I’ve been with my partner for around four years - it’s been on and off during that time. When we met it was just meant to be a fling as neither were ready for a relationship, I’d just ended an 18 year marriage and his partner of three years had moved out. However we kept getting drawn back together and earlier this year we got engaged. His wife died 11 years ago, they had children together (now adult) and I would say our ways of grieving are very different so this is why I don’t know whether I’m being unreasonable. I don’t want him to pretend she never existed and understand he still gets sad and will always grieve for her and want to keep some momentos etc. However there are a lot of things that make me feel he is not ready to move on
-He still has a wardrobe of her clothes and boxes of her possessions around the house. He has said he wants to go through them and let go of some of the things. I have suggested he does this with their children, get a memory box etc. But he’s made no effort to start doing this.
-large wedding photo on the wall and lots of photos around the house. I don’t have a problem with photos but when the cleaner dusted his large collection of photos on the sideboard he told her to ensure the ones with his wife always went to the front. He told me when dating he used to take the wedding photo down but always put it back up when the dates left. There are a couple of photos with me too
-is going to be buried with his wife. This I can live with as another significant family member is also buried there.
-the trigger for his past relationship breaking down was as she booked them and all their kids a holiday somewhere that was special to him and his wife and he didn’t want to go and found it extremely difficult emotionally. He has since visited the same place on a day trip with me
-used to ‘write off’ a certain month every year as withdrawal into himself during this month with anniversary’s etc was how he coped with the rest of the year. I pointed out this was not a good coping skill and it wasn’t just a month a year he shut off but the weeks leading up to it etc. he has worked on this and it’s a lot better.
The thing that has really bothered me though is that he’s written valentines cards to her. Last year I told him how I struggled with this and he turned round and said it had been 10 years and he wanted to stop especially as it upset me. You’ve guessed it - did it again this year, not long after we’d got engaged. He can’t explain why he did but quite clearly feels I’m overacting and it’s obvious he still wants to do it. I said I don’t want to marry someone who is buying valentines cards for someone else. It seems so petty - I’m not even that bothered about Valentine’s Day as it’s so commercial. However it’s a very important day to him. I feel so strongly about this!! Has anyone been in a similar position?