Fiancée widower's late wife's anniversary

[HelpIcantfindaname]

Background - 10 years since late wife died.
We have been together nearly 5. Moved in together last October. He proposed on Christmas Day. Getting married this summer.

Usually on anniversary I give him space. But now we live together that's going to be hard. He puts their songs on fb, which I always find hard. I can ignore fb but this year I asked him not to, it seems odd to me when we are now engaged. Not that I expect him to forget her. He has always been very good at making me feel like I'm not living in her shadow. We do talk about her sometimes. I just find the songs really hard.

He says he does them for his son, so this year he might just put them on his page. But that still means he is gona be sitting going through the songs & being upset.

Am I wrong to think maybe it's time he stopped this? They will be going to her tree, I expect that. (In fact it's usually me who reminds him to take his son on her birthday, Mother's Day & Christmas).

I don't expect him to forget her & never think about her. I know he loves the memory of her, & now he loves me very much.

I just need advice on how to handle the anniversary, especially as we live together now. I know I can't tell him how to grieve. It's been nearly 16 years since my baby grandson died & I'm never gona stop loving & missing him.

I have a friend who lost her husband just after their daughter was born. She remarried some years later & never does anything to mark her first hubby's anniversary. She thinks it's odd my fiancee still does. I know everyone is different though.

What do others in similar circumstances do?

@SoupDragon

I know I can't tell him how to grieve

Except that is exactly what you were trying to do when you asked him not to put songs on Facebook and think it's "about time he stopped this"

I think you have to accept this is going to happen and not interfere.

Agree with this.

Having a new relationship after being widowed, does not wipe out the person who died,the experience of watching your spouse going through illness which led to death, the trauma of guiding your children through that whilst trying to be a double parent.
Sorting counselling support for all of you.
Trying not to let the children see you at your worst, because when they are left with only one parent, they worry that you too will die.
Our youngest said that his Dad couldn’t die because we haven’t finished loving him yet.
He was right, we still love him and talk about him.
On significant dates yes we share photos and a few words on FB, all of us like to read the comments from people who knew him.
You don’t get to make further memories when they’ve died, so it’s important that we keep the links with people who knew him.
We have photos up in the house and always will.

Trying to police & control someone’s grieving is cruel.

If you can’t bear it, then don’t get married.

I'm with a widower. I get it.

Just as in any other kind of romantic relationship, you have every right to let your partner know how his actions make you feel. If you had changed your DP's status to divorced im betting the replies you would have got to this would have been very different yet your feelings would have been very similar. It still hurts.

The songs have nothing to do with his Son. The public focus of her memory from your dp should be as the mother of his children not the romantic connection they had.

You are right, people who haven't been in a relationship with a widower have no idea what it is like. It's romanticised, fairy taled (think cinderella) but in reality it is bloomin' hard.

There are groups on Facebook, reddit et Al where you will find support - Some are more extreme than others but you will find support.

@Abigail12345654321

He puts their songs on Facebook? Why? Is it important to him that the world knows he’s still thinking about his dead wife? He sounds very strange. Does he lack self esteem? Does he desperately need people to admire him? I don’t buy all this ‘everyone should be allowed to grieve in their own way’ nonsense - I’d be objecting because it makes him look like a total wally. I’d actually be questioning whether I would want to marry someone who needed validation from others to this level.

A neighbour died about 18 months ago and his wife plastered Facebook with "my darling Bill" "Love and miss you so much my heart is breaking" for days on end and then his birthday about three months after the event "Happy Heavenly Birthday Bill, miss you more than ever" with more hearts than you can imagine.

His birthday was last week and she acknowledged it with "Happy Heavenly Birthday" and confided in another neighbour that she was fed up with "Bill" and thinking of splitting with him but did all this so that his sisters and relatives could see.

Not that this man is necessarily doing the same, but some people do seem to grieve more publicly.

I think many of the replies on here are very harsh.
Op has never said she doesn't want him grieving. She has said that there is one particularly intimate aspect to his grieving which he is still choosing to put out into the public domain and this is making her uncomfortable.
I don't understand the tone on here of op needs to either understand or walk away. It's very like the step parenting board where the new partner is constantly expected to negate her issues with her partner & his dc/ex even though the man/dad is nearly always the one at 'fault'.
This man & his child went through something awful & of course they are always going to grieve & remember her. But HE has chosen to move on. HE got with & proposed to another woman & in doing so HE is the one who should be modifying (not stopping) his behaviour out of respect for the woman he has now chosen to spend his life with.
God I am so sick of women constantly being expected to manage not only their own feelings but everyone else's as well!

I agree @Magda72 - if he wasn't in another relationship, let alone being about to marry OP, then none of this matters. He has chosen to be in a relationship, and commit to the OP, and so public tributes are less appropriate. No one is saying he has to forget!!!! Sometimes other people (late wife's family and friends) are very resistant to the bereaved person moving forward with their life with someone else.

It's not the same as losing a child, or a parent.

@Abigail12345654321

He puts their songs on Facebook? Why? Is it important to him that the world knows he’s still thinking about his dead wife? He sounds very strange. Does he lack self esteem? Does he desperately need people to admire him? I don’t buy all this ‘everyone should be allowed to grieve in their own way’ nonsense - I’d be objecting because it makes him look like a total wally. I’d actually be questioning whether I would want to marry someone who needed validation from others to this level.

