Can we talk about widowed fathers, like if you mum died first? What's normal behaviour?

[PeaceLillyWhiteFlower]

My mum died two years ago, from cancer. Their marriage had often been fraught, but calmer in the last 20 odd years. At the very end there was bad blood between them.

Since she died my father has been pretty proactive about looking for another woman. A fair few dates. He seems to have settled on one.

He was always down on my mother, though utterly charming to the outside world. I have barely spoken to him for about a month. I've been raging to think of my mum six feet under while he sails of into the sunset with some woman a few years older than me.

The only person I can really talk to is my brother. He lives abroad with his family and is fairly detatched from it all.

What's normal here? It just looks like a huge pile of male effing entitlement to me.

So glad to of stumbled across this thread

@PeaceLillyWhiteFlower @Dozycuntlaters @neatlittlerows tagged you as your posts resonated with me the most.

To anyone else please don't attack me for my post.

But WOW yeah dads hey!
I lost my mum 2 years ago last month she was 63 she died very suddenly and unexpectedly huge bleed on the brain she was mega healthy this was a big shock I was 34 weeks pregnant at the time with my first baby, it hit me like a train.
It's changed me forever she was my best friend in the world. My parents were married for 40 years my mum was devoted to being a wife and mother and on reflection my dad was a selfish arsehole for the majority of it . She deserved so much more . Anyway first 4 months me and one of my sisters literally kept him going made meals for him every day took turns staying with him even though I had a newborn and was grieving too but at the time I just felt so sorry for him.

He really really put on me though I feel he should of been looking after us but like I say he's always been selfish and interested in himself and shown no interest in his other grandkids so I don't know why I was surprised ! In this time he genuinely nearly caused me and my husband to separate I was lashing out on my grief my husband was very worried about my mental state and having a newborn then all of a sudden dad starts acting strange and He tells us he's on dating sites . Less than 6 months after mum died he's met someone. Less than a year after she died d this woman's sold her house and moved in to my childhoood home. I've met her once. My dads tried to force her on me many times. There isn't enough time now to explain everything but believe me I have my reasons but I've been NC for a year now my only regret it that I wish we lived further apart as the anxiety about bumping in to them is high.
I miss my mum so much but the reality he showed her no respect in life or in death

Hugs to you all who have lost a mother it's a pain like no other they can't just be replaced . They brought us in to this world and made us who we are.

Sorry about the loss of your mum @mrssunshinexxx And a sudden, unexpected death like that all the harder.

It sounds like a lot of change for you all at once. Having a baby, though wonderful, is also hard at the best of times.

Yes, wondering who you can trust is disconcerting. Glad you have resolved things with your husband. It sounds like your dad wants to keep in contact, but only on his terms. He may not care which woman cooks his dinner (& the rest) but insensitive of him to think a new woman can be interchanged for your lost mother. Can your DH act as a go-between in this difficult period? Siblings are wonderful too, the only people you can really compare notes with.

There's no way I would sell my house for a man I'd only known six months. Wonder what this woman did with her capital and what your father promised her in return.

Am trying not to dwell on the past and the future, but just think about the here and now. Am reading a book called the Road Less Travelled (grasping at anything to help frame what I'm feeling). It talks about the mental map we carry around. When the terrain of our lives changes suddenly or a lot (or both) the old map is no use anymore, but we are reluctant to update it.