Widower Wednesday: Positive Things about Dating a Widower
July 25th, 2012 | 17 comments
Last week I posted a list of unique problems and challenges GOWs and WOWs face when dating a widower. This week, at the suggestion of the women in the support group, we’ll talk about some of the positive aspects of dating a widower that GOWs and WOWs have experienced when dating their Ws. Feel free to add your own list of positives to the comment section below.
Positive aspects about dating a widower include:
- Being with someone who no longer takes the woman in his life for granted.
- Being with someone who enjoys spending each and every moment with their new love and works hard to make the relationships stronger and more wonderful.
- Being with someone who doesn’t hold grudges because he knows how short and precious life is.
- Being with someone who learned to be more patient, cooperative, and understanding.
- Being with someone who has a new appreciation for life, its beauty, and all that it has to offer.
- Being with someone who put the happiness of the new woman above his own.
- Being with someone who now lives each day like it’s his last.
- Being with someone who doesn’t waste time doing things that don’t matter.
- Being with someone who appreciates the past but doesn’t let it control his future.
- Being with someone who was willing to learn how to communicate and support someone who is the exact opposite of his first wife.
- Being with someone who knows that one’s heart has a greater capacity for love than he ever thought possible.
- Being with someone who realizes that life isn’t defined by loss but by how one picks himself up and moves forward with life.
- Being with someone who is willing to fall love again even if that means the possibility of experiencing grief and heartache in the future.
Many of the above qualities can be found in non-widowed men too. With widowers, however, many of these qualities are either new or are more of the forefront of their personality. I’m a very different person than I was 12 years ago. Had I been unmarried or divorced when my path crossed with Marathon Girl’s, odds are we never would have married. Even though the widowed experience was difficult, it changed me for the better. I know lots of widowers who can say the same thing.
Entry Filed under: Widower Wednesday
Thank you for this lovely list of all the positives. Opened it up after skyping with H who is in Detroit this week and was reminded of all the special qualities that he brings to our relationship because and in spite of having been widowed. I have loved him since I was a girl but his life experience adds a richness and depth to our relationship that makes it all the sweeter.
You’re welcome, Lynn.
Great blog on the brightside…the widowers who have been able to resolve their issues and move on to a healthy place of balance … they have done the hard work and can really start that new life! Well done! Thanks!
On a very practical level, any widower/ widow who dealt with a sick spouse over a long period of time probably has good crisis management skills and a lot of patience.
Or is completely worn out and afraid to give him/herself completely for fear of that crisis management skill and patience being needed again (speaking personally).
My wife was my other half. As much as I try, I will never get over her death. People say that over time the sorrow heals. NO it does not. I have not been able to feel the deep love that I have – yes, still have – for my better half with another woman.
Believe me, wows feel that emotion…
All are excellent attributes. But one missing is the first one that popped out of my sweet woman’s mouth when I asked her if she thought about the pros/cons of dating a W once she learned I was a W.
“A real positive, ” she said, “There’s no bitchy ex-wife to deal with.”
You go girl!
lol, Ted.
Ted, as a sometimes bitchy ex-wife I almost feel compelled to feel insulted. (lol) However, I fully concur with PG on this one. As for the bitchy ex-wife, any ex-husband who misses his daughter’s HS graduation on the flimsy pretext that he thought it was on a Saturday, after multiple reminders of the date and months of assuring her that he would be there, deserves to be bitched at, and more!!
Enjoyed reading your always pertinent and always chuckle-provoking point of view, Ted. It is truly one of the things I miss most about the FB DAW group. Hope you and PG are doing well.
I learned to see where she was coming from. Unfortunately. We sometimes have to deal with her ‘bitchy’ ex-husband. He’s a good little boy in my presence but damn he can be a pain in the rear for her and the kids sometimes. And for no earthly good reason. I think she loves me because I am stable and, more or less, continue to be so even though I buried a spouse and am a single parent—- with as little drama as possible.
