Grief and the new girlfriend

[ButlinsReward]

I will start by saying I'm really suffering with this and I'm not sure what I'm looking for. Perhaps just a listening ear.

I will try to keep what is a very long story, concise.
Mum died recently. Dad was absolutely devastated. Before and after her death, I had to a large extent put my own life on hold to support them. She had been ill, requiring care, but it wasn't a terminal illness, so her death came as a huge shock. She was only in her late 60s. Her mother is still alive, in fact.

Dad asked if he could live with us, and he said he felt so much happier when he was with us (me, dh, and DC). I told him of course, but don't rush into a decision fuelled purely by grief.

Fast forward a couple of months and he has announced he has a new girlfriend, and has pretty much moved in with her, hundreds of miles away. I haven't seen him in weeks.

He assumed I would welcome this woman into our lives with open arms, but I said I needed time as I am still very much grieving my mother. He took this as hostility, describing me as hostile to my sibling. He has also somehow decided that my primary motivation is money.

I mean, to my mind I could say that about her - she seems quite happy to have this man in her life buying champagne and roses for her, and going on holiday with her.

Obviously he's a grown up and can do what he wants, and I am acutely aware that parents who are divorcing present their kids with a new step parent and the kids are expected to accept that.

But this feels really hard for me, and I don't know how to move past this. Mum seems all but forgotten.

About twelve years. He worked with her husband about 35 years ago.

Good gracious that's dreadful, I'm so sorry.

He has invited me to a birthday party hosted by her. I don't know what to say. I feel awful. Sick. I don't want to go, but I don't want to hurt him.

This is making me so upset and ill, which I don't need. I have to look after my DC.

Oh OP I'm so sorry that he's causing you all this upset.

Gently, I think I'd back away a little bit while you're still processing your grief. That in itself is enough strain for anyone let alone adding life on top and this with your Dad.

I'd tell him you can't go.

I'd be honest with him. Tell him you're happy that he's found someone who makes him happy, and that you know that this person isn't a replacement for for Mum for him. But that for you, you can't cope with trying to integrate someone new into your family while you're still grieving the loss of your Mum so deeply. I'd also tell him that you're missing him. That you're missing your Mum deeply and that his absence from your lives is making you feel like you've lost him a bit at the same time.

Such a beautiful response. Thank you 💖

My sibling has agreed to meet her.
She can do what she wants but I know that I will be painted as the outlier for continuing to refuse, and sibling has "accepted her".
Life for the next thirty years is not going to be easy.

There is an awful lot of judgment of grieving widowers and selfishnrss from adult children with families of their own and spouses to support them .
You have your husband to go home to and cuddle at night, but you want your dad to go home and just be alone. (And being surrounded by ‘family’ is no substitute for a person to cuddle and confide in.)
I know two widowers who started relationships with women at a time judged by the assault children as ‘too soon’
In neither case was the woman a gold digger just an unwarranted assumption by the children. In both cases the children were selfishly worried that the widower would have less time to babysit the grandkids and less money to spend on them.
You can remember your mum in your own way. Your dad will not have simply forgotten her or not be grieving just because he is making a new life.
The two widowers I know talk freely and naturally to their new partners about the late wife, not obsessively and wear wedding rings etc -new women perfectly fine with that.
My own mum aged 85 was woo’d by the widower living opposite soon after my dad died. My brother and I are delighted that she has a companion to share things with and someone to look forward to the future with.
To want to condemn a bereaved parent of any joy or comfort is wholly selfish.
Good on the sibling who has kindly ‘accepted’ her and is not making life more difficult for the widower.

This is what men do.

I don't want him to be alone. He is welcome to live with me; in fact he asked me if he could. But by your reckoning it's normal for him to prefer to move in with a perfect stranger than be with his family?

Fine, men have 'needs' but to tell me that my grief is lesser, and that I have to accept this woman is callous.

No-one is saying your grief is lesser (as if it were a competition????? anyway?)
If he moved in with you he clearly wouldn’t be able to move on in a new relationship because you want to prevent that. He would not be able to welcome her into his home. Why not let him deal with grief in his own way?
It will be making it harder for him if he feels he has to manage your grief and thatyou expect him to put your needs over his.
It is for him to decide when he is ready for a new relationship.
Please make it easier for him and let him have some enjoyment in life and take the lead from your lovely generous sibling who is putting aside her own feelings to priotitise supporting him.

