How did you cope with your widowed father re-partnering?

[PeaceLillyWhiteFlower]

My parents were married for a long time. Not always happily, but sometimes companionable. The end of mum's life was distressing, she was very upset.

Now two years later my father has met The One. Actually he met her a year after my mother died, but is making the move now.

When he first told me, I went mental. Not to his face, but anguished at the unfairness of it all. My mother, six feet under, and him carrying on with a new bird. Also the weirdness of my father having a new boss. I cut contact for a couple of months. Even now I struggle to be normal with him.

We tried to have a discussion recently. He's a pushy, forceful person at the best of times. I felt that he tried to put me on the defensive and then dismissed what I had to say, gaslighting me.

A friend suggested that it might be peri-menopause that is making my reaction so strong, so I'm looking into HRT. The thought that this might be hormonal has actually cheered me up: maybe there's a way out.

He's been quite shifty about the new woman. He recently went to ingratiate himself with her children but hadn't told me and DB anything. I haven't met her and can't face him going on about how wonderful she is.

I know that family estrangments are not the way to go. But I just want to avoid him/this situation.

Did anyone else struggle with this? How did you get though it?

I don't recommend a counsellor. Counsellors are trained only to listen. I recommend a registered clinical psychologist or psychotherapist, who is trained to listen AND intervene to help you make sense of everything

@milkmilkeverywhere @CherryReid @AgentJohnson @Kittyshopping @BackToTheTop @Longsight2019 Thank you

I don't want to be bound by money

@Quitelikeit My father is under new management, but I am still loyal to the old regime. I fully expect to be made redundant.

He is not in the least submissive, but I have seen repeatedly that when a man enters a new relationship, his previous relationship children are distanced, downgraded. In extremes completely forgotten.

Guess I'm asking what a positive father/daughter relationship looks like in this situation. What are the new rules? I have friends whose father died recently and now their mum is on her own. Much less common for the woman to die first, hence the demographic imbalance and rapid re-partnering of widowed men.

Do you have any direct experience of this?

Thank you @milkmilkeverywhere I definitely need to be challenged. I guess that's what some of the shouty posters think they are doing.

my father is under new management, but I am still loyal to the old regime. I fully expect to be made redundant.

Again I don't know if this is a joke or lighthearted but this is a bizarre way to describe your fathers life. 'Under new management/regime'?! Was your mother very controlling of him and you expected you could be the same?

My dad was single for 9 years after he was widowed. I was really happy for him when he found someone. Even though I don’t particularly like her - and I don’t think she particularly likes me! Not anything to do with loyalty to my mum or anything. We just don’t really gel as personalities. But we’re civil to each other and I can see she makes him happy, so I leave them to it.

I’d be sad to see my dad live out the rest of his years on his own. I think it’s odd that you’d want that for your own dad.

@LidlMissSunshine 9 years is a long time. My father was out sharking straight away. The pandemic slowed him down. He probably researched, optimal time to grieve and repartner as well. I expect there's advice on two years being the ideal gap. If he wanted he could have repartnered a month after mum's funeral. There were offers on the table pretty much immediately.

When you say 'leave them to it' do you mean minimal contact? Do you live far away?

OP I feel for you. It's is a major adjustment to your family life and all I can say is that in my experience it does improve with time. Be kind to yourself it will take time to adjust.

@MichelleScarn a bit of both. I watched a debate about rail strikes on parliament channel in the dentists waiting room this week. Feel like I'm the RMT shop steward, fearful of change, digging her heels in. My father is the braying Tory MP who will always win and come out on top.

Yes, mum was needy and tried to exert control over my father. Draining for her and put her on the back foot all the time.

The two years after she died were very intense. Have seen way more of my father than when she was alive. I need to rebalance my life away from my father. I don't know where the point of equilibrium is.

@Changerazelea thank you. Have you had a similar experience?

Feel like all my options are that teammum loses and teamdad wins. I'm the last member of teammum and losing most ungraciously. I feel ashamed. He can add my failings to the multi-volume catalogue of mum's failings.

Why does it need to be teammum vs teamdad? Were you brought up to have to pick sides by either or both of them?
Why would seeing your dad be happy be failing her?

