Chess

I’ve been teaching Aidan how to play chess. We haven’t progressed very far. Aidan knows the names of most of the pieces but our games consist of simply putting the pieces on the board in some random order and rescuing pawns and knights from Steven’s mouth.

We play with a set from the former Soviet Union. The set was a going away present from an artist friend back when I lived in Bulgaria. The pieces and board are old, scratched from years of use and thousands of games but has been used only a handful of times in the last 10 years. Years ago I was quite good at chess but it’s been a long time since I played seriously.

Aidan seems to like the game. Every evening he asks if we can play and I pull the set from the top shelf of the closet and have him tell me the names of the pieces as we put them on the board. I enjoy playing with him. Maybe his interest will continue. Then I can teach him how the pieces move and some basic strategies. Until then I look forward to sitting on the floor of the playroom, the evening sun filling the room with light, and having Aidan tell me the names of pieces as he moves them randomly across the board.

Inevitable Changes

Life is about change. People change for better or worse. Jobs come and go. Eighty degree temperatures and clear skies can be replaced the next day by cold and rain.  A change this weekend has left me feeling a little blue. Yesterday was the last day teaching Sunday school to the teenagers at church. Next week I’ll be involved in a more recordkeeping/administrative part of the church.   Teaching those teens has been the highlight of my Sundays for the last two years. I’ve enjoyed preparing lessons and teaching them for an hour each week. I’ve been blessed to have good, smart kids who make teaching not only fun a great learning experience as well.   Change is an inevitable part of life but it’s how we deal with changes that’s important. This new opportunity will give me the chance to use some existing skills that I have and learn some new ones as well.

Next Sunday will be the start of a new adventure. I’m looking forward to it.

Aidan and the Orange Wall

Yesterday Marathon Girl and I took a rare day off working on all the house projects we need to get done before the baby arrives. Instead we relaxed, played with the boys and watch a little television after they were in bed. I took the following picture of Aidan while we were playing in their bedroom.

 

Sex and Intimacy with Widowers

Over the last month I've received a dozen emails from women dating widowers that could have been carbon copies of each other. Their stories go something like this: I fell in love with a widower and things were going great until out of the blue he ended the relationship. When I talk to the widower about why he ended it, he told me the only reason he started seeing me was because he was lonely and/or missed having a sex life. He says this is something he normally wouldn't do but the loss of his wife has forced him to make poor choices. These emails are always difficult to read not only because they're heartbreaking but because such situations can, for the most part, be avoided with a little understanding some of the physical intimacy issues that come with having a relationship with a widower. Though I've briefly mentioned some issues in my previous essays, I've decided to devote an entire column to this subject seeing how this is the biggest issue of late that comes through my inbox.

When it comes to physical intimacy, widowers find themselves in a tough spot. For years we've had a great sex life with a woman that we love. For most of us this was unexpectedly taken away from us and now we find ourselves missing not only the woman that has been part of our life for years but having regular, intimate moments with someone we love.

Our desire for physical intimacy is a big reason most of us get back into the dating game. Once there, however, we find it difficult to balance our need for intimacy with the ability to form a committed relationship. Forming a strong relationship with another woman is difficult and it's easy for us to fall into the trap of telling someone that we love them and want to be with them simply because they fill a hole in our heart and meet our physical needs.

I rushed into my first serious relationship after my first wife's death too quickly. There were a lot of relationship red flags I overlooked because I enjoyed the company. If I would have taken things slower and thought a little more about what I was doing and why I was doing it, I would have realized the main reason for having this relationship was because I missed having someone to talk with and someone to hold and to kiss. Fortunately for both of us, we never become physically involved with each other.

Though the death of our spouses is tragic, it should not serve as excuse for us widowers to use a woman to simply satisfy the physical intimacy that we miss from our marriage. If widowers want regular sex but don't want a committed relationship, hire a prostitute. We should not be wasting the time and emotions of a woman who's looking for a committed relationship when we aren't ready for one. Yes, it is tough trying to figure out how we really feel about becoming seriously involved with someone else but we always have a choice how far we want to take the relationship. If widowers feel confused about the feelings they're having toward another woman, be cautious and take things slow. Doing this will save a lot of heartache not only for us but for the woman we are dating.

