC did happen, if the person wasn't good to the DC then the DC should come first. If am being honest though I think my DH would be more likely than me to find someone quickly.

My grandmother was widowed suddenly in the 1950s, she was young and had two DC aged 4 and 18 months, no compensation, life insurance, welfare etc, she felt her only real option was marry again quickly, unfortunately she married a horrible, physically and emotionally abusive (to her and the DC) person Sad