The couples’ guide to moving in together

Quoted in a Vox article tilted “The couples’ guide to moving in together”

If your late spouse previously lived in the home, make a plan with your current partner for how much of your spouse’s belongings or pictures will be in the house, says relationship coach Abel Keogh. “I have some clients that are okay with maybe a few photos being out,” he says, “but I have some clients that don’t want any photos. They don’t want any traces of the person.” Similarly, be clear with how much of an ex’s belongings or presence you’re comfortable with. Don’t be afraid to bring up how you’re bothered by your partner holding on to some of their ex’s clothing. It shows you’re serious about making the living arrangement comfortable for everyone.

Aside from the physical space, how you spend time within it is worth discussing. If you’ve spent many years living alone or with another partner, moving in with a new person (and potentially their children) — with unique routines and quirks — may take some getting used to, Keogh says. In addition to talking about finances and chores (more on that later), have a conversation about adjusting to one another’s habits, including how much alone time you expect. What does time spent alone look like for you? Is it recharging in a room by yourself for a few hours or are you satisfied by spending time in silence next to your partner? By setting an expectation of how (and how often) you like to be alone, Nasir says, your partner won’t assume you’re mad at them if you don’t want to hang out all the time.

Read the full article here.

A Second Chance At Love - The Beginners Guide To Widowed Dating

I was recently on the Wake the F*** Up podcast where I discussed a second chance a love, forgiveness, and moving forward. Watch it below or also listen to it on Spotify or Apple podcasts.

This week on Wake the F*** Up, Alix and David sit down with Abel Keogh, a remarried widower who has successfully helped thousands of women know if the widowers they’re dating are ready for a serious relationship. Before we dive in to the rest of the episode, we want to give a content warning that this episode contains discussions about suicide as well as infant loss; topics which may be triggering to some of our listeners. Feel free to skip this episode if you need to, or come back when you’re ready.

To kick off the conversation, Abel shares his personal experience as a remarried widower and discusses his work in helping women navigate relationships with widowers. He has written several books, including “The Wife in the Next Life” and “The Ultimate Dating Guide for Widowers,” and hosts a YouTube channel (@DatingaWidower) full of helpful resources for the widower community, many of which have resonated with Alix. The three move on to discuss the challenges faced by young widowers, the lack of resources available to them, and the importance of setting boundaries with friends and family during the grieving process.

Later in the podcast, Abel shares his story of losing his pregnant wife to suicide and navigating life after her death. He talks about finding support systems that are understanding and helpful, as well as finding ways to cope with grief such as running or journaling. The conversation also touches on topics like loneliness in grief, shame around suicide deaths, redefining relationships after loss, and starting to date again. Abel emphasizes that there is no specific timeline for when someone should start dating again but cautions against getting into serious relationships too quickly before being emotionally ready. He also advises open communication about dating with family members in order to avoid feelings of betrayal or mistrust later on. Alix and David can relate! Both hosts share their own experiences with anger towards their late spouses and discuss how they worked through it over time.

Abel is the author of four dating guides, a memoir about losing his late wife to suicide and falling in love again, and co-author of a book with his wife, Julianna, about the struggles and questions they had to overcome to take their relationship from dating to marriage. His Dating a Widower YouTube channel contains over 200 videos and valuable advice for widowers and the women who are dating or married to them.

Finding Real Connections in the Swipe-Right World: Tips from a Relationship Coach

How do you find love in an age of unrealistic standards of physical appearance, lifestyle, and relationship dynamics? Read what I have to say in this article about the brave new world of dating. Read the entire article.

Excerpt:

OnlyFans, a platform known for monetizing intimate content, has blurred the lines between personal connections and transactional relationships. Relationship coach Abel Keogh says this has set unrealistic standards for physical appearance, lifestyle, and relationship dynamics, leading to confusion and mistrust among those seeking deep and meaningful connections. Intimacy commodification not only complicates dating but also impacts long-term relationships, potentially undermining the foundation of trust and mutual respect.

***

“Participation in or consumption of sites like OnlyFans harms, damages, and ultimately destroys relationships. I’ve talked with many broken-hearted men and women whose self-image and confidence are shattered once they discover their partners' use of such sites behind their backs. This leads to trust issues and makes them more hesitant to date because of their experiences. People don’t want to get burned twice.

“You are not doing yourself or your date any favors by hiding something that will eventually come to light. By concealing your activity or involvement, you’re indicating to your date that you don’t respect them or their values,” he warns.

There is nothing wrong with walking away from a relationship where you're not treated like number one.

Dating After the Loss of Your Spouse

From Giddy:

On his first date with another woman after losing his wife to suicide, Abel Keogh was overcome with guilt and betrayal.

