I’m a middle-aged widow. I don’t want your husband

[CousinBette]

…so you know, I could still be invited to the dinner parties and weekends away that I was invited to before the husband died… Instead, it’s just meeting the woman in the couple for coffee until we are all widows together in twenty years time.

AIBU?

The being left out I am sure is real. People are afraid of grief. My friend lost her baby and experienced so many friends vanishing . I experienced all kinds of different reactions when I was grieving my long term boyfriend in my twenties.

But I really am unconvinced by the sex explanation. I think that there are much more plausible ones. People just don't know how to be around grieving people and to some extent can never get it right as different people will want different things from friends anyway.

But I have never worried my husband will want to have sex with my single friends, he'd just rather stay home when I meet up with them (plus otherwise we need to pay a babysitter!). And when I was single and grieving in my twenties it never occurred to me to think women would see me as a threat.

@BionicBadger

I'm so sorry lovely.

I'm responding to the previous poster whose rather unpleasant mean-girls-in-the-playground-style response was "Even if you think they're your friends they aren't and aren't you stupid to think they'd like you", and posters being told to get their male friends elsewhere than becoming friends - permanently or otherwise - via their partner.

To get back to the subject in hand, if they stop meeting me then you're quite right, they weren't my true friends. But as this entire thread has shown, it's staggering how many people stop being your friend solely because of your single status, because you "change the dynamic" or "make things awkward" or they think you're after their partner, regardless of whether they enjoyed your company when you were part of a couple.

And I still don't see why someone wouldn't want to go out with a couple sometimes if they liked both of them, even if at other times they preferred to see them individually (one or both).

I believe it does happen for sure. But what's the answer? if someone wants to cheat they'll cheat. I dont think not having a dinner party is going to solve that issue. I mean, by that rationale, you could say banning your husband from ever leaving the house is the only answer because he'll meet single attractive women literally everywhere- at work, on his commute, in the supermarket, through his friends, his own friends wives, at hobbies/clubs etc etc

I think there is a mindset of not allowing the opportunity and hoping it won't happen if there isn't "temptation". The alternative is accepting a) your marriage isn't very good and b) your husband can't be trusted. Far easier to blame someone else than face up to all that.

For those saying "Ah, but it's not automatically the case that the husband is going to try it on that's the reason for you not being invited any more, it's just awkwardness/people not knowing how to act", there's a hell of a lot of posters on this thread saying that they were hit on by their friends' husbands as soon as they were single again. Not automatic perhaps, but certainly not unheard of either.

Put insecure marriages and untrustworthy husbands together and you can see why the single woman gets ousted, in case she's the unwitting catalyst.

@BionicBadger I'm sorry for your loss too

I think there is a mindset of not allowing the opportunity and hoping it won't happen if there isn't "temptation". The alternative is accepting a) your marriage isn't very good and b) your husband can't be trusted. Far easier to blame someone else than face up to all that

I think that’s the crux of the issue, tbh. It’s an extension of the “terrible other woman stole my husband” trope, blaming the woman instead of the man for the man’s actions and lack of loyalty.

Yeah exactly, I wouldn't be with someone who wouldn't be able to resist temptation if an opportunity arose.
I can't imagine only trusting someone on the basis that they are never around other women.
Trust is about them being able to be in any situation and trusting that they wouldn't even be close to doing anything.

But where's this assumption coming from that that is the issue here?

I certainly never felt that was the case when I was single.

And I don't care if my husband is around my single friends but equally he's not fussed about going out to see them , he'd prefer to stay home

I hear you OP. DH has dementia. Some friends have been really good. Others are now avoiding us like the plague. I even saw one couple see us in town and walk in the opposite direction. Couples can be very exclusive.

Maybe people make the "astonishing leap" because its easier to think there must be a reason than to accept the friends you've invested 20/30 years of friendship in don't want anying to do with you now you're alone and are perfectly happy to abandon you in your hour of need, for no reason better than you're no longer convenient for them?

