Challenges of dating a widower
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For it to work, the widower will have to put his caballeros for his late wife to the side and focus on you. It has made our lives so much brighter. I am wise enough to know that people are like snowflakes, there are no two people alike. Plan a night out for the two of you at least once a u so that it is an escape away from home life and you will feel refreshed and appreciated too. I read it through and then I read the comments. Timing may be crucial.
Dating someone who has been married before and has created a life with someone else before you, is not easy and there are many struggles and challenges that you will face. Thinking very carefully before entering into this relationship is of vital importance, especially if you have not been married before, or if you have had no children of your own, as you might not get the chance to be married or he might not want to have any more children. A widower has made a life with someone else and he has been through a wedding, in-laws and has created a family already, so before you start to get serious you need to discuss a future and what you would like before you or he can fully commit. A widower is even more of a challenge as with everything in life, time is the only thing that can heel wounds. You need to be sure that he is in love with you and that he is over his wife or ex. It is also important to understand that there is an external family that will want to share experiences with the children. Grandparents and siblings of your boyfriends late wife will want to stay in contact and there is no option here but to accept it. Memories of their mother will be important to them and your boyfriend or husband will want to share these with his children so that they will always remember who bore them. This is also something that you will have to accept. For a widower that was almost divorced before, there might be no hidden feelings but for a man that has just lost his wife, you can be certain that it will take time for him to move on and dating as soon as it has happened will ensure that he is not over his late wife. Should you date him soon after his has lost his wife, your life will not be a happy one as he will always be thinking of his late wife and will want to spend as much time as he can soaking in all the memories, his children will be constant reminders of his late wife and he might still be in mourning, with depressive behaviour and will not show much interest in you or your life. Children that have lost a parent might display many emotions and act out, after losing a parent. You need to be patient and understand that they are hurting. It is important to know that they might suppress their real feelings and resent you. They will resent you in some way and if not now, later there will come a time where they will hate you and wish for their real mom to be there, instead of you. Some children cry and scream and mourn right away, letting out all their emotions; anger, rage, sadness and finally acceptance. This is the best way for them to move forward. Other children hold their emotions in and they move forward but will one day in the future have an emotional outburst, either with resentment towards you or they will behave in inexplicable ways by displaying unusual behaviour in many different ways. They could become distructive or isolate themselves from their peers and home- life. Kids who are six years and younger will not have much of a problem moving forward as they are too little to understand what has happened but children who are six and up will know what has happened and you will have to face the fact that they will need help with understanding the pain and emotions that they will be going through. It is of benefit to both the parents and the children to ensure that you have an open discussion about what has happened and how everyone feels. You will need to work through this as a unit in order for your family to move forward and be happy and at peace. Some families need to speak to someone other than their parents or family and therapy is a good idea to get children who suppress their feelings, to deal with their grief. Children need you to heal the hurt and let them know that there is hope for the future. You need to let them know that they can turn to you at anytime for any reason, to speak about their hurt. It is extremely difficult to take on children that have already been raised by a mom and dad. You are coming into a family that have already built a life and made their set of rules. Your ideas of raising children might be very different to the way your partner has been doing it and change cannot happen overnight. If they have been used to doing things in a certain way, it is extremely difficult to change bad habits or create new rules. As partners you need to know what is expected from each of you and the children in order to build a life and a home together. A mutual understanding between partners is important and you need to be supportive as well as your partner needing to support you too. Your family will eventually develop and grow with the rules or ideals from both your backrounds, if you work together. If you are alone in the way you believe children should grow up, then you are wasting your time as you will never gain any respect and your home will fall apart. As long as you give love and affection to the children and make them feel that they belong, you will already be halfway there. The older children remember more and it is important to let them talk about what they remember and allow them the freedom to speak about the past, whenever they feel the need to do so. You are a parent but at the same time, they already have a mother, even if she is no longer there, she will always be considered their mother and you need to ensure