Ok

He literally told me that my grief is lesser, but ok, you know best.

This. I think a lot of people on this thread (and in society) are making excuses for men and trying to paint their motivations in a nice light, when really it's just that they just want sex, attention, and looking after.

My very extroverted, outgoing grandfather lost my grandmother and was single for the next decade until he died, as no one could replace my grandmother for him. He found distraction and companionship in family, friends, and community projects.

I'm very sorry, OP, it sounds so difficult and frustrating to deal with at a time when you're already struggling. I suppose all you can do is be honest with him and say you feel a little sidelined/would like to see more of him, without being judgemental about his relationship.

That's a dickish thing for him to say, frankly. She's your mum! The sort of loss you're feeling is so much more primal than his, and it was cruel of him minimise your grief in order to excuse the fact that he's leapt into a new relationship with another woman.

It's horrible, but it might be best for you to step back for a while, until your grief isn't quite so raw. Vimes's suggested message above was a good one.

I'm sorry you are going through this OP.
It's far too soon to be playing happy families and he shouldn't be expecting you to either nor should he be claiming your prime motivation is money.
Perhaps he should be considering what his new girlfriend's motivation might be too?

Unfortunately some men do seem to move on fast. Sometimes it's because they just can't cope on their own; sometimes it's because they had a wonderful, long marriage and are desperately missing having companionship; sometimes the marriage was all but over and there was someone already waiting in the wings. There can be lots of reasons but it doesn't make it any easier for you.

My mother died of breast cancer and in the last few months there were already a couple of women my dad knew from church or a nightclass or somewhere (I forget where), who were constantly phoning him offering support and as soon as my mother died one of them in particular wouldn't leave my dad alone. He just wasn't interested and he actually told me she'd "become a nuisance" and how could he deal with her.
Another man might have been glad of the companionship and started dating this woman.
I know my Dad was very lonely though and although he didn't start anything with that woman, about 18 months later he started an affair with another woman (I only found out about it after his death). I can't condone anyone having an affair with someone else's wife and it really shocked me and did change the way I thought about him.

OP, I would suggest you go and talk to your Dad. Tell him you are happy that he has found someone who makes him happy but that for you it's just a little bit too soon and that you need to grieve your Mum first in your own way, that you'll always be there for him and in time you're happy to get to know this woman, just not right now.

We’re 20 years down the line & my FIL has had many women come & go during the period.

My DH & FIL are close again but not as close as they were as DH still feels the pain of how quickly his dad moved on (including insisting that his GF at the time was fully included in the first Christmas following MILs death - both he & his sister were distraught).

SIL has always met the GFs & got used to including them as she lives closer to FIL & eventually found them helpful in running around after him (saved her a job) but DH rarely meets them & has never invited them to our house or events (& told his dad no when he would request the GF come along). His dad comes alone or DH meets him alone (with DCs etc) but DH has really struggled with it, so to keep the relationship, it’s like he pretends it never happened.

Hopefully your dad will come to see your point of view Op - our situation has come about following a massive blow up 20 years ago & FIL seemed to understand DHs point of view (to a point) - FIL is mid-80s now & still has various women come & go (generally in their 60s - where or how he meets them, I have no idea!)

Oh Hugs.

I was going to say he is just lonely until I see he said that! I can 100% say if my partner died my children would feel the most grief as they are OF them.

It's is different kind of grief though. You cannot replace a parent like a partner. I wonder if he is now freaking out with his own advancing mortality. I know I am freaked out about aging more now I have a rough idea of an expiry date. He is possibly trying to cram as much as he can into those remaining years.

Though when I think of that, it is my children and their possible children I see more than my partner.

I think men, perhaps particularly men of your Father's generation, don't tend to have close male friends.

I was stunned when MIL died and FIL told me that he did not have close friends to talk to about his grief. I was stunned. This was a man who was heavily involved in several social groups, had been for decades ( for at least one for his whole life, he joined it in his teens). I had always seen him as a very well socially connected men. But clearly these were not emotional relationships like most women would have.

I remember reading that if you ask a wife who her best friend is she is likely to name a female friend but the husband is likely to name his wife. I think this is often true.

So for some men the death of a wife, especially if they have had a close and happy marriage, is particularly devastating as it leaves a huge relationship hole in their life.