I think people are also a bit in denial about their own role in this. It's comfortable and nice to be in a couple, and if you hung with other couples or as family groups, that's comfortable and nice too. Did you, before you were widowed, invite that single mum with three kids whose just been divorced? Did you have your friends over who don't have kids but love to be invited to the BBQ? Did you reach out to people who were grieving, perhaps lost a parent or had a miscarriage and make sure they were invited to everything? Did you know any widows or widowers and include them? If you did, then you will still have lots of single, divorced and widowed friends to hang out with. If actually you kind of hung with couples all the time, and those people weren't part of your friendship groups, however nice it was, then perhaps it's just a consequence of our society's pressure to couple up and be heteronormative (count your lesbian/gay friends as well)?

It is horrible when fear of death and grief drives people away from you, we are crap at talking about this stuff in our society, not all societies are like this (my Mexican friend says it's normal to chat about their dead relatives and ghosts over coffee!)

But- we all have to own that a little bit as well, and think through whether we have always been a great friend to single or widowed people in the past (like inviting them on holidays) and whether we also unwittingly didn't invite along people who didn't quite fit with the vibe or the coupled-up or close nuclear family nature of the crowd?

I know I could have done better, it can't just be everyone else is selfish and crap, we are just products of that culture and can make an effort from this point out.

There's a world of difference between not going out of your way to bring people into your group, and excluding someone who's been part of it, often for decades, when they're at their lowest point.

think people are also a bit in denial about their own role in this. It's comfortable and nice to be in a couple, and if you hung with other couples or as family groups, that's comfortable and nice too. Did you, before you were widowed, invite that single mum with three kids whose just been divorced? Did you have your friends over who don't have kids but love to be invited to the BBQ? Did you reach out to people who were grieving, perhaps lost a parent or had a miscarriage and make sure they were invited to everything? Did you know any widows or widowers and include them? If you did, then you will still have lots of single, divorced and widowed friends to hang out with. If actually you kind of hung with couples all the time, and those people weren't part of your friendship groups, however nice it was, then perhaps it's just a consequence of our society's pressure to couple up and be heteronormative (count your lesbian/gay friends as well)?

There’s a lot of truth in this @WayOutOfLine , some people describe being suddenly invisible, and I wonder if single women were invisible to them before?

My social circle is so mixed in every way and one childhood friend has been widowed but it didn’t affect her being able to participate in our events other than of course her own emotional grief, but I mean she wasn’t suddenly the only single one.

Absolutely- and that’s heartbreaking for people to treat you like that. It’s wrong.

But my point is- it’s not just the women causing this. Thats all. Anyone who treats you like that is a shit, regardless of gender.

This is a very good point. If you only socialised in couples enough to notice the exclusion when it came, then that begs the question why? Surely in any social circle there will be single people at times as people get divorced, they might like being single, they might be widowed etc so why weren’t single people invited for all those years in the first place?

If you participated in couples only events then weren’t you also excluding single people yourselves?

You make a really good point @WayOutOfLine but I think it’s still two sides of the same coin.

Society does still largely push being a couple as the ‘best’ way to live and when your face no longer fits you are ousted both for not following the norm but also for the reasons some PPs have said : that same pressure to be part of a couple makes some people insecure and not want to be around single people in case their relationship gets tested and emboldens others to try it on with single people.

Some of the PPs who are mocking others who have had the experience of being excluded because of being a threat to other relationships don’t get that it’s not that single women think they are irresistible sex machines, it’s that men presume any single women is so desperate to be validated by male attention and the whiff of being part of a couple again, they’ll be grateful for being hit on by a middle aged gobshite who thinks he’s gods gift.

Well they could ask couldn’t they, surely ? I was so hurt after I was widowed. The social invitations stopped and when I asked a friend why, she said ‘well you’re an attractive widow, work it out for yourself’. There had been conversations about the ‘changed dynamic’ of our friendship group and people I’d previously thought of as close friends, suddenly cut me loose from the support I’d needed at the worst time of my life. Nothing to do with being a third wheel - more self preservation because they didn’t trust either me or their husbands. It never ceases to amaze me how some intelligent womens’ reasoning leads them to think you can lose a life partner and immediately go after someone else’s’.

