AIBU not accepting his new relationship?

[soshnomore]

My mother passed away suddenly from a stroke at the end of November last year. Her and my dad had been married for 33 years. In January of this year, about 6 weeks after she passed away, my dad told us he was going to start dating. I am one of 4 (29, 30 and 32yo) of their children, my younger brother agreed with me that it was way too soon, whilst my older brother and younger sister were more supportive of his choice.
From January he spoke to and met a few women but nothing worked out. Fast forward and he met somebody around June/July of this year, and has been spending a lot of time with her, going away for weekends etc.
He has asked us all when we would like to meet her (older brother met her pretty quickly and has had them both to stay with him), my siblings have said in the New Year, but I have said I don't really want to meet her.
I have a lot of resentment built up towards him from how he's gone about this. When I aired my concerns in January that it was too soon, he said it was his life and he would do what he wanted. That is true, but I don't have to accept it. I also think he should have thought more about the feelings of his children who just lost their mother.
In all honesty I would say that he's severely damaged our relationship, and all he seems to care about now is building his relationship with this woman.
We made plans to have a lunch together (him, my brother and sister, and my niece) last month, he wanted to rearrange the time so he could meet up with her afterwards. He spent an hour and a half with us before rushing off. We hadn't seen him for around month before that (always busy with the new woman). He has already spoken about them moving in together, about 3/4 months into the relationship.
It probably is selfish of me to think about how he has hurt my feelings, and not his feelings over losing his wife, but I think he's just gone about it all wrong and alienated me and my brother in the process.
AIBU to tell him that I'm not ready to meet this woman and I can't say for certain when I will be? My older brother who has met her seems hellbent on convincing me she is a lovely lady and I should just be happy for everybody.

OP, you’re quite right. If you don’t feel ready to meet his girlfriend, that’s ok too.
I think you just need to be supportive towards each other and accept that you both need to move forwards at a pace that suits both of you.

But don’t leave it too long.

Doesnt mean you have to accept her i might add

I guess you can't change what has happened, only your views on it. If you aren't ready to meet her that's all there is to it. Wait until the time feels right for you and don't feel pressured into doing anything before then.

I don't time is a great healer but it does give you the opportunity to come to terms with what has happened.

Hope your relationship with your dad doesn't suffer.

I dont think YABU at all really.You have lost your DM and you are grieving both for her and your previous family set up.Just because your siblings are OK with it doesnt mean you have to be does it? Maybe you could say to DF that while you are not feeling up to meeting this lady yet ,in time you may feel like it .It does seem soon but men seem unable to cope on their own sometimes!

Don't think

YANBU.

he has no more right to pressure you than you to pressure him not to date.

Next time he starts, say:

'I'm going to repeat back to you exactly what you said to me. It's my life and I'll do what I want. If you can't respect the fact that I don't yet want to meet your new partner as I am still getting to grips with the sudden loss of my mother and don't yet want to see someone 'in her place', then I'm disappointed. This isn't about your new relationship, it's about my grieving process, and to be honest I feel even sadder that my own father isn't supportive of giving me the time I need in this situation.'

I don't think you are bring unreasonable. Just because he's decided to persue a new relationship it doesn't mean you have to meet this new woman.
Being made to feel you've got to shut up and accept it is very unfair. If you do ever decide to want to meet her, it should be when you feel comfortable and ready to do so in your own time.

@soshnomore - Your feelings are your feelings, and they are entirely valid for being so. Of course you don't have to meet her if you don't want to. You can meet her in your own time; or you can choose not to meet her at all. Only you will know when you're ready.

There is a real double-standard at work with those posts saying on the one hand you're being unreasonable not to meet her - that, in fact, you should - and yet on the other that you should also accept your dad's choices and feelings.

Like him, live your own life according to what feels right for you. And I'm sorry about your mum.