What an odd response. So much so that I can’t work out our it’s supposed to be funny, but that seems out of context.

I think yabvu as other pp have said, you can't tell him how to grieve. Just because he's getting remarried, didn't make his loss any better or worse, his love and loss for his late wife won't suddenly stop. Why shouldn't he put songs on fb and recognise her. Lots of people put up posts on fb about lost parents yearly, there's no time limit. Some people find it helps them to publicly remember lost ones.

Equally his love for you isn't any less, because he does this for himself and his dc, not anyone else

A close friend lost her husband when her children were under 12. She has now remarried. When she planned to have a 10 year event to remember her husband with their friends her (new) husband told her it was a lovely idea. And to make it more about her first husband he would spend the night out and be back about 10-ish when it was over and he knew she would need him. That's how it done. No usurping, no jealousy.

@L40Postcode/@ImJustMadAboutSaffron
Exactly!

It’s such attention seeking behaviour. Which is fine if people have nothing better to do but it suggests they are doing it for some sort of validation.

To others, I’ve experienced plenty of grief thanks. His wife died a very long time ago. Making such a public song and dance about her anniversary is weird and unnecessary and he is actively choosing to do that for a reason. It’s lazy thinking to just say people must be allowed to grief as they wish - there is a reason he does this and it’s likely because he gets something out of it. Given how public it is, probably a lot of ‘poor you’ messages. He still needs that from people this long after she died? The man needs a therapist if so, not a new marriage.

Abigail, my DH died 30 years ago when our DDs were still babies. I still grieve him every day. He was my soulmate. I never remarried. I mark his birthday, anniversary, date of death etc on social media.
And no, I am not looking for “poor me” messages.
Your comments are vile. You obviously have never genuinely loved anyone.

@Babdoc

Abigail, my DH died 30 years ago when our DDs were still babies. I still grieve him every day. He was my soulmate. I never remarried. I mark his birthday, anniversary, date of death etc on social media. And no, I am not looking for “poor me” messages. Your comments are vile. You obviously have never genuinely loved anyone.

This. My friend loves her new husband and he is wonderful but he respects and understands the fact that she still mourns and will always mourn the life they should have had together. Particularly around milestones, significant events. It doesn't means she doesn't live a full a married life with her second husband. And he is mature enough to understand that. Its not about validation.

@Abigail12345654321

What utter bollocks.

It isn't attention-seeking to, once a year, allow everyone that knew the person to remember them. My children read the messages that people write, remembering their dad. It means a lot to them that people reach out to us around the anniversary, that he mattered, and is missed.

Personally, I wouldn't post if it were up to me alone. I don't need to for myself. I'm doing it for others, to provide them a space to remember, like his mum, like his children. Once a year is not very often to do this, especially as the child will have been 5 years old at the time when this started.

I hope you can find a way to move forward as it sounds like apart from this one thing, the rest of the time the relationship works really well.

As for those saying it's ok to post a picture but not a song, well, I think this is a bit deluded if you think that someone will be less attached to someone if they don't listen to the songs that matter to them. Those songs will always mean something, just as perhaps an old song from when we were young, or from our relative's funeral catches us unawares. You can't actually suppress the feelings connected with the songs even if you get him to never post them again.

@Abigail12345654321 why don't you go onto the bereavement board and tell people they are attention seeking?

I might even see you there because I post regularly about my son and daughter.

Its been well over a decade since they both died so past your arbitrary time limit on grief.

Why are you so disgusted by people seeking support for something traumatic? Why are you so horrified that people might want to talk about their deceased loved ones? Why shouldn't someone struggling one day a year share that with people they are close to?

I bet you're just a joy to be around irl if someone doesn't feel or act the same way as you.

Judging someone else's grief is pretty low, maybe you don't care or have empathy, thankfully lots of us do.

@HelpIcantfindaname Hopefully your by then H will stop the playlists next year out of respect for you as his wife. He's maybe struggling a bit this year with some guilt in his head and maybe feels that he has to continue this for his son again due to some possible sense of guilt. Try to ignore this year. I don't know why some people think grief has to be paraded on FB as if it makes it more valid or something or they grieve more than others.

I don't mean this to sound nasty @HelpIcantfindaname, but you need to remember it's not about you.

I mean that positively. Its not about how much he loves you. Or loves you vs how much he loved and, still, loves her. It doesn't diminish you at all.

This is about him. Its one day. Let him have this one day. The rest of the year, he makes sure you don't feel like you are living in her shadow. Just one day, he wants to do something. Doesn't matter the reasons.

And it's not taking anything away from you at all. Unless you choose to look at it that way.

Let him grieve and do what ever he wants to
Be the bigger person and let it go

@BatshitCrazyWoman - precisely!
I think anyone should grieve as they wish but if you CHOOSE to move on then you owe a bit of respect to the living as well as the dead.
My own dm chose to live with the memory of my df rather than move into another relationship & that was fine - she chose that & she was hurting no one in choosing to live with a memory.
This man has chosen to move on and after 10 years he should be handling his grief in a way that is respectful to the partner HE has chosen.
It's very different if you are asking someone else to share your life with you.

Why is it disrespectful to op for him to grieve the mother of his child?

@ABCeasyasdohrayme

Why is it disrespectful to op for him to grieve the mother of his child?

It's not the doing - it is the how.

How is sharing a song and a memory disrespectful? It really isn't.

It's not the doing - it is the how.

We don't get to dictate how other people grieve 🤨