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

[goingupinfumes]

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 .

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.

Well said Grumpyrocker.

Grumpy rocker - I'm glad you found love and happiness again.

Thank you.

My oldest friend died 10 years ago after a long illness. She was married to a wonderful man and when she knew she was going to die she made him promise that he would remarry and have the family that she couldn't give him because of her illness.
He was with her to the end and was a perfect husband in every way.
He did remarry a couple of years after she died and they had a little boy and I cried and cried.
I was genuinely happy for him and always will be, but that should have been my friend's baby and happy life - that's why I cried.

LottieJ

You've added some more gorgeous photos to your your profile - they all make me smile. There is so much love shining out of them.
You were very young when your DH died and I think Willf looks like him. Bumble still looks like a real sweetie not at all devilish, but know that is deceiving!! You are right, your family comes as a package.
Wonder what Bumble will get up to in the snow today?

OP yes, now with time I'm closer than ever with my SD and happy that he's happy and has someone he loves, who incidentally had also lost her husband, so they both came to their new relationship with an understanding of what it was to lose the love of their lives. I never begrudged his happiness despite feeling so strange about things - I think that's what I meant by saying it's ok to have those feelings, you accept that they're there and deal with them accordingly in a way. Grief is such an odd beast sometimes. Even when it felt like she was being forgotten I could see that she wasn't, in fact the complete opposite - he was just so devastated that having her things around hurt. We actually found a letter in her little box of memories she kept to my SD telling him not to mourn (in other words) should she not be around, as if she knew something would happen and wanted him to know he should carry on and be happy.

Thankyou digerd The snow is not settling here yet. I omitted to mention that Bdog is part of our family. He has been quite naughty lately, having put his paw through a glass window in half term which was petrifying last week he leapt into two water and crap filled ditches with his extending lead on............I had to pull him out. He then went through the coat pockets of a little girl i look after sometimes and pulled out and shredded empty sweet packets and his favourite tissues! I think Wilf looks more like his lovely Dad too!

'Perhaps in some of the deepest dungeons of this world there is physical and emotional pain deeper, more savage and destructive than having your beloved torn from you the day after they make your dreams come true. I doubt it. I doubt there is any pain in this universe that I could feel that would ever be worse. I doubt I will ever be free of the echoes of that pain. It will be with me forever.'

Both my husband and I agree, we'd far rather have lost each other than watched out 8-year-old girl die slowly and painfully of cancer and expire in our arms. Her dreams will never come true. There's no 'finding new love' after her death.

But on you go. I agree with MI. Good for you, you 'fell in love' and blah blah blah, but when children are involved, children old enough to be aware of the loss, IMO, a parent owes it to them to put aside live-in relationships until that child at least gets some months of therapy to process it.

My opinion is that anything else is selfish on the part of the adult, male or female, but it does seem to be more often that men do this. And yes, I think it's weak and selfish of them if they have children who are still trying to even get used to the loss.

Flame away!

I have no interest in "flaming away".

Playing grief top-trumps is something that doesn't interest me in the least.

What a moving and well written posts by Grumpyrocker

Actually, I don't think years of therapy are necessary for everyone. Not only are some therapists both costly and useless, but people can process and deal with grief by themselves, children and adults. This isn't to say that needing help after bereavement is wrong, or weak, or any such thing, just that people are different and their circumstances are different. SLightly OT but I remember being annoyed with a well-intentioned friend who tried to persuade me to see a therapist after my father died: I was sad that he was gone but at the same time, able to accept the sadness and the fact of his death as just a natural part of life (he was 78 so it was a case of being within the natural and expected order of things.)

Grumpyrocker's DC, as stated in his post lost their mother when they were newborn babies; his finding a new partner couldn't possibly have affected them in a negative way. Some people who lost a parent in childhood and whose other parent remained single for years will say they would have preferred the surviving parent to find a new partner rather than be lonely and miserable - and clilng to the children for emotional support.

Expat, you explain things so eloquently.

Totally agree with expat.

SGB, children do need time. Why? Because depending on their ages, some of them are not as capable of understanding the permanence of death. My 7-year-old has 'done well'. But if you dig deeper, you'll soon see she now has a huge problem with any sort of illness at all, especially in herself, to the point of fault, because she equates falling ill with death. The 4-year-old, well, he was 3 when it all went down and at that age could not understand the permanence of death, so he harboured all these ideas that his sister could come back. It's taken a few months for him to realise that dead people do not come back.

Grumpy, I've no interest in playing anything, either, but since you brought it up, I shared the experience of losing a young child and the damage it's done to her surviving siblings and family. Huge. I can't imagine the loss of a parent is any less and can't imagine visiting a new partner on my kids, who were not newborns but young children, so soon after such a loss.

My opinion is that that is very unhealthy for everyone.

Sorry but I find your question incredibly offensive. How dare you question someone's reaction and emotions after their spouse has died. What in gods name has it got to do with you. You were merely a friend, they may have spoken about how she wanted him to move on, get on with life, make life as normal as possible for the kids. Grieve in a silent, dignified way and remember their life together but not let it stop his and the children's lives in their formative years. This may have been a conversation they had between them, probably not one they would have with friends, they probably didn't think their friends would be so horrid but to question how and when they moved on.

Grief is a strange thing and you have no right to question how someone else handles them self in the face of it.

'Grief is a strange thing and you have no right to question how someone else handles them self in the face of it.'

She's venting about it on here. She hasn't expressed anything to him .

There is no time limit on grief. And no one has any right to make anyone feel that there should be.

Everlong's experience is a perfect example of how not to do this. No reason at all why her father shouldn't have married again - but he'd betrayed his wife's trust and then his new wife failed to act in a caring way. That's the stuff of nightmares isn't it?

Contrast that with the situation others have found - where a new partner is found without a betrayal of the first spouse and children are cared for in a family unit as one family, no matter who gave birth to them.

And that's just it isn't it, ever longs experience show show it can be awful. But for others it works, there is no one size fits all for grief and provided it us handled sensitively it can be fine.

Much love to those on this thread who have lost a loved one xxx

Its a horribly emotive subject and there are many differing experiences but we can't always extrapolate from our own experiences and say it us definitely wrong, each person and each family is very different.

You would have no control though everlong-he might not do as you expect.

I have discussed with DH that if I were to die - I would totally want him to re-marry and for my children to have a woman in their lifes who could fulfil the 'mother' role.

But I would want it to be when it was best for the children and they'd had time to process their grief a bit.

But of course I wouldn't be here so wouldn't get to decide when.

"I would hope that he'd make sure our children were happy though."

The two things aren't necessarily in conflict though. It's just not that simple.

In my case (obviously approaching this as an adult not a child but I don't know how much difference it makes) while I was very upset that dad had met someone else and would rather not have anything to do with it, I would have also been upset if dad had remained deep in his grief. The new woman, even if I feel it's a bit soon, is helping him. I can't deny that.

So what is worse for a bereaved child (no matter their age)? A parent with a new partner? Or a parent deep in the depths of grief? As with pretty much all things it very much depends on the people involved and the rest of the situation. No one can say for certain which is the better situation.

All I can say is, before my dad met someone else, he kept talking about how he was looking forward to being with mum again. Hard as it is to see him with someone new, it was far harder to hear him talk like that. While my dad will never ever return to the man he used to be, at least now he's more like his old self. Maybe if he hadn't met the new woman he wouldn't be. And I'd have lost both mum and dad.