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.

YANBU. And I don't agree with PPs that losing your mother doesn't compare to losing your life partner. Blood is thicker than water.

Exactly what my father’s new wife did to us. When I phoned my father she wouldn’t let me speak to him, she spoke to him like a child, and when I tried to visit she put up so many barriers. He on the others and liked being looked after and wouldn’t rock the boat for his kids, we never recovered from it and had a strained relationship to his death.

I have a dear friend who finds herself in the same shoes as your fathers new partner/ girl friend.

They were absolutely not involved before his wife's death but they were colleagues so spent time working together.

Over the months following his wife's death she supported him and gradually it became more than friendship.

He has children of similar ages to you and your siblings so it struck a chord.

She begged him not to say a thing to his children for a full year. She explained that although he didn't want to hide their relationship it was important that for his children that they mourned the significant dates as a family.

Sadly it didn't go quite as she hoped and he decided that he loved her, had nothing to hide so told his children.

The youngest daughter has had the same reaction as you. She's quite upset.

I think the thing I need to say is, your father has lost his life partner. If he can find it within himself to pick himself up and carry on the that has to be a good thing.

When it's a bereavement, unlike divorce, the deceased partner is still talked about, still mentioned with love, they are not hidden away or talked about negatively.

I expect your father is the same, he will share the memory of your mother.

Try not to judge the lady in your fathers life. She is likely to be desperate to include you. She will know shes not there to replace your mum, she's not there to do so. But she will love your father and keep him happy.

Death has a way of sharply reminding those left behind to live.

When it's a bereavement, unlike divorce, the deceased partner is still talked about, still mentioned with love, they are not hidden away or talked about negatively.

Not in my family. No-one mentions DM, it's a total taboo. There is one photograph of her (dozens of everyone else), and frankly it does feel as if she was replaced. I can't bring her name into the conversation without upsetting my stepfamily so I keep quiet.

By contrast people's divorced spouses are frequently mentioned and discussed, although I will admit rarely positively. But at least their existence is acknowledged.

I've long been envious of Princes William and Harry for being able to speak about and commemorate their mother publicly after losing her in such terrible circumstances. Don't know if they feel free to talk about her in the wider family circle though.

@soshnomore
I am so sorry you’re deeply hurt. I can only talk from what I have learnt from my experience of seeing my mother losing two husbands..... and moving on twice.

I don’t think your dad has replaced your mum even though it very definitely feels this way to you. It is far more likely that he is using this new woman to give him comfort and lean on her to work through his grief. Ie as an emotional crutch. Some people do this. I know my mother does. He sounds very lost without her and his marriage to your mum seems as if it was very co dependant.

When you are co dependant on the other person, losing them is far harder than if you were more autonomous. As a codependent when your mum died he quite probably felt as though half of him was missing. As he couldn’t stand to feel this way, he quickly looked for comfort, not to replace your mum but so that he didn’t have to feel so utterly lost and afraid.

He may see his finding someone else as him lightening your load and setting you free from feeling responsible for him. So from your dads perspective it may be very difficult to see you unable to be happy for him. Now that he has found this woman, he possibly feels free to lean on this new woman instead of you. He can feel fresh and alive all whilst working through his grief.

I know that’s really really hard thing to understand when it’s not possible for you just to replace your mum.

My mother dated and met someone a couple of years after my dad died. He moved into my family home as soon as I left for to university at 18. She didn’t bother to tell me this was happening. Luckily for me he was a wonderful man and when he died it felt very much like a second parental death.

This time she moved on faster. Six or so months. She does not stop talking about him and when she does, I want to rip her head off. It was a long and very debilitating illness and it was very hard for everyone. When he was dying, she talked about what she would be able to do after he died in front of him. That also really really pissed me off. But I also get that was the only way she could cope with her life and standing by and looking after him as he slowly wasted away.

I have met her new man. He is quite nice and I’m glad I got it over and done with. I didn’t want to do it btw. I am obviously far too old to get involved with him in the way that I did with her second husband. He has kids and grandkids and I don’t want a replacement father or grandfather.

I’m sure she’d like him to visit here in my home. But I’m not ready. I’m glad I met him but overnight stays are not what I want for my family. My dd wants her grandma around, not some bloke in tow.

From your perspective, I really would try to muster the strength to meet this woman. But do it in a public place, not in the house and for a short period. So meeting for a coffee for example. You can escape pretty fast from that one. I’m saying to do it for you so that the heavy weight surrounding her will very probably feel much lighter. You may even like her. And because she knows you are grieving it is ok to be human srojnd her.

