to contact my first love's widow

[KitsilanoBeach]

I had my first proper boyfriend/first kiss/first love when I was 14/15. I’m fairly sure I was his first girlfriend and first kiss too.

It only lasted a few months but I was besotted and we used to write each other love letters (no emails/texting back then, and we went to different schools in the same town but lived quite far from each other).

He then dumped me - I don’t think I ever knew why, he was a nice guy and not a player - and broke my heart. Our paths didn’t really cross again, although he did send me a letter when I was about 17 apologising for what happened (a friend of mine had bumped into him and told him “Kitsilano hates you!” which wasn’t true, but anyway – teens, eh?).

I have from time to time wondered what happened to him and had idly googled him but without any success – he has a reasonably common name. It was only recently that I thought to google him and the name of the small village he grew up in and I immediately came across an obituary for him, reporting that he had died in 2019 after a long battle with cancer. He was quite successful in his chosen career so there were a couple of obituaries in national publications, and in addition his wife (now widow) is a professional writer who has written at length about his illness and her subsequent bereavement.

Even though I hadn’t seen or heard from him in decades I have felt quite affected by his death, both because of what he meant to me for a brief time but also I suppose because it is always hard to think about people dying so young.

I am tempted to reach out to his widow to offer my condolences, but I just can’t work out if this would be inappropriate and not welcomed by her. Both because it is now a number of years since he died, but also because she may not want to hear from an ex-girlfriend, even though it was just a teen romance from many years before they met.

I also suspect that she will have been contacted by many other people who have been bereaved/widowed young and who could relate to what she has written and wanted to share their own experiences with her, and perhaps it is all a bit much for her. She may also now be in a different place (although from her more recent writing online I do not get the impression she has found anyone else, although she may just have chosen not to write about it).

But on the other hand, she might like to hear from someone else who has fond memories of her late husband and at the end of the day we both loved him, (albeit I'm not of course comparing my relationship with hers).

I don’t think there is a right answer but am really torn, and would welcome views particularly from anyone who has suffered a similar bereavement if you feel able to share them.

YABU – do not contact the widow, leave her be
YANBU – it’s fine to contact the widow to offer condolences

Clearly you have some unresolved emotions and also are probably grieving in your own way - one because of the loss of that relationship and "what might have been" and also on hearing about his death. Your feelings matter and you are trying to process them but I agree with the previous poster - write all your feelings down in a letter to him. But don't send it. Do something that feels like you're releasing those emotions - either burning the letter or throwing it away. You're allowed to feel these things. But I feel that contacting the widow would not give you what you most need - which is a sense of connection to him that is now lost. There is a big risk she would not welcome hearing from you and that would make you feel worse. I think it about recognising that it's time to let these feelings go now and move on. Wishing you all the best.

I had a similar relationship at the same age. 10 years later I bumped into him on a night out. I was with DP ( now DH) and some friends, a couple of whom also remembered him from school. After a drunken chat, we met for a drink a week or so later to talk about old times (DP was aware) and that was that.

Fast forward another 10 years and he contacts me via Friends Reunited. I was married by then and he was single. We exchanged emails intermittently over the next few years, during which I had my first child, and it eventually fizzled out.

I have thought of him from time to time and googled and looked him up on facebook a few years ago . He's very senior in his chosen career and often features in the media relating to his profession (I still check back occasionally to see what he's up to). He's married to a much younger, glamorous wife, has a young family (mine are practically adults now) and is clearly very well off.

I have never even been tempted to friend request him as it's been too many years since we were last in touch if, heaven forbid, I read he'd died there is NO WAY I would contact his wife as I'm sure she'd find it weird and possibly disturbing (I would). Hope that helps!

How weird ….No. Stay away.

This x1000.

I really don’t see any issue with contacting her to offer condolences. You don’t have to say that you were boyfriend/girlfriend however even if you did I can’t say that I would be concerned about a teenage romance that my oh had. It’s in the past for a reason 🤷🏼‍♀️

You could send her a letter to say that you are a friend from school days from the town where he lived, that you hadn’t seen each for many many years, that you are sad to hear that he passed away, you have very fond memories of the lovely person that he was, you are very, very sorry for her loss.

I don’t think it will make her grief any worse as she knows what a lovely person he was. It can be lovely to hear from people who knew our family before we did. I really can’t imagine that she would feel that you are contacting her with any “claim” over grief for him.

I think it would be fine to make a tentative approach to her. She may not respond, or alternatively, she may be delighted to hear more of her husband's early life. You take the cue from raction, if she replies. Really surprised by the response to your poll. I do not agree with the majority, as usual.