Most women tend to view sex differently then men. For them sex loses a lot of its power and meaning outside a loving, committed relationship. Though women understand that becoming involved with a widower is going to involve issues that people wouldn't have to deal with in a normal relationship, many of women see our first marriage as a sign of being able to have a committed relationship with a woman.

Women who are dating widowers and want to lower their chances for a broken heart should think long and hard about when they want to become intimate with a widower. There will be a lot going through the widower's mind -- especially if you're the first person he's become physically and emotionally intimate with since his wife passed away. I would recommend taking a long time before you become physically involved with a widower. It's important to make sure the widower is serious about having a committed relationship with you before you decide to become sexually involved.

If the widower is a good man and serious about having a committed relationship with you, it won't be a big deal that you want to take the more physical aspects of the relationship slowly or put them on hold for several months. However, if the widower complains where you have drawn the line and says the relationship can't progress unless you become more physically involved with each other, then consider ending the relationship. A good man (widower or not) will never pressure a woman to take a relationship to a physical or emotional level that she is comfortable with.

After Marathon Girl and I started dating regularly and spending nearly every day with each other after work at her apartment or my house, it took us nearly a month before we had our first kiss. We took things slow because we both understood the physical and emotional issues that losing my first wife brought to the relationship and wanted to make sure we were becoming involved with each other for the right reasons.

Marathon Girl told me very early where she was drawing the line when it came to the physical aspect of our relationship. I respected her decision because I would have done just about anything to contribute to the relationships success. It wasn't always easy because Marathon Girl is extremely good looking and the more in love I became with her the closer I wanted to become to her physically. However, I respected the line that she drew and when the time came when we were both ready to become more intimately involved with each other, there were no regrets about our wait and both of us knew it was in the confines of a loving, committed relationship.

To save a lot of heartache and hurt feelings for widowers and those who are dating them, take things slow. Make sure you're both ready to take this step. Widowers comes with a unique set of challenges but it can also be very rewarding if the time is taken to make sure both partners are excising the caution needed to make sure the relationship is being built on a strong, secure foundation.

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More widower-related articles by Abel Keogh

Up with Grief NEW!

Dating and Marriage: One Regret NEW!

Widowers: They're Still Men! NEW!

10 Dating Tips for Widows and Widowers

Photos of the Dead Wife

5 Signs a Widower is Serious About Your Relationship

How Vice President Joe Biden Dealt with Grief

Life with a Widower

Dating a Widower

The Grief Industry

Suicide Survivor

A Letter to Elizabeth

Sex and Intimacy with Widowers

The Widowerhood Excuse

How to Talk to a Widower

Red Flags to Watch for When Dating A Widower

Congrats to Mr. Sensitive

Mr. Sensitive: It was an honor to attend your wedding yesterday. The two of you looked incredibly happy. When I first met the girl you married many years ago, I hoped you would keep her around because she seemed so perfect for you. I wish the two of you the best as you start your lives together as husband and wife.

Abel

The Curse of the 9/11 Widows

Interesting article in the Daily Mail yesterday titled “The Cure of the 9/11 Widows” which details on how the lives of 9/11 widows lives has changed since their husbands’ deaths. Instead of focusing on the widows trying to rebuild their lives without their husbands, it focuses on how the payout received from the government changed their lives for the worse.

No one could have known that for many of them, the money would destroy their lives once again, attracting jealousy, resentful relatives and making them even more depressed. Some would become squandering, spendaholic widows, their payouts fuelling addictions which could not replace the husbands they had lost. Others would become embroiled in legal battles with their families, their lives eaten up by bitterness.

The sad part is that many of the widows seem to be using their widowhood as an excuse for their spending habits or bad decisions they’ve made. Losing a spouse under any circumstances is difficult but no excuse for poor behavior. (I have an article that addresses widowhood and responsibility that I’m currently writing. Should be posted in the next 72 hours.)