Take your time and meet her when you are ready. If you are fortunate and she’s a nice person then hopefully you can slowly come to terms with it all in time.
If she’s a nasty, controlling, devious bitch who is only interested in feathering her own nest and making sure her kids and grandchildren come first then I’m afraid you may have to make to painful decision to leave him to it - let him lie in the bed he made for himself.

Can you tell I’m bitter 😂

This problem is as old as time and it’s usually men who feel the need to look for a new partner within a very short timeframe after bereavement.

YANBU to feel upset and pressured. The whole family need to try to be calm and respectful of one another and support each other. Ask your family to give you some space and at some point you will meet this lady. The more they push you the slower this will be.

Sorry about your mum. She sounds far too young to suffer this.

FWIW I know of a number of men who have done this and most have actually stayed with their new partner in the longer term. Some have stayed on good terms with their families but a couple have become estranged because of the ‘children’ disliking the situation. It’s very difficult. Give it time.

I get where you are coming from OP . My brother started dating 3 months after losing his wife aged 33. They were childhood sweethearts , my best friend. I wasn’t ready to have someone else in her shoes and felt it disrespectful to his wife and I felt the timing rammed the new relationship down my throat. I also felt the new girlfriend was insensitive and a bit odd to be dating someone so recently bereaved. Anyway - I hung back and didn’t spend time with her in the first 6 months. Then once time had passed and my feelings were less raw I got to know her. They later married and we are friends. I think you each need to understand that the other is grieving in your own way.
Feel free not to get to know her until you feel ready and he shouldn’t push you. Xx

I don't think you're being unreasonable at all. Going onto a dating site that soon is just grim, no matter how lonely he felt.

And I think it's OK to acknowledge it to your Dad. I'd say that you're happy he's happy, but you need to process your Mum's death for a while and aren't ready to meet anyone else yet. Do it at your speed.

I'm really sorry for your loss

Hi Op, we hope you don't mind us bobbing on here but we weren't sure that AIBU was the best place for this thread. So we wanted to let you know that we've moved it over to the Bereavement topic.

So sorry for your loss, OP, and best of luck with everything.

Hi OP,
It must be very hard for you to adjust to the new situation. Unfortunately we can't control any one else's behaviour - only our own. Rightly or wrongly your dad has chosen to start a new relationship.

If you are not ready to meet his new partner or simply don't want to meet her that is your choice. However your OP rings a little like as well as needing time to adjust to the situation yourself you may be trying to punish your dad for his behaviour (the "I may never want to meet her" comment). Your dad is not going to end his relationship because of your stance and I fear you would end up mostly punishing yourself as if you force him to choose you may not like the outcome.

YANBU.

If it's alright for him to decide for himself when he's ready for a new relationship, it's alright for you to decide for yourself when you're ready to meet this new person. If she's any decent kind of woman, she'll give you as much time as you need to take that step, and your own family should be at least as understanding as a complete stranger. Your family needs to respect that it's difficult for you and stop pushing.

Don't feel forced, but on the other hand, it might not get any easier with time. Sometimes things only get harder the longer they're left. You don't have to become close to her or even like her, so long as you can be polite-- but if you're not ready, you're just not! You aren't unreasonable to feel the way you do.

Grief is a really complex thing and affects everyone in different ways, and I can see how both your dad is reacting and how you are reacting has been directed and exacerbated by grief and circumstance.

There isn't a right, easy, or one-size-fits-all way of coping with loss, especially sudden loss of a such an important person in your lives, and I can imagine that your dads choice to get into dating and moving forward so quickly is one of his ways of trying to cope with the grief, by ignoring part of it and trying to distance his current life and situation as far away as he can from the situation he was in previously, it probably helps that this different and new relationship gives him something to focus on, rather than if it wasn't there, and the stark reminder of what he did have that now isn't physically there anymore (I say physically, because of course the memory and the presence never truly leaves us). However, that is obviously a different way to how you want and need to process this grief, which is totally understandable because everyone is different, and your relationship was different too. Could you have begun, however consiciously or unconsiciously, associating the feelings you have about how abrasive you found your dads new dating and relationship, with some of your own feelings of grief and loss, and it's starting to transfer onto your thoughts about this woman (to the point you are physically reacting and freezing up), and your relationship with your dad. If you haven't already, maybe it would be time to consider some counselling, so you could start to focus more on your feelings and grief with someone completely seperate from the situation, and without any added pressure from sibilings etc about meeting this woman?