Rosina
It was the same in my family and I was mid teens. My mother never once comforted me when it was her place to do so, me a child and her being the adult. She was horrible to me about him actually, which was bloody hard. She was used to me being her emotional crutch, you see, which I’d been taught to do right from a baby. This time I was far from being able to cope with her feelings, not yet an adult myself. I know the space of time between my mother finding a new man is longer than ops situation. But I found it really hard. She has always made everything all about her.

Mummyoflittledragon your mother sounds very self-centred at best, if not actually narcissistic.

I was also very young when I lost DM and DF was grieving too much to provide emotional support (plus he had always left all that to DM). It was all the more of a shock when he moved on within a year, although DM had warned me he would, having lived through a similar situation with her own family.

OP I think Mummy makes a good point, if and when you do decide to meet, make it one-to-one over a coffee, rather than at some huge family event where there will be pressure to keep up appearances.

Rosina
I see. That is also very sad for you. The emotional detachment was the same just from a different cause. Yes, narcissist. 😂 I know. I’ve reconciled with that a fair while ago.

I don't like how quick it was but that's not my issue.

Then what IS your issue?

Because if it isn't the timescale, what else could it be?
That your bereavement should trump your dad's?
That dad should stay sad & lonely to satisfy your sense of what it acceptable?
There are at least 5 of you who are bereft. Why is this all about you?
Why can you not isolate your mother's death, & your horrible sorrow about it, from the fact of your dad's continuing life?

Why can you not manage your own grief, your own way, as a separate person, without trying to control your dad?
Do you feel some counselling would help you manage your feelings better & give you some peace & closure?

Aside from the man needing to move on, I think you have to wonder what kind of person is happy to jump into bed and then a serious relationship with someone just weeks after their life partner of many years has died. Because while the person who has suffered a loss may have lost some perspective, the person entering into the relationship knows exactly what they’re doing, and to me that’s almost worse than the person moving on in the first place.

YANBU. He was on dating sites 6 weeks after your mother's sudden death! I take longer than that between haircuts! I'm not surprised however as I've witnessed this situation with more than a few friends/relations. Men tend to move on very quickly, it's like the wife was an appliance to service their needs that needs replacing.

Just a couple of examples; my best friend died suddenly of a brain haemorrhage at the age of 46. Her husband was mid 50's. He moved on quickly and was in a serious relationship within weeks, while I was still in shock, grieving my friend and doing things like crying spontaneously in the supermarket. I hadn't quickly found a new best friend and yet he had instantly found a new life partner. My friend had an 8 year old daughter with her husband, and he and the new woman would drop her with me all the time and drive off laughing. This child was grieving (her mum had put her to bed that night and by the morning her mother had died) and all he could think about was spending time with the new woman.

Another one was my brother. His wife died unexpectedly and within 6 weeks he announced by email he was getting married. We had long suspected he had another woman (he worked abroad for long stretches). When nobody congratulated him he contacted his sons in the UK (age 19 and 21), who were obviously grieving, to complain they hadn't congratulated him, and said consequently none of us were invited to the wedding (that we didn't want to go to anyway). Fast forward a few years and the woman took him for everything, and I mean everything. He's 58 now with nothing to his name and sons he has no relationship with, who we have helped out like they are our own because their dad is a useless idiot.

You have every right to feel how you feel OP. You lost your mum suddenly and you are not ready to see your father in a new relationship so soon. If his new relationship lasts then I'm sure at some point you will feel ready to meet his new partner, but only you can say when that will be.

You are not being unreasonable in feeling this way , people do react in different ways after their partner has died , I had a friend die very young with 3 small children and her husband was sleeping around with her friends very shortly after , and its left a bad taste in my mouth
I hope given time you can rebuild your relationship with him , but I can really understand how you are feeling

Aside from the man needing to move on, I think you have to wonder what kind of person is happy to jump into bed and then a serious relationship with someone just weeks after their life partner of many years has died.

I have a feeling I might regret posting, but I can answer this.

I am getting married next year to my partner. They lost their long term and lib in partner very suddenly.

I had been on dating sites for about a year and been on loads of dates without ever clicking with anyone. At this point I was 18 months post separation/divorce after a 25 year relationship.

I new face popped up on match.com, I messaged, they messaged back and things went from there. Within a couple of days we had both deleted profiles and were communicating via WhatsApp. By this point I was aware that the profile was brand new and has been created 6 weeks after the sudden bereavement. I was the first communication on OLD.

Now we live together and are engaged to be married.

I was very, very wary of the situation at first and really quite uncomfortable with it and made sure everything was led by the recently bereaved. It is strange and I was very conscious of what other people would think, but we met and being honest in an ideal work it would have been a year or more later but that wasn’t the way things worked out and we love each other dearly.

Incidentally I am a man and my future wife is a woman - so it’s not just men who may move on quickly. It’s a completely individual situation that really no one else will ever understand or need to comment on.

