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?

For me it hit home when I had a big birthday coming up. Started to plan a party.... 2 friends told me separately I should make it just the girls.
I was so hurt.
All the ladies on here saying it's in our heads - invite your single friend to a meal with both of you - watch her face light up and then come back and apologise for not believing what we're saying.

Not in the new Beyonce version!

Widow here.I have 3 dcs with SEN.I am a social leper!Sadly this is the way of many couples that I mixed with when dh was living.

Dh passed away two years ago and our "friends" do the occasional message "how are you?" but its glib and superficial. My reply is always left unread but hey they went through the motions!

You wanted all of your friends' husbands, to the point where you had to avoid them all?

I remember those looks and that treatment 30 plus years ago as an attractive single female returning from 8 years in London to my home village. It was awful. I wasn't after their boyfriends/husbands, just the usual exchanges at the bar waiting to be served. Doesn't make me the better person I know but when I see those miserable women about now, it cheers me up that all those mean ugly thoughts have aged them badly just like that Ronald Dahl and the Twits meme .

I was so lonely back then starting out afresh looking for new friends and not very confident inside. It got to the point I was going to give it 6 months and say yes to everything I was asked to hopefully meet some nice people and make friends or give up and move somewhere else. Thankfully it worked for me, still in the area, married a very long time etc etc.
I'm so sorry that these women are treating you like this at such a vulnerable time. I know it's easy to say it but you really need to make some new friends. I hope by trying out some new clubs/interests, you will eventually find them.

I've experienced similar and totally agree!

I'm sorry OP. 💐

Do you really think they think you're after their husbands, or do they just feel awkward and not want to rub their couple status in your face when you've lost your husband?

I'm not defending it, and I'm sure that if one of our friends was widowed we wouldn't treat them like this.

One of my parents' friends died prematurely and they socialise with his widow even more now than they did before his death.

I think @PermanentTemporary has been one of the very few honest posters. Everything is reevaluated after loss.

My best friend's husband died when she was 45.. Traumatic illness, heartbreakingly unfair and painful. She went through a completely insane stage, that was definitely not publicised but i obv knew as i was her shoulder to cry on. She was shagging randoms off the internet, partying. She is quite fierce and checked the men's IDs etc but she was wild and chaotic for around 18 months. She was remarried within 4 years though and says now, looking back, she cannot believe her behaviour at all. She feels like she just woke up one day, with a new husband. She is now back in her white picket fence life, with her career, new DH and her kids. You really would not know.

Another in the shitty club.

Not sure if my current social isolation is due to fears I'm desperate for a man, any man, or if it's just that being a widow equates to turning into some kind of weird two headed monster that people don't know how to deal with.

I mean, a major bereavement, especially when it's the love of your life, does do strange things to you. It's hard to be stoic and resilient about it when your entire life has been turned upside down emotionally , practically, financially etc. And anything you do is under scrutiny.

I've recently discovered that one or two people actively "stepped back" and applied a tough love approach for my own good. Which, given that I'm 55 and have weathered other storms felt just a tiny bit patronising - but they meant well so I'm not taking it to heart.

I'm down to about 6 people I can truly trust or rely on and they're people whose lives aren't easy either, so we all give each other loads of leeway when our "social nicety" capacity is compromised.

As for wanting other people's husbands - err, no ta. My life is sodding complicated enough thanks. I've had two overtures from younger single men and as I'm not dead yet I contemplated no strings attached liaisons, but when it came down to it they ran screaming for the hills anyway. Bit mean really, I thought. Felt like a safe scratching post for them to practise their flirting skills or something.

Honestly, two years in more or less and I'm buggered if I understand people any more. My dark and cynical humour wonders if I should have just thrown myself on the funeral pyre and saved everyone alot of bother. Or rather just popped myself into the grave at the committal rather, as it wasn't a cremation.

As it is I'm resigned to being the slightly embarrassing loose end. So I slap my "happy in a long suffering, stoic way" face on and try not to be a bother.

My cat really loves me though.

I've never really thought it's because they think I want their man, but something definitely changed. They don't include me in the female only things either.

Not everyone, I have 2 married female friends who have been brilliant, but thinking about it, they are the two who I would say have absolutely rock solid relationships, whereas I know some of the others aren't always happy at home.

I still don't attribute it to them thinking I'm after their husbands though, more an uncomfortable feeling of jealousy at my new found freedom, which came about because of the death of my husband, which manifests itself as nastiness about the way I've carried on trying to find some joy in my life without him, thereby justifying them cutting me off (ie I deserve it because of the way I've behaved).

That said at my sports club Christmas party, where I've been a member for more than 20 years, there was definitely a limited amount of time husbands were allowed to chat with me before their wives came to fetch them, not even to join the conversation, but to take them away, which I've never noticed before.