I'd also say, that whilst it is important you take as much time as you need, you know you, but it's been 10 years since my mum passed away, and it doesn't really get easier, it just changes, and things will bring it back to the surface, so meeting this new woman now, in 6 months, or in 6 years, might not be any easier, you might just be postponing the enevitable, and that's a choice you'll have to make, but it still is your choice.

Sorry for your loss , it's shit that you're now in this sitation whilst everything is still so raw.

StrayCatStrut Sorry to hear about your pain ,sending hugs your way xxx Hope you feel better soon. It does get easier but sometimes when you are tired makes it feels worse somehow xx

Yadnbu op. I lost my dad very suddenly and it took me a long long time before I was ready to accept a new man in my dms life. It’s a process you need to go through and it worries me your df hasn’t grieved yet

Widowers who have been used to having everything done for them by their wives often quickly hunt for a new woman to carry on where their late wives left off

I think it's this with the excitement of a new sex partner thrown in.
Somehow some men seem to lose all feelings of responsibility for their DCs and can't wait to get their hands on a new partner.
But it is how it is. Don't blame the new partner, it is your DF's choice. And in time you will hopefully be able to forgive him and have a decent relationship with him and the new partner as this is in your best interests.

YANBU. You feel how you feel.

From an outsiders point of view, it looks like he just wants what he had before, can't live without it so is desperately trying to replace your Mum with a new woman.

You can't control how he lives his life but YANBU in not wanting to meet her so soon.

Sorry for your loss

You're not being unreasonable at all OP. You need to grieve, adjustment is hard enough without this.

Different circumstances but my friend in her forties, her father married a woman close to her eldest sister's age. So only about 4 years older than her. Neither she nor her sister has spoken to him since. It's a bit more complicated than that though, they realised that he had made their mother feel like she wasn't enough (until she died) and both of them had ended up in bad relationships because of their father's attitudes to women. So they are both happier now.

I'm so sorry for your loss. But you're talking like your dad has walked out and divorced your mum of his own accord.
She was taken from him. He may have loved her with a passion or they may have been just fond companions. You don't know and that was their relationship so you shouldn't. But it doesn't sound like he was a bad husband at all. He didn't cause her pain or grief when she was alive and that's what matters. Nothing he does now can alter how he felt about her when she was alive.
You're grieving your mum. He isn't helping you and that must be hard because parents are often the ones we look to for emotional support as well as spouses. But he's the one in the centre of the circle of grief and it's not your role to demand support from him, you're no longer a child, even tho losing your mum makes you feel like one.
You can't get grief support from him. You should have some counselling or talk to friends.
I would wish him well.

6 WEEKS?! That's 1.5 months. Absolutely ridiculous. And I can't believe all the 'grief is very individual' bullshit here either. So the person you supposedly loved dies, and month and a half after her funeral you already have her replacement to warm your bed? That's the 'individual grief'? Fuck that. Cold bastard.

I'd be meeting him and the new woman and would tell them exactly what I think about them both.

Privately, I've always thought that people who move on very quickly from a spouse's death are a bit hard to understand. I suppose it seems a bit disrespectful to their late spouse and as if perhaps they didn't really love them that much if they can find someone else so quickly. I'm guessing that's how you feel.

My mother was widowed young and has never met anyone else. I respect her decision but as an adult I can't help but feel that she would benefit from having someone else in her life.

Grief is very personal. YANBU to explain how you feel but don't expect your dad to give up his new love because of that, because chances are he won't. When you say goodbye to him and go home to your family, he's alone. Do you really want that?