@WayOutOfLine So, so true. Well said

Another thing occurred to me on this thread; there seems to be an awful lot of people who have dinner parties. I can't remember the last time I went to anyone's 'dinner party.' (Or if I've even been to one.) I have been to peoples homes for a takeaway (4 to 8 people,) and do so maybe 3-4 times a year, but 'dinner parties?' Nope.

Do people actually have them in 2024??? I mean, I meet friends, colleagues, and acquaintances at the pub on a Friday night, or for a pub lunch or pub quiz, or a meal at a restaurant etc. But never dinner parties.

Also, as I said earlier in the thread, I have never known any newly single or divorced or widowed women be excluded from any group meet-ups. It's just never happened in my world. Even growing up, the widowed and single women were very much included in neighbourhood activities and parties and pub nights, and weddings etc...

Yet it clearly happens, because so many women on here have experienced it.

But- we all have to own that a little bit as well, and think through whether we have always been a great friend to single or widowed people in the past (like inviting them on holidays) and whether we also unwittingly didn't invite along people who didn't quite fit with the vibe or the coupled-up or close nuclear family nature of the crowd?

Excellent point! Can all of us honestly say that prior to being bereaved we made the effort to truly include single/divorced/bereaved people in our couples dinner parties?- or, did we just get comfy with it because at that point, it wasn’t affecting us?

I am not widowed, but I only meet friends singly now, as Dh has become a recluse and refuses to socialise in couples. In fact, he barely socialises at all since the pandemic and WFH.

I have numerous single and divorced friends. I enjoy socialising singly, but I also miss couples socialising. But I think people are just too busy or reclusive these days. The men especially have become very grumpy as they get older, or so all my friends tell me, and refuse to leave the house.

Another thing occurred to me on this thread; there seems to be an awful lot of people who have dinner parties. I can't remember the last time I went to anyone's 'dinner party.' (Or if I've even been to one.)

I thought it was just me. I keep feeling like I've been transported to 1970s Surrey.

I've had friends round for lunch. I've cooked a big chilli for people to dive into after going to see fireworks. I've cooked dinner for friends staying with me. But I've never held a dinner party in all my five decades of adulthood.

But it seems that the majority of people on this thread can only perceive socialising with other couples in the context of dinner parties. And heaven forbid having a widow cause there to be an odd number at one

Phew! Glad it's not just me!

'1970s Surrey.' Why am I picturing Margot and Jerry from The Good Life right now?! 😆

@cherrypieandcoffee

Gosh that is shockingly awful behaviour. I can totally understand uncomfortable that would have made you feel.

Totally agree with you; some people are just dicks.

I am sorry for your loss.

I think there’s something to this. I was pretty much left out of our old social circle when l lost my husband a few years ago. But when I voiced how hurt I was to a friend, her reply was to the effect that I was an attractive widow, so what did I expect. She confirmed that there was some concern among our women friends that I was now single and ‘available’ so they weren’t comfortable with me any more - I should point out that at the time I was coming up to 60, so hardly a juicy thirty something !!

But I think added to that is the fact that we have a closed mind attitude towards death in this country. We don’t discuss it. We plan for it reluctantly and then pack it away. We jog along like we’re going to live for ever, until someone in our close circle is bereaved, and all that does is provide a stark reminder that no-one gets out of here alive and if you’re in a relationship you have a 50/50 chance of being the one left alone to grieve.

I have absolutely no idea why others would think that because you’ve lost your life partner, you would immediately be on the look out for another - let alone someone elses’. Your whole world falls apart when you lose your partner - you don’t just lose the person, your life becomes something totally different overnight. I suppose it’s not something that can be explained to others. You have to experience it yourself to know how things really are.