"I felt like I was cheating on my late wife," he wrote on his website.

It took about five dates for Keogh, an author and a relationship coach in Utah, to shake the guilt and enjoy another woman's company. Within a few months, he met his now-wife, Juliana.

Although every widow or widower's journey is unique, Keogh's experience isn't altogether unusual. Dating is often a whirlwind for everyone, but it's distinctly complex for surviving spouses.

***

According to Keogh, fully opening your heart to new love is a challenging, multifaceted process. Along with inner work and intimate communication, forging a new relationship may require significant changes.

"There's a price to pay when it comes to starting a new relationship, and many widows and widowers aren't willing to pay it," he said. "The new love isn't going to plop down and take the place of the late spouse. You need to create a new life with them. A successful, long-term relationship may require redefining relationships with family and friends, taking down photos of the late spouse, selling or redecorating your home, and doing other things that show your new love that they are number one."

Read the entire article at Giddy.

Interview: In the Company of Widowers: How They Grieve & Move On

Me and two other widowers were recently interviewed on the blog Life Lessons at 50 Plus. Excerpt below.

Is the mourning process different for men versus women? Do men do so in more private ways? Are they lonelier in their grief?

Keogh: Men will not cry in public and have less of a tendency then women to break down and cry in general. Typically, if grieving, they’ll talk about their late wife, generally leave pictures out and still wear their wedding rings. If they’re not ready to move on and they begin to date, the date might feel like she’s competing with a ghost; there’s a third person in the relationship.

Lockhart: My grieving has been alone in private for the most part.  

Selner:  I dealt with my grief by talking about it with my daughters and a few other close friends or relatives, frequently telling them how I felt. There was a lot of crying privately and allowing myself to feel the love that was much deeper than I realized before I lost her, and the guilt that I didn’t tell her how deep it was as often as I should have. I am still dealing with it.

How do widowers fill the void from spousal loss?

Keogh: I did a lot of things with my guy friends, which was therapeutic. I also started blogging anonymously at first and then wrote my first book, Room for Two. It was published in 2007—six years after my late wife died.

Lockhart: I have filled the void partially with all the tasks and busy work that follow the death of a spouse. I stay busy with boards, both non-profit and for-profit, and teach a course at Ga Tech.  

Selner: I have never filled the void. But I tried to accept it and adjust to it.  

Read the entire interview here.

Me, My Husband, and His Dead Wife

There's an article on Upvoted about the hardships that come with dating and marrying a widower--something that many readers of this site can relate to. Excerpts below. I'm also quoted several times in the article.

While decorating the Christmas tree, Lara found a place for the special ornament she made for her family this year—a red plush picture frame decorated with little hearts and snowflakes. Displayed inside it was a photograph of a woman, a woman who is not her.

The woman has big eyes, a strong chin and, as Lara describes, a “million-dollar smile.” Lara knows her face well—there are images of her throughout the house she shares with her husband, Dave, and their four kids. Photographs placed in the rooms of the three oldest children. Snapshots tucked in binders on a bookcase in her bedroom. A giant portrait showcased in the den.

Though she never met her, Lara lives with the presence of this woman, Charlotte, who died by suicide in 2011. And she’s been trying to, as she explains, “make room” for her ever since she fell in love with Dave, the husband that Charlotte left behind.

As both the new wife and the new mother to the children the couple had together, Lara, 30, takes the family to Charlotte’s grave every month, makes sure there’s a cake on her birthday and includes her in holiday traditions, such as tree decorating. She does it for the kids, mostly, but also for herself.

“As much as it can hurt me, being allowed to participate in the grieving process to an extent by facilitating these opportunities allows me to not be ignored,” she says. “Otherwise, when grieving happens, I don’t exist.”

***

These are women who know what it’s like to experience profound love with a man who may also—maybe even always—love another woman. Women who are swimming in a massive gray area with very few resources to guide them. Women immersed in a world of grief that is not their own. Women who are constantly told to grin and bear it.

“It’s so conflicting, it makes my head spin,” says Rachel, a 42-year-old professional who has been dating a widower for three years.

As a human, you want to show compassion and sensitivity, she explains. But as a romantic partner, you don’t want to be making out on the couch while gazing at an urn filled with another woman’s ashes—an object that has been the source of many arguments in their relationship, and even a brief breakup.

“You get to a point where you say, ‘I don’t want to hear anymore,’” she shares. “I can’t listen anymore. I don’t want to know what her favorite color was. I don’t want to know what her favorite perfume was.’ I don’t want to live in the shadow of someone else.”

Read the entire article on Upvoted here.

Sex and the Grieving Widower

I got a couple of mentions in a Huffington Post article titled "Sex and the Grieving Widower."