Until recently I always thought people moving on so quickly meant they didn't love their previous partner.

But my relationship of 23 years broke down earlier this year (my choice, abusive relationship) and suddenly it felt like the pain was so great and overwhelming that the only way I could survive would be launching myself into a new relationship.

I DIDN'T... but I could see the temptation and it felt to me actually that it was because I loved exh so much and for so long- a way of blotting out the pain and focusing on the future.

I agree your father was very insensitive to announce he was dating after 6 weeks, but he met this lady 6 months later, the two things are separate.

Ask him to stop pressuring you, but try to separate "I'm not ready" from the timescale of your df starting dating. They are 2 different things.

So sorry for your loss

@ Hurdygurdy24 does your partner have young children? And if so how soon after you getting together did she introduce the children to the man who was going to be replacing their father?

I don’t disagree that people have the right to move on. I know I would want my partner to move on if anything happened to me, in fact I’ve gone so far as to say that he probably would. But I think that when there are others in the equation then the timescale in which you moved on might not be the same timescale as theirs. And just because someone finds a new partner doesn’t mean the wider family have to accept them.

And while it worked out for you, I still don’t understand why you would have approached a woman on a dating site who you knew to only be six weeks post bereavement. I actually think that’s taking advantage of someone while they’re potentially vulnerable.

• does your partner have young children? And if so how soon after you getting together did she introduce the children to the man who was going to be replacing their father?

I don’t disagree that people have the right to move on. I know I would want my partner to move on if anything happened to me, in fact I’ve gone so far as to say that he probably would. But I think that when there are others in the equation then the timescale in which you moved on might not be the same timescale as theirs. And just because someone finds a new partner doesn’t mean the wider family have to accept them.

And while it worked out for you, I still don’t understand why you would have approached a woman on a dating site who you knew to only be six weeks post bereavement. I actually think that’s taking advantage of someone while they’re potentially vulnerable.*

No. She doesn’t have (and can’t have) children.

Don’t think I will justify the rest of your post with a reply. Like I said, no one knows other people’s real circumstances or is really able to comment.

We are both happier than we have ever been before. That’s all I need to know

I can understand how you feel but I think if you dig your heels in like this you could end up permanently damaging the relationship with your dad and that would be so sad.

I think as hard as it is you really need to put on a smile and be nice to his new girlfriend. Ultimately you want your dad to be happy. If she makes him happy you should be happy for him. You have your own life and your own family, he doesn’t. He is going home to an empty house every night and is lonely. He’s probably realised how short life is and wants to grab happiness whilst he can.

I also think - and this is hard for people to hear and I’m not saying it’s the case in your situation op- that sometimes no one actually knows the internal dynamics of someone’s marriage. People might have been unhappy for years and just stuck it out. Who knows. When their spouse dies they’re ready to move on because they emotionally checked out years ago.

I always remember my next door neighbour. Her husband of 40 years died and her daughters were devastated. They had always seemed a happy lovely old couple. One day she confided in me that she was so glad he was dead because she couldn’t stand him...!

You just never know what’s really going on.

Ask him to stop pressuring you, but try to separate "I'm not ready" from the timescale of your df starting dating. They are 2 different things.

OP understands that but her DF evidently does not, otherwise he would not be pressuring her.

Men tend to move on very quickly, it's like the wife was an appliance to service their needs that needs replacing.

My thoughts exactly Percy. I've taken longer than six weeks to choose a new car, never mind a life partner.

Im sorry for your poss but
YABU
Echoing other posts. Life, as is evident, is too short. Why waste it grieving?

I've told my DH I wouldn't want him pining away for me. I'd want him living his life. 6 weeks may seem too short but people deal with grief in different ways. For him maybe dating helps distract him from the loneliness or pain of loosing your mum. Either way, I think you need to find a way of coping that doesn't involve your dad being your grief partner.

I think as well op when people are grieving it’s becomes a selfish thing- like self protection. You can explain how you feel to your df but if he’s grieving he won’t understand he’ll just think your not supporting him. My advice would be to be clear, you love and support him but you’re not ready to meet the new lady yet. You may be at some point but just not right now. If his new gf is any kind of nice person she will try and understand how you feel.

You have a right to grieve just as much as he does. Stay strong it does get better just takes time

I'd really hope my DP wouldn't move on for St least two years. At last have a first everything without me.

I would be ashamed of my father if he did this. Ashamed.

Also losing a parent is worse than a life partner. I'd rather lose my husband and keep my mum thanks.

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.

She has every right to demand support from him.

And while it worked out for you, I still don’t understand why you would have approached a woman on a dating site who you knew to only be six weeks post bereavement. I actually think that’s taking advantage of someone while they’re potentially vulnerable. yep