that her legacy continues through to her children. The younger the child, the easier it is to raise them. They do not understand what has happened and they will not remember much. It is your job to ensure that they will grow up to know who their mother was and to give them as much information as you possibly can. Raising the younger ones is a lot easier as they will learn from you and your ideas and family values will be easier to install. In the beginning, they might be a little moody and cry but this is because they are missing the nurturing, which you cannot give them but as a women, we all have a maternal instinct and all you will need to do, is give lots and lots of love. Patience is something that you will need a lot of and as long as you try your best to give them all the love that you can, then you will be fine. If you have come into a relationship before the children have lost a parent then things might be a bit easier for you because they are already familiar with you and might be able to communicate their feelings to you. You can never expect to take their mother's place and it will be important for them to learn everything about their late mom, they will want to look at photographs, they will want to see home movies and they will also want to stay close to their mother's family. The children will want information from their father and he will be expected to give them that information freely. Family of the late wife, might resent you from the very beginning as it is part of their grieving process and they will also be unsure of your intentions with the children. Having an open communication with them is important so that they can see that you do care and you will love and cherish their little ones. The children will expect you to give them information about their mother and they will want to be in a loving and understanding environment with people that they can share their feelings with. Be a mom, someone to talk to and let them know that you are there for them. Help them heal and let them know that there is hope for a future. Men do not do things in the same way that women do and most of the time, ensuring that children eat properly, get enough sleep and stay healthy is up to the mother to do. Father's usually allow their kids to eat sweets whenever they want to and let them go to bed anytime as they do not think maternally. Women understand that if you eat too many sweets you will get sore teeth, if you do not go to bed and get enough rest, you will not be healthy. With this you need to know that he will feel guilt and the children will be given things and they will be allowed to do anything that they want in order for their father to stop them from feeling sad. Making rules and taking over from the bad habits that he has formed, will be a very challenging and daunting task as the children will resent you or they will let you know that their father has allowed them to do what they do. Father's do not really think of the consequences of eating badly, or lack of sleep or even too much television as it has always been left for mom to deal with, whilst dad is at work. Changing bad habits is something that needs to be done immediately or else it will never change and things might get unpleasant otherwise. You and your partner need to talk about health and the care that children need so that you both understand from the very beginning. Your partner also needs to understand that your commitment to him and his family is a huge responsibility and that if you are in it for the long - term, then you have to get the respect as a parent and the support from your partner. Allow him to give his children what he wants to but there are limits for guilt and it cannot be something that is done too often as this will teach the children that love can be bought and when they act up, they will know that dad will give them what they want. Give him enough time to help them grieve and eventually talk about things but once they have all settled then it is time to ensure that the children grow up knowing about discipline, respect and love, unconditionally. If he does not support your efforts by talking behind your back or by allowing his children to treat you badly, then your relationship with him and the children will never work and you will have only frustration and hurt. When taking on the responsibility of becoming a legal guardian or adoptive parent to your boyfriend or husbands children, you need to know that the road you choose is not going to be an easy one for you. There will come a time, now or years down the line where the children will wish that you were not around and they will either hate your or accept you, but they will never really see you as a mother figure. You could be living happily and suddenly find that the children you have sacrificed your own life for, will turn around and acknowledge their father and their birth mother. You might not be mentioned or thanked for being there as a parent. With this, you must understand that you need to do the best that you can with raising them and even though they will one day knock you down or leave you alone, the concellation will be that you did a great job at raising these children as your own and as long as they are healthy, happy and successful, then that is all you could hope for. These points are of great value to you if you are thinking of going out with a widower. Before you date, you must know whether your partner is grieving or if he is ready to move forward. You can never replace the children's mother but you can be a goo mom, that will love and care for them. The family will always want to remember the mother and memories will always come up and be referenced. Never compare yourself to their late mother Ensure that there is a mutual respect between you and your partner about how you would like to raise the