Women who date widowers are sometimes stunned when an actively grieving man presses eagerly for sex. Our culture mandates no "correct" grieving process, and grieving is unique to every individual, but most experts agree that men and women mourn in different ways. Women are less likely than men to seek comfort in sex while grief endures, says a writer at hellogrief.org, citing one reason why a women who is dating a widower "might be amazed that he wants to make love to you."

Silent brooding, isolation, and even anger are stock elements of male behavior, while women tend to "talk it out" with close friends. Support systems are emblematic of the female experience; men do not cultivate support structures in the same way women do.

***

Abel Keogh, author of The Ultimate Dating Guide for Widowers, believes that a widower's impulse to find someone new is ultimately sex-related. "When it comes to sex," he writes, "most widowers find themselves in a tough spot. When their wife passed on, so did regular sex. The desire for sex is one of the reasons widowers start dating again."

***

Recently I posed the question of sex as therapy, distraction, or denial to a friend who was widowed some years ago at the age of 57. He seemed surprised at the question. "A man's grief doesn't mean he stops thinking like a man," he said. "Sex is -- what we do."

Read the full article at the Huffington Post.

Goal: Overcome the Death of a Spouse and Find Love Again

Marathon Girl and I got a write-up in Utah Valley Magazine. The article (and others in the magazine) focuses on achieving goals. My section is about how I made goals to rebuild my life after the death of my late wife. Marathon Girl's section focus on running. If you don't want to read, I at least encourage you to check out the beautiful pictures of Marathon Girl (just ignore the ugly guy next to her). From the article:

Abel Keogh is as uncomfortable with change as the next 6-foot-3 guy. But after becoming a widower in 2001 when his pregnant wife took her life, Abel realized if he didn’t embrace change he also wouldn’t embrace happiness.

Over the next several weeks, Abel forced himself to go through a mental exercise of deciding where he wanted to be in five years. He made a list of 30 or 40 things he really wanted to do, and every day he lived his life as if enacting all of the changes he envisioned.

One if his primary goal was to marry again and have a family. Fifteen months after burying his wife, he married Julie—who he calls “Marathon Girl” on his blog. They quickly added five children, who are ages 7, 6, 5, 2, and 5 months.

***

Many in the widow/widower world get comfortable in their grief and self-pity. Abel knows there is a powerful stage in the next process.

“When I chose to change, I realized I had a chance to create a new life and do things I couldn’t have done before,” he says. “You have to figure out how to adjust or you can get smashed by it.”

On Nov. 10, 2011, Abel marked the 10^th anniversary of his first’ wife’s death with a thoughtful and upbeat post about moving on. He had crossed everything off the list he had made previously.

“We can make the life we want to make,” he says. “We’re the ones who hold ourselves back.”

Abel held himself back by not initially forgiving his first wife for taking her life.

“Once I stopped being angry and blaming her, everything else fell into place,” he says. “For others, this might be losing their job or having their spouse walk out on them. Part of the healing process is moving on and getting past the victim mentality.”

Read the entire article or check out the awesome photos of Marathon Girl.

Author and Widower Gives Advice to Women Dating Widowers

Me and my book, Dating a Widower, got a write-up in today's (Provo) Daily Herald. The story also includes stories about widows and widowers who successfully remarried.

The holiday season can be especially challenging for those who have lost a spouse, but as the season revolves around hope and love, widows and widowers should have hope for the future and may find love in unlikely places. Such was the case for Spanish Fork residents Randy and Melanee Bronson, who in 2007 each lost their first spouse to pancreatic cancer.

Randy's late wife Gayle and Melanee were roommates at BYU, but parted ways when they married. Randy and Gayle moved to Alaska and Melanee and her husband Kev moved to Connecticut, but they continued to keep in touch with Christmas cards every year.

When both spouses died, Melanee continued to send a Christmas card to Randy, and he reciprocated. A year and a half after both their spouses passed away, Melanee and Randy began to correspond and date.

***

There is a source available now for those who may be dating a widower, just as Melanee did a couple of years ago. Eagle Mountain resident Abel Keogh's latest book, "Dating a Widower -- a Guide to Starting a Relationship with a Man that is Starting Over," analyzes the mind and actions of widowers who have dived back in the dating world, giving women dating widowers insights into their motives. Keogh taps into his personal experiences as a widower as well as research and case studies from widowers around the country.

Keogh started blogging about his experiences as a widower back in 2002, while recovering from his wife's death. The blog's popularity grew as women dating widowers sought advice and insights from Keogh.

"I decided to write the book to get the most common issues and concerns out there," he said.

Keogh's blog, www.abelkeogh.com, continues to have Widower Wednesday, a column addressing issues regarding widowers, dating widowers, and moving on.

Read the full story at The (Provo) Daily Herald.