I also hold my hands up and admit a completely insane stage. Alcohol was and was not my friend. Trying to find your way in a completely suddenly alien world because you no longer fit calls for desperate measures. The world wants you to get over it - you just try to get through it. Every day. Every minute. And it feels like forever.

It's not that you want their husbands, it's that the husbands will try it on with anything with any kind of hole and deep down the wives (though they might deny it on MN) know that to be the truth.

One of the things that surprised me when my marriage broke down was how many of his - married - 'friends' would phone or call at the house on any excuse, assuming I'd be desperate for a shag, from a stranger-man. Er, no.

Agreed. Most men will try to get whatever they perceive is available if they think they can get away with it. Gross.

I don’t think you’re being unreasonable to think the situation is unfair.

However, I think there is a change in social dynamics.

If it’s a large group of couples going away and doing activities then it would be natural for you still to be invited, although this might get tough for you as everyone else would still be coupled up.

If it was just you, DH and this other couple then it would be strange for you alone to be tagging along with them everywhere.

Just a few couples could be fine or might be strange depending on the relationships.

Whenever you go out as couples generally the men will bond together and the women, if your DH is no longer there the male will be at a loose end and invariably this will always lead to conversations around the bereavement.

You haven’t mentioned the specifics of how many couples involved, what the activities are, how close the relationships, what you do instead and so on, so it’s hard to judge who is being unreasonable and the extent of it.

I really don’t think they are not inviting you due to a fear over you poaching anyone’s husband. More that they want a couple/s on these trips and now your situation has changed.

So sorry for your loss, it is really hard as so much of life does change and needs to be rebuilt. There will be new friendships and opportunities.

I’m so sorry to hear this. Hope things start to get better for you soon xx

I haven't actually experienced any of the husbands of friends making any effort at communication of any sort. Two couples I am still close to knew me before my 11 years of marital bliss so they know me as a person in my own right if that makes any sense, and I suppose lots of the others were just social relationships.

My Dad told me that when my Nana was widowed in her 70s she experienced similar isolation. Perhaps a subconscious worry does come from other wives.

I also think possibly there's an element of fear involved. As a widow you are the walking reminder that life can go spectacularly tits up due to the vagaries of mortality in an instant. And nobody wants to contemplate that.

Gosh this thread is a shameful hotch potch of misandry and misogyny.
We really don't inhabit a world full of miserable jealous women and rampant sex addicted men. If that's your take on the world, some self reflection is urgently required.

Looking at things from a widower's point of view.

I lost my wife in January. We had lots of couples as friends but since she died only one wife has been in touch and visited to talk with me. Nobody else at all. A single friend of ours who now lives a distance away has been the most contact, messaging me weekly to see how I'm (not) coping.

As for getting casseroles delivered? Our neighbours came to realise I was able to look after myself, cook, clean, run a home due to my wife's many, lengthy hospital stays.

I counsel you against coming onto a thread like this and throwing shade at the lived experiences of people in pain. I'll happily be the first to hand your arse to you on a plate.

@Confortableorwhat

Could be money too. I know some people who’ve been jealous over life insurance policy payouts, bereavement payouts, remaining spouse’s entitlement to other benefits.

Generally this arises where people have an unhappy marriage, then they look over the shoulder at widow with house paid off, plenty of money for kids but not having to worry about husband so free of being accountable or having to put up with anything (other than grief itself, which is pretty big!!)… it’s a weird kind of twisted jealousy.

Wow I never realised this was such a prevalent thing, how awful! One of my closest and dearest friends is a widow and I'd never dream of not inviting her places I used to just because she no longer has a bloody male chaperone.

I don't get people thinking it'd be strange for her to come out for a meal or whatever with me and DH either, it's not like I've invited her on a date, we're all friends and have a lot of fun together. Of course the social dynamic has changed now her husband is gone but that doesn't mean it's bad or wrong. Can people really not socialise as a trio with their partner and someone else without making it awkward??

I'm so sorry for your loss OP, and that it's caused other losses to follow. Humans can be so strange.

Only somewhat agree with this comment, because there is definitely a pattern of midlife single women missing out on social invitations from old friends that surely has some form of explanation.

Interestingly, only midlife with kids widow I have known well was a man. The whole community rallied round him, both men and women. But there is a researched phenomena of single dads with primary care of children in general getting a lot more people around them stepping up and offering support than single mums get.

Yep - same here. Finding it really hard to make a new circle of friends as I am the odd one out. Also my DD14 is neurodiverse so lots of issues I have to deal with alone. I don’t know how people perceive me - probably feel sorry for me but I really do not want another husband. I am very lonely so friendship is what I crave.

Oh we do though. If you’re a married woman your time will come & you'll learn the hard way.

This world is no place for widows and orphans.

I am divorced with 50/50 care and had 'happily married' friends express jealousy I have half the week to myself. Weird, if they are so happily married surely they can give each other a break from the kids and alone time every now and then.