You are welcome to bring your partner

[McCoysCheese]

You are welcome to bring your partner!

What’s the problem? Well, out of the group who are invited I am the only widow. It’s not a big deal. It’s just something that gets to me every time. Kind people write something more inclusive so that it doesn’t read like this to me

“If you don’t have a dead husband you can bring someone with you”

Ok, on with my day!

Context is important.

Eg if I invite a mixed group of friends round for a barbecue, I might say that those who have partners can bring them too because, why not? But I wouldn't necessarily want those who dont have partners to just bring a random friend with them.

I wouldn't exclude someone because they were single/widowed/divorced though and I was never excluded for being single when I was.

@JugBouquet and some of us who did lose husbands to cancer, never want to see or hear or read anything to do with any of these cancer charities ever again. So the Bakedpotatoes grandma was trying her best to ensure she didn’t upset people too and cause the least upset possible all round.

It’s a group of 9 who are meeting for a social event.

I expect I could say to the organiser that I’d like to bring a friend and is that ok? I think she wouldn’t mind. Or I can just be on my own again.

Thanks for listening everyone! It’s 5 years since DH died and things are ok, just sometimes I notice when there’s a situation like this and it’s painful.

Yes, do ask. If she objects, she's not much of a friend. Hopefully she'll just apologise for her insensitivity. Don't go on your own if you don't want to!

Gosh, how thoughtless are you. Such an unnecessarily mean thing to say.

You’d say to your friend who you know is a widow “bring your partner”? Really??

Yes widowed people can move on, but unless I knew for certain they had met someone else there is no way I’d use such insensitive wording, and I’m surprised other people would to a friend.

I hope you are not as awful in real life as you come across here.

Well no one else is absorbed with me these days! So self-absorbed sounds about right.

It’s odd which little things are upsetting when you lose someone close to you - a moment of a song, the smell of a garden flower from the time of their passing, a careless phrase in an invitation. That’s grief.

@Rhaidimiddimyou don’t have to be unkind even though your Welsh user name means “I don’t have to”

Exactly this. It implies that whoever wrote it sees 'having an available partner' as the only possible state of being and is completely unaware that there are other entirely normal possibilities.

I read it a different way, I read it as partners not compulsory, you can come on your own .. to cover people whose partners don’t want to go or people who would feel awkward on their own.