FIL was utterly devastated by MILs death. They had been together since he was 17. He quite quickly made a lady friend (and he said they were just friends) and they went on dinners, trips, weekends away etc. I think he was just terribly lonely.

I'm not a cynic about it like some on here.

It's okay to be the outlier, you need to focus on your own needs first and foremost.

Bucking the 'men do this' trend, my mum did this within two months after my dad passed away, both in their 80s. She was suddenly seeing a man who was sort of a family friend but evidently there'd been ancient history I didn't know about and now it seemed there was no time to waste. It fucked me up quite a bit as I was in the midst of grieving my dad - and so was she in her own way - and i couldn't cope with even thinking about it really, whereas my brother, like your sister just went along with it, mainly because he doesn't think much about other people so it simply doesn't bother him that much.

I ended up seeing a therapist to talk it all through and the conclusion was that it's fine for my mum to do what she wants but also fine for me to have my boundaries. I still have my relationship with her as my mum but I don't want to have anything to do with this guy or know anything about what they're up to.

This would be harder for you as your dad is younger and they're together all the time by the sounds of it, whereas mine will never live together and it's not going to be very long-term due to their ages. But you can still have that same principle - that it's fine and healthy for you to have boundaries on what you will/won't do and that what other people want/do doesn't matter if it doesn't fit with your own needs. You need to grieve your mum in your own way without this fucking it up. If you push your own feelings down, they'll just make things worse later on. I'd recommend seeing a good therapist so you can let it all out and work out a way forward that you can cope with. Take care and don't be pushed around by them. 💐

I don't think your Dad is completely wrong though. Lesser is a bad word to use, but his grief will be different from yours.

When I thought about grief after my Mum died, I realised it has two components.

There's the love you felt for that person, persevering on after their death. And because that love has nowhere to go, it hurts. I doubt your Dad for a second thinks that you loved your Mum less than he did.

It's the other component that he'll be talking about. The hole that gets left in yourself, your own life when someone dies. For a child losing their parent, that hole can be big, but it's quite well defined. For me, when Mum died, yes there's a big hole in the middle of my life, but my life itself didn't change much. There's a gap where there used to be phone chats on the walk home from work, or Sunday dinners, or my best source of advice used to be. If I see someone fall off a ladder, there's no-one who'll understand why I found it inappropriately funny any more, because that was something only my Mum got. But my day to day, my routine didn't change that much after the first few weeks. Life went on. So a big hole, but with well defined edges.

It don't think it's like that when you lose a partner. The hole isn't well defined, the edges are frayed. It seeps into everything. Something as simple as dinner changes. You're cooking for yourself now. The TV shows you watch in the evening. I only watch Strictly because DP watches it, do I stop that now? I'd imagine it's like that aimlessness you feel when a relationship ends, but magnified a million times.

You don't have to do anything about that hole when you've lost a parent, because the rest of your life surrounds it. But with a partner, you can't just leave it, because your whole life starts unravelling if you do. So you have to start stitching the parts of your life back together.

I can completely understand why your Dad would prefer to live with a stranger rather than you. If he moves in with you, then he's just stitching the tattered pieces of his life onto yours. He's not building himself a new life, he's just grafting onto the routines and rhythms of you and your family

With someone else, someone that wasn't a part of his old life, its building something new rather than trying to fill in the gaps.

It's why I think as well that you're reacting so strongly to the idea of this woman. You have this big clearly defined mum-shaped hole in your life, so it feels like your Dad is trying to force this woman into it. He's not, he's just trying to include you in a new part of his life.

That still doesn't mean you need to meet this person until you're ready to, although you may need to accept that you may see less of your Dad until you do, unless you can get him to understand that you need time with just him right now.

Why does this mean anything about life for the next 30 years? Fair enough, you need more time to grieve, it's difficult to be around this lady right now. But don't catastrophise the whole rest of the future based on it.

@B9waiting it's a story as old as time isn't it? My FIL took up with a mutual friend of his and MIL within a couple of months of MIL's sudden death. He suddenly had no time for his two children or his grandchildren. Everything he did was with his new wife and her family. He ruined the family relationship and his family never thought the same of him again. Unfortunately for him, when he became old and ill, nobody wanted to know, including his new wife and her family.

Well if his own family were the kind of people who ‘didn’t want to know’ just as well he didn’t waste time on them /he might as well be with other people who didn’t want to know.