The true tragedy here is that Congress thought paying off the widows would somehow compensate for the loss of their spouse. Instead, like most lottery winners, money just made their lives even more miserable.

The MasterCard commercials are right. There are some things money can’t buy. Apparently happiness is one of them.

All of Me

For years I've been using this photograph on my website, instant message icons, and other web stuff.

Due to forces beyond my control I've been forced (well, not really) to post actual photographs of me and my radio co-host on The Abel Hour website. So if you want to see what I really look like, click here. (And you'll see why I'm on the radio, not television.) There might be one or two more photos of me as well if you browse the site long enough.

Here's a preview.....

 

 

 

Broken Arms

When I was in first grade, a kid named Carson broke his leg. Everyone in our class was jealous. Not only Carson have a wheelchair – which beat walking in the minds of his fellow classmates – but he also had a big white cast on his leg. It seemed like everyone in the school and all the teachers signed his cast. I remember signing my name during recess a day or two after he returned to school. At the time it seemed like a privilege to be able to sign it though I can’t remember why I felt that way. Maybe it was because it was the cool thing to do. In third grade a girl named Stacy broke her arm. One morning she showed up with a big white cast on her arm. Of course the entire class had to hear the story of how she broke her arm and then sign the cast. I had a crush on Stacy so I signed my name in big letters in a spot where she would always see it and, hopefully, think of me.  Stacy wasn’t amused that I signed my name so big. “You have to leave room for the other kids to sign,” I remember her telling me. I think my crush on Stacy ended soon after that comment.

I didn’t realize how much casts have changed until yesterday. Aidan broke his arm Saturday night (long story, I’ll write about it later). It was a very minor fracture near his elbow and there was some debate among the doctors whether or not his arm was actually broken. Upon seeing a specialist yesterday the verdict came back that, yes, his arm was indeed broken and he needed to wear a cast for three weeks.

While we were in the waiting room there were a half dozen other kids with casts on their arms. One girl had a pink cast. One of the boys had a lime green one. Another boy had a blue one. Designer casts. Cool. When it came turn for Aidan to pick his color the doctor had at least a dozen colors for him to choose from. Aidan picked orange – his favorite color.

It didn’t hit me until on the drive home from the hospital that not one of the kids in the waiting room with casts on their arm had any names written on their casts. The cast material they use nowadays is so different from white ones I remember as a kid and is difficult to write on. Of course they have color options now and they seem so much cooler than those white ones. It does make me wonder, however, if kids still try to sign their names on them anymore.

A Garden of Plenty

Our garden is doing much better this year than last year. Last night Aidan and I picked about two dozen tomatoes. There is another dozen waiting to be picked today. Our pumpkin plant has six good sized pumpkins on it. Our corn produced many fat, sweet ears and the squash plant has been given us a steady supply of delicious crockneck squash all summer. I love the abundance of food our garden has produced this year, though I’m not really sure what we did that made it so verdant and plentiful. It’s nice to work the garden though and feel the soil in your fingers and the warm sun on your neck. And I love seeing the fruit of a summer long labor be so copious and delicious.

Slumping Tigers

While the Tigers have roared to the best record in baseball this year, in the back of my mind, I keep thinking that their success is too good to last. In the back of my mind, I kept thinking that they would falter down the stretch and end up blowing what was a great season. As of this writing the Tigers have only won 6 of their last 19 games. Their division lead which was 10 games earlier this month is down to five. Their only saving grace is that the White Sox have been in a slump of their own and unable to gain much ground on the Tigers.

I still think the Tigers have a great chance to win their division and do well in the playoffs but they better get their act in order soon. The Twins and White Sox are nipping at their heels and could both easily knock the Tigers out of the playoffs unless they find a way to start winning again.

The Tigers start a three games series against the Yankees tomorrow. This series could go a long way in determining what the Tigers are doing this October.