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?

Single mum here and I don’t want to
be invited to the couple gatherings. But there are definitely a few women that have behaved strangely when their husbands are around. I don’t want their husbands either! In fact I don’t want a husband full stop. Maybe your friends mean well, maybe ask them?

I don’t, as a single woman particularly want to have dinner with my married friends and their husbands on a regular basis but I’d like to be asked, I am relegated to the daytime friend, apart from a few rare special occasions.
This seems like a societal norm post divorce etc. unsure of the exact reasons but I think there’s an element of ‘uncomfortable’ about having a single woman around.

The funny thing I’ve noticed when single is the way men you chat to bring up ‘my wife’ frequently in conversation as if to ward off any potential sexual notions on my part. In the sauna at the gym the middle aged guys will be chatting about current affairs or whatever and then launch into a random ‘my wife…’ excessively.
it simultaneously amuses and insults me, I haven’t any desire whatsoever to jump on Dave’s bones, with his paunch and speedos in the sauna. He’s well safe. I’d love to be able to say oh fuck off but I’m too polite.

I explicitly 'threw shade' at misandry and misogyny (and those who use any excuse to indulge in same). You won't be handing anyone their arse in defence of those two concepts.

Shortly after my DH died, a now ex friend who was staying with me got very concerned about my insomnia and nocturnal habits of sitting in front of YouTube till my eyes bled, and one morning asked me what was wrong.

I responded:

"Well, I've realised that everything about my life now is because DP is dead".

Her response was utter bewilderment.

She couldn't grasp that I'd been forced from one life into another where nothing made sense and the only person who I could have relied on was six feet under and digging them up for a cuddle is rightly frowned upon.

Her subsequent behaviour made her an ex friend within three months.

I have seen this happen and its awful.

Coming from a slightly different angle, I was quite shocked when I lost my mum (she died quite young), how women previously close to my mum started suddenly flocking around my dad the second she died. This wasn't just to "offer comfort", it was them getting all dolled up, asking him to go for drinks, and being all flirty and giggly around him- it made me feel a bit sick. My mum had literally died the week before. I had no issue with my dad finding someone else in time but bloody hell, at least leave it until after the funeral is over and a respectful amount of time has passed fgs.

Some people are just dicks.

@ZeroFucksGivenToday
That sounds like an awful experience x

Well, yanbu op. I'm currently unable to use my back garden at the moment. My pregnant neighbour thinks that I want her stoner husband despite them having 9 children, no job, black nails and one set of clothes. I've heard her screaming to him to get next door despite us never speaking without her there...as in I spoke to them both together. It's utterly bizarre and is making living arrangements awkward AF.

Oh FGS. Introducing those concepts into this conversation is just ridiculous. The misogyny? Is it assuming all widows are man hungry for their friends husbands? Or assuming women think like that about widows? Misandry? Because a good proportion of men have used situations where women are vulnerable to their own advantage?

We're talking about specific experiences here, and they show patterns within those experiences. People are allowed to share that and vent their spleen.

Telling us we're wrong to "think like that" despite our experiences just smacks of twisting the knife. But if you get off on kicking people when they're down, crack on. Just don't be surprised if people occasionally swipe back.

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.

Why would it be tough? Stop thinking for widowed people. They know what they're comfortable with. They don't need you telling them how they might feel.

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.

Tagging along? Or just continuing the friendship and activities that they've always had?

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.

Inevitably lead to conversations around the bereavement? How? And thank goodness I had friends who were actually prepared to have conversations with the opposite sex.

Clearly you're one of those very people who is desperately uncomfortable with someone who's lost a partner. You are our problem.

I think sometimes it’s putting the fear into them about what they could lose and they can’t bear it. I noticed when my mum died that the only ones who got it fully were those who had already been through the loss….others were scared of me.

Your lucky you still have any friendship circle most widows end up completely alone no friends and relations with family very different.

@namechangealerttt

In my social group there is a friend who is in the process of getting divorced, separated for a while.

She goes to countless activities, hobbies and courses, works part time and has a mountain of UC etc due to being a single mother, she can spend an entire weekend shagging random men, drinking and getting high if she chooses. And her parents mind her DC most weeks for a night to ‘give her a break’ (from what?!)

I wouldn’t say I’m jealous, but myself and other friends do find it difficult to not feel exasperated because we have to parent every day no matter what. Fair enough our DH’s may take the kids out for the day or give us a lie in and this is reciprocal…. But we are never going to get the chance of having 3-5 entire days a week off from parenting every single week of the year to learn how to do landscape photography or whatever else.

@Cherryicepop , my DM was widowed quite young, and a few single/widowed/divorced men were sniffing around. You could almost hear them thinking 'cook, housekeeper, nursemaid ...'. Yuk.

Cousin and uncle were young widowers, and had a bit of interest. Uncle remained single. Cousin has now got a lovely partner who doesn't seem to be after his money etc.

Speak for yourself. I'm rubbish at DIY and I'd very much appreciate renting a husband just for that. Mostly because even the simplest of DIY jobs usually need two people. I mean, even I'm capable of knocking picture hooks into a wall. But there's no-one to tell me if I'm hanging the pictures straight, or in a way that looks right.