I'm honestly weirded out with the responses to this thread. OP had a very brief teenage 'relationship', they didn't even go to the same school and didn't stay in contact. People saying contact the widow are nuts! Contact her why? To say that two 14 year olds were 'in love' and she's been thinking about him over the years and looked him up on the internet. If I were the widow, I would think a person still so hung up on a five minute relationship from when they were a kid approaching me to talk about my dead husband, was in need of some help, or going through some kind of breakdown. I could half understand if it was the first person the OP slept with and the relationship had gone on for a while, but even then it's still strange to approach the widow.

OP, you need to examine why you are still hung up on this very short, immature relationship from so many years ago. What were you looking for if he had been alive? To contact him? A relationship? An affair? What is your objective in contacting the woman he loved and spent his life with? It's going to make no difference to her grief process. Anyone who was important to him from his childhood/teen years would most likely still have been in his life or at least as a social media contact. Just leave this alone and work on why, as a grown woman, you are still so hung up on a boy and the 14 year old version of yourself.

No don't!

I’m so surprised to see all the “absolutely nots”
If the same thing happened to me I would love to hear from his first love sharing childhood experiences and would be really touched you’d taken the time to write.
Im genuinely shocked everyone is so against it. Do what you feel is best. I would be very surprised if your letter upset her.

The posters on this thread who've lost their husbands seem to largely disagree.

I don’t think I’d contact her tbh. I had a first relationship (15-22), with my ex, who decided to be a massive knob, and broke up with me after pretty much ghosting me for 2 months. Turns out he was cheating beforehand (they’re still together now with a secondary school age child) and saying he was busy with a new job etc. Afterwards, I didn’t hear a word from any of his family, even though we’d been quite close before.
This is obviously a different scenario to yours, but I found out not long ago that his mum passed away. I was a bit sad, but never gave any thought to contacting him 20 years after we last spoke. I’m married with kids now, happy with how my life has gone, and I wouldn’t have my family if I was still with him.
I think, a donation in his name would be better than a letter out of the blue, unless you are able to make a letter not about you and your first love - more we were friends as kids, and I’ve just heard about your loss.

To all of you saying 'yes, do it' , how would you feel if you caused distress to the widow? Would you think, 'oh well' , or what? Because you can't rectify that, can you?

Do not contact her

Of course you can contact her. You’re thinking to much about it , write a card ,say exactly what you want to say. It will give you closure too. You are not being malicious, you are bing thoughtful. You were never a threat to her . I’m so surprised at some of the responses on here.

Don't do it. What would you ever have to say that would be for her benefit. In fact I would think you a bit unhinged writing about your teenage romance decades later. She might even question what your motive is for doing this and her late dh as well. Just don't.

His death isn't about op though.

Why write to a complete stranger, who is the one who actually suffered a loss, to trauma dump about your feelings about a boyfriend of a couple of months from decades ago?

Op doesn't need closure, he wasn't a part of her life.

You could write her a letter and say that you were a childhood friend And that you give your condolences you could even share time where you did something fun
Or you could write him a letter and read it out loud I am a believer in the afterlife and he will hear your letter If you want him to.

YABU and it sounds a bit stalkerish. Leave the poor woman in peace. You say it was ‘decades ago’ and you were 14/15, he wasn’t the love of your life. It was just a few snogs that you look back on fondly. Have you ever found true love?

Did you really have to make a comparison like that?

I lost my partner 4 years ago. I would have loved to hear from you and heard about him in high school.
However, try not to make it about you I don't think a 4 mth high school romance equals your statement " we both loved him".
Send flowers, explain you knew him in high school and only just found out he was gone, share some suitable anecdotes.
Some many opinions on here saying no, from people who haven't experienced losing their partner. Everyone thinks you should pussyfoot around death and not talk about it. I disagree, we should be far more open.
Especially a few years on when she probably feels that everyone has forgotten him and he is never talked about anymore.

Sorry, it was a bit crass. But I was hoping to get across the idea that the OPs feelings in this are not in anyway comparative to that of the widow who did have more than a brief fling and did know him in his adult life. I can understand paying respects but contacting the widow is far too much and you'd have to be very self important to even consider risking upsetting her over your own feelings.

@AllThreeWays my DH of over 40 years died early this year. I had 2 previous girlfriends of his 'reminiscing' on social media. I found it very distressing. I didn't want that shoved in my face. You might be happy with contact from former lovers, but I wasn't . The point is just that, when in doubt, don't.

Seriously? The grief never goes away, it just fluctuates. It can be awful some days, even years later. Even now, if I was contacted by someone like the OP, I'll be asking our friends who the hell it is and think her a bit cray cray anyway.
As other pp have said, it's about the OP getting closure, so write a letter but don't send it.

Good God, please don't! This feels wrong on so many levels. My first thoughts on reading your post were that it was really all about you with little thought for the feelings of his grieving widow.
Hold on to your dignity & find another way to deal with it please!