children. Give them all the love that you can even though, they might never really appreciate it. Hi, I had a rough marriage with my ex for 25 years. He isn't aware he is emotionally, verbally and mentally abusive and cheated on me so many times with different women. Ever since I divorced him I never trusted men until I met my boyfriend who is a widow. He has three grown up kids and so as mine. We'd been together for a year. Sad to say, but he and his late wife had a rough marriage. His kids didn't know about it. He stayed for the love of his children. She suddenly passed away. It's less than a year when we started dating. He wasn't looking to be in a relationship, it just happened after six weeks of hanging out once a week. He's been so wonderful and so good. Two of his kids have not accepted our relationship. I am a mother. I feel how they feel. My boyfriend loves me. He is not the type of guy who would say things he didn't mean. He is a man of few words. I'd been spending time with him in his house with his latte wife. I was honest with him about not feeling comfortable in their house and being surrounded with her pictures and her stuff and I want to be respectful to her. I am a mother and have no intention of replacing her in her kids life. She is who she is and I am me. We are two different people. I cry and feel with my man whenever we came across her late wife's things that we had to pack. He thought it's time to move forward for it's so hard to be around his house. I told him it's very uncomfortable for me and his kids being in their mom's house and I get that. He told me that even before she passed away he was already looking into getting a new place and smaller this time. He asked me to move in with him and we are. I never realized it's hard being with a widow than being with someone who is single. I am feeling uncomfortable having her pictures around in our future place, but I know I have to understand and accept it out of respect for his boys and their feelings. My boyfriend doesn't know the things to keep and memories of their mother to keep for their kids and future grandchildren and I feel obligated to keep it for them. I don't know why I feel how their mother feel. As much as it makes me feel uncomfortable being surrounded with her things, I feel guilty not having some of it in our new place to make their kids feel good having their mother's pictures around. I sometimes don't know what to do. My boyfriend wants some of her wall frames for their kids to see and I totally understand that, but it still makes me feel uncomfortable. I have no doubt that my boyfriend loves. I have never felt so loved in my entire life. The kind of life I have never experienced from my previous relationship. I am not welcome to any of his two kids party's and we spent xmas and New year's apart and Thanksgiving last year because of his kids. I didn't wanna put him in such position and so as his kids. I don't know what to do. Holidays are coming again and we are officially moving in together sometime this month. Is it ever gonna get better? I know time heals wounds, but it makes me depressed thinking about holidays and seeing my boyfriend sad and hurting coz he couldn't get me and his kids together in one place. I love him dearly. I am not sure sometimes how to make things better. I'd been very understanding and sensitive to his kids feelings especially to my boyfriend. Any advice would be highly appreciated. She is 45 and I am 36. She is absolutely amazing. I can only normally see her once or twice a week with her schedule. She has 2 kids. Daughter 13 son 10. Their father passed away 8 years ago. When I am around her I feel that my love for her is getting stronger and I need to tell her. I am very hesitant to do so because I have not met her kids, also i do feel uncomfortable when she mentions his name. I do want to marry someone one day but it is very difficult to know how to approach this situation when I do have very strong feelings for her. Any advice would be appreciated! Teenagers can be very difficult especially if they are girls as they will get jealous and sometimes hurtful because they assume you are taking their fathers love away. You need to be honest with them and tell them that you are not there to replace their mother but you will be there to support them and they should feel free to speak about their mother or their feelings. Let them know that you will be there as a parental figure and both you and your partner need to be ready to stand together as one or it will not work at all. The children need to know that you are both strong together and that you love each other as well as understanding that you will both love them too. I think a sit down as a family will be a good idea so that you can discuss what your plans are and let them ask questions if they need to but you also need to make them understand that it is going to happen and that they will be loved either way. I have been dating a widower for 5 months and we already met our respective children from previous marriages. His late wife has passed away 2 years ago and his children are young teenagers. Mines are young adults, both in University. We have been talking about moving together, specially because we live in different cities and, because of the distance, we can only see each other twice a week. We miss each other constantly but when we get together we do many things that we both enjoy: dancing, movies, dinner, spiritual talks, etc. We do not know how to address the big change and we do not want to hurt his children who, already suffered a lot. Do you have a thought you could share with us about how to deal with this complicated issue? I think in every family you need to have a date night with your spouse so that it doesn't feel as though you are only mom and dad all the time. A date night allows you to be