@Unjustifiable ultimately being a single parent can be lonely at times. You don’t have the support of an OH, be part of a team, or the security of a partner quite simply. I can’t speak for your friend, she seems to be proactive but bear in mind post divorce people tend to go a bit mad at trying to create a new life. So cut her some slack.

This is what I was going to say.

I didn’t realize that widows were also left out.

So many people are very strange about women who aren’t ’taken’ by a man.

Oh good god, yes to all of the above regarding the treatment of single women. And I can only imagine widowhood is even worse because you’ve got the “I didn’t know what to say so I didn’t bother saying anything” crap in the mix. Plus your single status was foisted on you, so presumably you’re seen as wanting to “rectify” that forthwith.

I remember being in my 20s and falling in with a group of women through a hobby. Got invited to a BBQ and ended up chatting to the men about a sport I happened to know a fair bit about. Dear god, the women looked at me like I was about to eat their firstborns. I wasn’t remotely interested in any of their tedious husbands.

And yes, the post-separation fall off in invitations (albeit a different friend group). Not only might you relieve them of their husbands or their husbands will have the opportunity to make a pass at you, but a single person is awkward on numbers, apparently. God forbid you’re also childfree. It never seems to occur to them that I want to be single and I’m still not remotely interested in any of their tedious husbands.

The thing that really boils my piss is that it’s the single woman who is punished socially, not the men who can’t keep their wandering eyes and hands to themselves.

As Jilly Cooper once said, the wages of single life are social death.

Introducing those concepts into this conversation is just ridiculous.

I agree. That was my point.

It's never going to be a healthy world view (regardless of your circumstances).

I think the OP would be better advised to have a frank conversation with her friends, instead of being encouraged to keep assuming all of her female friends are simply insecure and jealous (fortunately there's been the odd sensible reply suggesting same).

Yes, it's not just widowed women, its any un partnered woman.

The women know that their husbands may come sniffing around as they think a single woman is desperate for sex. We're not. 😆

The social invitations dry up and women scurry to their husband's side if you happen to chat to them.

Funny how single men aren't treated this way.

Most relationships, even with 'good men', the bulk of housework and parenting falls to women so I am aware it feels relentless, I have been there.

What I would say if you are genuinely jealous of your separated and divorced friends, look inward. There are probably changes you could make in your relationship to allow time to take up landscape photography if that's what you wish to do.

If your partner won't accommodate or be open to change, is it really a partnership? My marriage was not a partnership and leaving was the best decision for me, I am so much happier.

"Till death do us part" was invented to trap women into providing free labour for men till they die.

You could say I am 'lucky' because my ex is competent enough to have 50/50 care, but I do know single mums with 100% care who are still happier because it is one less person in the house to please and tidy up after.

But yeah, you will likely stop receiving invites to couples events and need to find new friends 😅

Sadly, as a single person, this is so relatable. I don't want your husbands either. Not even a little bit. YANBU.

Or maybe the takeaway from this thread could be for married women to look outside their bubbles and include single friends, so the onus of raising difficult conversations is not placed on women that are recently bereaved or divorced.

I wouldn’t say I’m jealous, but myself and other friends do find it difficult to not feel exasperated because we have to parent every day no matter what.

So, you ARE jealous. Because you’re “exasperated” at her for daring to have a set up you wish you had. Jesus, with “friends” like you the poor woman doesn’t need enemies.

I think there are men who find happily single women unsettling and worry that socialising with them might encourage their own wives to reassess their relationship, leaving them to fend for themselves.

I agree. I have friends - male and female - who don’t treat me in the way that the experiences on this thread set out. It’s not everyone that behaves like this.

But it DOES happen. It has happened over and over again to me, and over and over again to many posters here. Saying it doesn’t happen just excuses the shitty behaviour of those who perpetuate this crappy attitude to single/widowed women, and belittles our actual fucking experiences.

Actually no @saraclara I’ve lost a parent and supported the other through the transition from married to widowed and have other friends and family who’ve been widowed.

When I said it might be tough I’m speaking from the experience of having had people widowed express this to me regarding being in a big group of couples - for instance my parent being chronically depressed and not eating or sleeping for a week prior to going to a wedding where all friends were couples previously socialised with prior to death of spouse. And this was 7 years after bereavement!!

Regards a widow joining a couple for activities previously enjoyed as two couples, it’s incredibly naive to think that can carry on when there has been such a change in dynamics.

And regards a few couples being fine or not what I mean is - if there’s a group of say 4 couples who’ve been friends forever and very embroiled in each other’s lives and one is widowed it would be natural for the association to carry on. If a group of couples who were associated through the husband’s work and he died then it wouldn’t really make sense.

It can be a cultural thing too - in some cultures/religions it’s very normal for sexes to mix and have close social relationships, in others it tends to be everyone meets up and the men chat together and the women chat together.

Inevitably lead to conversations around the bereavement? How?

Because if you meet up with a couple you formerly socialised with with your spouse and the other person same sex as your spouse is sitting about like a spare part it inevitably turns to - wasn’t it great when they were here, we miss them and so on… again, as my widowed friends and family have recounted. My parent purposefully avoids many friends from before as finds it too upsetting they are all still in couples and constantly want to talk about dead spouse.

Then there’s the fact that the couple may have been keener on your spouse than you too so that can lead to relationships being less close.

You’re being very judgemental. I’ve supported a lot of widows and what I’m stating comes directly from the experiences they’ve related to me when I’ve been giving support.