Am I so perfect? No way. Maybe I’m just too old to waste the energy on sweating the small stuff. Her ex revels in the small stuff. My God, he and my LW would have made an unbelievable pair!! LOL.
She has a point, Ted. However, my DH knows exactly what he is up against by knowing (somewhat) my ex. I, on the other hand, have only a person immortalized by suffering and death, with a few pictures of her with her hair always perfect, make-up applied and usually in Sunday clothes or swim suit poses (the rest were either discarded before I came along or never taken in the first place) and after many year, is taking on the traits that he wishes she would have had. His memories (which are expressed more and more often) now have little to do with things he shared early on–sometimes it’s things he and I have done that he “remembers” doing with her. I thing the concrete may be easier to deal with than the abstract–specially when the abstract keeps improving with age.
I think you are right, diney. My ex is a known-quantity and my DH doesn’t have to wonder about him. On the other hand, LW was a physician and great humanitarian, incredible mother, partner, wife, etc., etc. My DH has 30 years of memories and with very few exceptions I’ve heard only what was wonderful and special about her. I would never dispute that dealing with an ex can be miserable, but it is different and I think a little easier. Familiarity may bring contempt, but knowing someone only through the eyes of the person who loved them most in the world can be very challenging.
While this is all beautiful and ideal, reality seems much different for most of us especially if you look at the number of responses to last weeks post. As a gow I do believe most if not all gow or wow enter a relationship with a widower for the reasons you have cited above. Idealism? Fantasy? Truth is last week seems more of a reality for most of us here on this blog.
We have to remember we are dating a man and not catapult him to a top place on a pedestal he hasn’t earned. It takes desire, determination, persistence, patience, hard work and a love of life and for his new partner to go from last weeks post to this weeks post.
All types of people die just as all types of people lose a spouse. Look at the man and his actions and inactions. See how you feel. He is no greater or lesser because he is widowed. He is simply a man.
I think this list applies to Ws who are ready to move on.
KY makes a good point. Widowers are men. Abel has said that over and over. Man first; widower second. Be careful not to project any romantic comedy ideas where every issue resolves like magic without any effort/communication involved from both parties. just in time for the happily ever after. Every good relationship has two ppl working together to make it happen. If he isn’t taking action, you need to find out why and if he plans to and go from there.
The strictly widowed issues that came up for my husband and I were few but they were never allowed to root and become major problems, and we were always about us as a unit, now and the future.
It doesn’t matter how great a guy looks on paper or the idea of his potential, if he would just stop x ,y or z. What matters is are you okay with him and relationship as is b/c this might be what you are signing up for long term. Ask for change. Expect respect. But remember that no one ever changes someone else unless he wants to change.
As I tell my older dd’s, if you can’t love and be happy with the man he is without renovations – maybe he is not the man for you.
Widowers, single or divorced they are all men. Abel’s list doesn’t guarantee that everything will go smoothy just because the widower has learned through the experience of losing a spouse. It doesn’t matter who you are in a relationship with, they all take work. My marriage isn’t perfect any more than my husband is, and neither am I. But, when I read the list I saw him in all of those items, except possibly the first and that is because I don’t believe he has ever taken a woman for granted. I know he never took me for granted when we were young and doesn’t now. From the things I know of his marriage, he didn’t take his LW for granted, even after 30 years of marriage. Some of the things on the list have always described him and the others fit now because he did learn from the death of his first wife.
Yes, as KT notes, the comments for last week’s post probably do paint a truer picture for many of the people who read this blog and who participate in the FB DAW group. It’s the same with any blog that exists because of a specific issue or issues. I drop in on a step parenting blog sometimes and based on what I read there, no woman in her right mind would ever marry a man with children, especially grown children. That blog exists for people who have issues and difficulties as step parents so they can share their complaints, questions, joys and woes with others with whom they have something in common. Sometimes we even visit those sites because they make us feel better about our own situation. Life is what we make of it and a widower who has learned how precious life truly is is a blessing.