Some men stop calling themselves husbands, but some never, ever stop calling themselves widowers. Even after they've remarried. Even years later. Even while he's standing right next to you, introducing you as his girlfriend, partner, or wife.
Why does that word stick around so long after it stops being true?
In Part 5, we get into the power of a single word — and what it's actually telling the people around him when a man still leads with "widower" instead of your name. I also share something personal: the mental shift I had to make in my own relationship before I could stop identifying as a widower and start showing up as a partner. If you're dating or married to a widower, this one might explain a feeling you've had trouble putting into words.
Transcript follows:
Some men stop calling themselves husbands, but some never, ever stop calling themselves widowers. Even after they've remarried and he's standing right next to you, introducing you as his girlfriend, partner, or wife.
Why does the word "widower" stick around so long after it stops being true?
This is Part Five of six of Till Death Do Us Part, where I'm sharing — with permission — an essay written by a woman in my Dating a Widower Facebook group, and responding to it along the way. So far we've covered what marriage promises, how to spot whether someone's actually moved on, the jealousy myth, and what a woman dating a widower deserves. If you've missed those videos, there are links in the descriptions so you can watch. Today's topic is all about the importance of identity and the power of words.
The Essay Continues:
There's another question we rarely ask: why do so many men continue to identify themselves primarily as widowers? We don't spend the rest of our lives introducing ourselves as divorcees. Eventually we become single or we become someone else's husband or wife. Yet widowhood often becomes an identity. But what message does it send the woman standing beside him? What message does it send the children in reality? That the new person is just not as important. If your greatest emotional commitment still belongs to your late wife, there is absolutely no shame in remaining faithful to her memory if that's what you desire. But if you choose another woman...choose her completely. Don't ask her to spend years proving she deserves a place that can never truly belong to her. Don't ask her to quietly coexist with a marriage that, emotionally, never ended.
MY THOUGHTS
Words mean things. "Boyfriend" and "husband" tell everyone who he is to you now. But the word "widower" doesn't describe his current relationship at all — it describes the one that ended. So if you're dating or married to a man who still views himself primarily as a widower, he's not describing his present. He's still standing in his past, and every time he says it, he's telling everyone exactly where he lives.
I get the instinct, though. The word "widower" doesn't ask anything of you. It just asks you to be sad, publicly, forever, and everyone claps for that. Nobody expects more from a man who's still grieving. But plenty of people expect more from a man who's supposed to be building something new. That's the trap. The label protects him from ever having to fully step into the new relationship, because as long as he's "the widower," he's still allowed to be halfway somewhere else.
I know this trap firsthand, because I had to climb out of it myself. When I was dating my wife Julie, I realized that if our relationship was going to succeed, I couldn't keep thinking of myself as a widower — even though I was one. I had to start seeing myself as Julie's boyfriend, then Julie's fiancé, and eventually as Julie's husband. That mental shift wasn't easy. But once I made it, a lot of the other pieces fell into place, because it forced me to focus on the present and the future instead of staying anchored to my past and what I'd lost.
Here's what I've noticed coaching other men who view themselves primarily as widowers: none of them are lying — not to her, and not to themselves. They genuinely don't see the problem. That's what makes it so hard to fix. It was never a decision he made. It's a default nobody ever asked him to question.
But she notices. Every time he reaches for "widower" instead of her name, instead of "my girlfriend," instead of "my wife" — he's telling her that she's still standing in second place, because the label he keeps choosing says the relationship with his late wife still comes first. And if you're dating or married to a widower, that stings. There's a difference between being chosen and being tolerated. And that gap — between what he says he wants and what his own language is telling her — is exactly the kind of thing that quietly wears a relationship down.
So a man can choose to set down the word "widower." But can he set down everything attached to it — the photos, the memories, the version of her that's been quietly polished into perfection? That's what we're getting into in our final part, Part Six.
I'm Abel Keogh — a remarried widower and author of the book "Dating a Widower: Starting a Relationship with a Man Who's Starting Over." I help widowers build healthy new relationships, and help the women who love them understand what's really going on. Subscribe to this channel so you don't miss the rest of the series, and come find me at www.abelkeogh.com