a couple where you can talk freely and feel relaxed without having to discuss domestic issues. Plan a night out for the two of you at least once a week so that it is an escape away from home life and you will feel refreshed and appreciated too. It is also important to keep the kids busy if they are home all the time and get them into routines where they study at a certain time and go to bed at a certain time, allowing you relax time on the couch in peace. Chores are also a good idea as it gives them responsibility which keeps them busy. When you feel that you need a time out, you need to discuss this with your spouse so that it doesn't bottle up and let you explode later on. Organise for the kids to do outside activities as well so that it gives time to clean and do things that you cannot do when they are there. Perhaps a sport or an extra mural activity. I am completely lost in my relationship. I love my husband, I'm fond of the kids. I feel guilty because I want the kids to go away to school by the age of 20 , have jobs and outside interests. I entered my marriage with the expectation of having family life until the 14 year old goes to college. After that I want to spend my life with my husband. I don't like being accused of being needy because I want a companion. They are home the majority of the time as high school becomes less as they get older and college classes can be taken on line. I feel stifled and long for the days when my husband and I can have our home to ourselves for a few hours. Am I very selfish? I think after 3 years and at her age she should be accepting of your happy news and perhaps she feels that her dad is the only link she has left, the fear of you getting married and taking the only parent away might be what she is thinking. I would sit her down and speak openly about how you feel, that she will not loose her father by marrying and also ask her why she does not seem happy? It is very important to open up and talk. Let me know hoe it goes. He is 53, I am 52, his wife was 54 when she died. We started out our relationship very slowly and were friends for over 6 months before we got 'serious' he felt like he was cheating, so we took it really slowly Anyway, I eventually met his daughters and granddaughter. Everything went fairly well, even dealing with all the different personalities. The eldest girl, 35 I got on the best with, we would have a few drinks together and talk about absolutely anything.. She is not his, he adopted her at age 7, she was his first wifes. The granddaughter is painfully shy, but loves me to bits! Anyway, we had discussed it with the family and told them we were going to be getting engaged then married, they all seemed delighted. We got engaged 3 days ago, and, the eldest one who is the ONLY one who had mentioned marriage.... The other 3 phoned their Dad and me in floods of happy tears, I also got good news about my stage 4 cancer on that day... Just wondering how best to deal with the eldest daughter. Let her come to terms? For now have fun and enjoy each other but without compromising your own future. In time he will be able to commit and be in love but this will take time as it takes more than three years to get over the grieving process and for him to let someone else take over the role of mom, will be a big decision. I personally think that so many complications with going out with someone that has a child, that has been married before and also is a widower. Why complicate your life when you are so young. Leave your options open and try not to get serious because I say that you know if someone you are dating is serious about you and you deserve to be treated as the best thing in that persons life, adored and loved because in this type of relationship he is probably not wanting to commit seriously, especially if he was married before, he is not looking to commit again for a long time. Him and I have been together for almost 6 months, so I would say it's gotten serious. He was married to his late wife, and I'm pretty sure I'd want to be married to him one day, also have a child with him. The discussion you talk about, to let him know where I stand and where I would like to go, we had that a few weeks ago. He said that if he just wanted my company, my support and all the physical advantages, he wouldn't have lasted more than 3 months into the relationship before pulling out and moving on to someone else, afraid of the commitment and lack of future. That gives me confidence about his intentions, I am 100% sure he has genuine feeling about me. He just might not be madly in love, because that's an emotion he has litterally shut off in order to cope with what happened and came after his wife had passed. He looks at things everything in his life pretty much on a day to day basis, so he says he wants a future with me yet can't make any long-term future plans yet moving in together, children or marriage are all things he steers away from and can't give any conclusive response to when I ask him about them. He doesn't like the pressure when I talk about future plans, he wants things to go well at the moment being but doesn't want to get ahead too far. Nevertheless, we do make short term plans often, every weekend we go places, we recently went on vacation to Kenya, so he does do things and make plans ahead, just not too long term. He is kind of afraid of commitment and falling in love again yet he knows he has to commit in order to continue his life. So he moves back and forth between short-term and long-term commitment. He wants to have a future with me, he just isn't sure how and it scares him too. I'm being patient but we talk about it often enough so he knows where he stands. He just isn't much of a talker when it comes to emotions, but he says he can't give me any promises on the future, just that his feelings towards me are