Similar experience of a parent moving on quickly and expectation that their new partner should fit seemlessly into ours and our DC lives. Little acknowledgment of or consideration of our feelings around this new family dynamic was very painful. I have slavaged what I could of the relationship but it's been difficult and lost respect for them in many ways.

It helped me a lot at the time to acknowledge my feelings as my feelings. Those telling you should be happy for your Dad are jumping the gun really. You may well be happy for your dad but this will come in time only if he and his new partner put the time into building that relationship with you.

Family change due to remarriage late in life is not straightforward by any means.

How did your mum die? Was it sudden or was it a long illness?

I’m not really understanding the ‘team mum’ ‘team dad’ thing. How would you prefer it to be? Your dad staying single? What do you want?

It sounds like your parents had a difficult relationship. It can be incredibly destabilising, even as an adult child, to realise that actually your parents’ marriage maybe wasn’t all that happy.

My sister discovered my dad’s new relationship about 9 months after mum died. She went ballistic. My view was that it was nothing to do with me, he was a single man and his private life is nothing to do with me.

I wouldn’t dream of begrudging a bereaved parent the chance of happiness.

I would add that my own parents’ marriage was a shit show and they never should have stayed together.

Although he never said it, I can imagine my dad felt an enormous sense of relief when she died. And being scarred from that relationship was probably why he took so long getting into another one.

OP, I mean this kindly, but teammum is irrelevant. She’s no longer here and nothing your dad can do will hurt her. Your dad, OTOH, could have years, decades left. It’s not fair to expect him to be alone if he can be happy with a new partner.

From everything you write, it sounds as though the heart of the trouble lies in your parents relationship and how you perceived your Mum as a victim.

Is it possible you feel a sense of misplaced loyalty to your Mum and this is stopping you accepting your Dad's new partner?

Your parents relationship sounds unhappy and it must have been difficult to be the child in that situation.

Sometimes parents involve their child in their dysfunction. Your views about team mum/team dad suggest you were forced to pick sides and in return received love and protection.

I think you would benefit from some therapy.

You're being really selfish and unreasonable. Your poor dad deserves a life and some happiness. If you want to wallow in bitterness and wear sack cloth and ashes that's up to you, but let your dad live his life.

OP it sounds like you have a touch of "main character syndrome". You are acting as though you are the star of the show, and the people in your life (specifically your father) are nothing more than props and cyphers.

Try to remember that your father is a fully realised person in his own right. He has his own fears and needs. His marriage and widowerhood are his own to navigate as best he can.

At the moment you seem to be weaponising your grief at your mother's death in order to keep your father miserable and alone because that better suits you. Quite a startling lack of empathy in your post.

There are two things at play here; your still very raw grief for your mother and your outrage at your perceived disloyalty of your father.
treat yourself to some counselling and unpick all these feelings. You’ll do better all round. And it’s perfectly ok to take a break from seeing your dad while this is going on.
And breathe, this has been going on for centuries; widower remarries when his previous wife is barely cold in the ground to the outrage and grief of his existing family. If it helps , be thankful that you are not a child at home while this is happening. You’ll be ok. it’s just the way they (men) are.

I wonder if your negative feelings are more about your complicated grief. Please don't be like this with your Dad. I was happily married for 40 years before I was widowed. I met my partner a year after, luckily, both my children were happy for me. They know I adored their Father, I'll never forget our times together, but I have to go on living, and I don't want to do it alone. I love my partner so much, but it doesn't detract from what I had before.
Another thing to consider is that when someone is terminally ill , their spouse has started their grieving long ago, long before the person actually dies, often , by the time they die, it's a relief.

@Changerazelea thanks. Yes I feel like a useless failure for being upset about. Glad you got there in the end. Better to know that it is a hard slog.

The woman is long divorced. Her children have two parents, father re-married. They are delighted that mum finally has a serious suitor. Apparently they 'welcomed with open arms' my father.

So it's already New Family 1, Old Family 0.

@devildeepbluesea how is your sister now? Is she the first born?

@boysarethebest @lookleft I'm keeping of the way as much as possible right now. He is living his life, including wooing this new woman.

My question is to others in this situation: How did you get from feeling upset and conflicted to feeling okay about it. What did you do?

@PerseverancePays yes railing against male privilege is a sure route to madness. That's one of the mistakes I have been making. And yes, grateful I'm not a child in this situation.