genuine and that his intentions are good. But it's really hard sometimes not being able to go further and push it until he says the things I really want to hear. I'm letting him be honest and do his thing without neglecting me, and it's worked out so far. But I am worried that I will be waiting eternally for him to open up completely. I expect many things, he doesn't expect anything at all. But he does embrace pretty much everything that we do and our relationship, he just isn't able yet to modify the life he's established for the past three years to give me a full-time place in it. What are you thoughts on this? Don't waste your youth on holding on to someone that has no interest in a future with you and he is kindly letting you know where you stand but he could just be saying that. If he is adjusting then it is probably a good idea to back away and let him grieve and adjust without you there. Also if he has been married before and has had a child, the chances of him wanting to do that again whilst having someone supportive and loving, are slim because he has you already and the relationship can go at his pace. Dating a widower with a child is serious from the beginning especially when the children are old enough to understand. The grieving process for someone that has spent many years with their spouse takes long for them to go through and during this time they are not fully committed to you, their whole world has fallen apart now, especially because they are solely responsible for the children. It is good to know that your partner has rules and maintains the responsibility of being a parent. There are times when he will recall the past as it is going to be a part of his childs future and that you have to accept. The first thing that you have to do is establish what you are doing there? Is it just for fun and friendship, someone to get him over the bumps or does he actually love you and have genuine feelings for you? You need to ask if the relationship is a serious one and for you, you need to understand that your whole life will change by becoming a parent to the child. It is a huge responsibility and if he is not wanting a serious commitment than time wating is time wasted. I would have a discussion with him to let him know where you stand and where you would like the relationship to go and see what he says. Obviously if you have just started dating then take it at a relaxed pace and see where it goes but if you have been dating for a while, then you do need to communicate what you are both expecting. I recently started a blog on it too, in the hope to channel everything I feel and come across, and share it with people that go through it or have been there you can find my blog here: I don't know if the author of this article has gone through dating a widower, and what the circumstances might be, but from where I'm standing it's a very black-n-white view on things. For instance, I'm 24, my boyfriend is 34. He lost his wife 3 years ago, when their daughter was only a few months old, and I've been with him for 5 months by now. He has his own business, leaving little time to do the household, so he hires people to do it for him. Except for cooking, which he's pretty good at himself. His wife had a full-time job as well, so it's probably not the pampering he misses I think this rather applies only to older widowers from a previous generation, where gender roles were more stereotypical. She can't have candy whenever she wants, she even won't get a bedtime-story read to her if she doesn't wanto to brush her teeth with her dad's help of course. If she doesn't want to eat her vegetables, there's no desert. If she wants to watch TV but it's time for bed, tough luck for her. He only overcompensates on the love he gives her, which might be more than a child that still has both parents would receive from her dad, but there's nothing really wrong in that. If you've been through this, I hope to hear how and when you knew for sure, but I find it darn hard to give a conclusive answer to that one. It's a process a lot slower than that, and should be handled a lot more carefully than just setting up a game-plan with him. One thing I've learned so far, is that what he says or feels initially might change, may change back too, but there are episodes and periods of time where the grief and his own insecurity towards a new relationship take the upper hand and he might not be all too sure about sharing that previously discussed future with you. And if you're supportive enough to him AND the relationship, he will gradually switch back to being optimistic about the future. But it comes and goes, and nobody can tell beforehand when the grief or the doubt will kick in again. If you've been through this, please share how you dealt with it, and how you got the facts straight before it got serious. I think many things actually change WHEN it gets serious. Because that's when my boyfriend is confronted with an actual future with another women, long term speaking, and that's when certain feelings kick in that can be confusing for him and for me. Now it's just ups and downs, and at the moment he even avoids talking about specific things in the future, but keeps on affirming he does want a future with me, he's just adjusting to the thought and discovering his own feelings. What to do with that, I ask... Login This is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service. Akismet This is used to detect comment spam. HubPages Google Analytics This is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. HubPages Traffic Pixel This is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized. Amazon Web Services This is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. Cloudflare This is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. 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