Taunting Death -- Twice!

The photo below are mayonnaise packets from the break room. They are bursting at the seams, just waiting to explode. If I survive the initial explosion, do I taunt death yet again by putting the contents on my sandwich?

At Storymakers

I'll be at the Storymakers 2012 Writers Conference Friday and Saturday. I'll be presenting a class on building websites as well as assisting with a non-fiction class. Hope to see many of you inspiring writers there. If you're not attending but happen to be in the Provo area Friday night, there will be a book signing at the Provo Marriott from 5:00 - 6:45 p.m. that's open to the public. Lot of authors, including myself, will be participating.

You can read more about the conference and well as see the full schedule of events here.

Widower Wednesday: The Love of My Life

Hard copies of Marrying a Widower arrived yesterday. If you pre-ordered a copy, shared your story in the book, or served as a beta reader, your copy was mailed this morning!

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From The HuffingtonPost comes the following experience of one woman’s marriage to a widower:

 I do not need for my husband to tell me that I'm the love of his life. Which sounds like some dirty hippy swinger talk. But it's not. It's being married to a widower talk.

My husband's first wife, Hannah, died over 12 years ago. She was beautiful, kind and talented. And I'm not just saying that because you can't say things like "she was bearded, mean and caustic" about the deceased. (Though I'm sure there will be a few of my closest friends summing me up with, "She did go on and on... and my GOD the anger" after I'm gone.) Hannah was an amazing woman and her and David were together for over 10 years and had a son.

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The words "WIFE" and "MOTHER" were off limits to me. They were TAKEN. And it's not David's fault because I had aggressively advertised myself as a woman who wanted no promises. I'd gone through a divorce and I hated promises. The Fed Ex guy couldn't even tell me that my package would arrive by 4pm without me pleading... "Please... no. Don't say that. What happens happens. Let's just be okay with the mystery." But I was living with David and Jack and I was a part of their daily lives. I wanted to know where David placed me in his heart.

So I cornered him the bedroom one day while he was putting away his socks. His back was to me as I casually asked him, "Isn't it odd that if we end up staying together that you'll go down in history as the love of my life?" He stopped putting his socks away and turned around and stared at me with what looked like sadness in his eyes and said "Awwww. That's so nice". He had said it to me like he pitied me. Like he'd turned around and found a little baby bird with hearing aids lying on his bed. At that moment I realized that he couldn't say it back to me and I was devastated. It took me months to stop telling every friend and taxi driver how I was with a man who would never be able to tell me that I'm the love of his life.

Read the whole story at The HuffingtonPost and thanks to Ted for the tip.

Fretting about where you stand in relationship to the late wife is never a good thing. The widower should be treating you in such a way that there’s no doubt in your mind that he loves you unconditionally. The author is apparently okay with the fact that she’ll never be the love of her husband’s life. While that may work for her, I don’t recommend settling for second place in anyone’s heart.

The human heart has a great capacity for love. Both Krista and Marathon Girl are the loves of my life.  Krista was the love of my life back when she was alive. Marathon Girl is the love of my life now. There's not an order to which one comes first in my heart. But since Marathon Girl is with me now, my love, thoughts, and feelings for her occupy 99.9 percent of my heart and mind. I feel blessed to be married to Marathon Girl have five wonderful kids with her. I wake up every morning grateful to have her lying next to me and I can’t image my life without her. She is the love of my life and will continue to be so long as we’re both alive.

Your widower should feel likewise.

Books FINALLY Arrive

My copies of Marrying a Widower finally arrived.

So if you pre-ordered a copy, contributed a story or were a beta reader, then your copy will be mailed first thing tomorrow.

All I can say is that it's finally nice to hold them.

A Sign of Things to Come II

Here is a more obvious photo of the big event coming up in the next 30 days.

No, it’s not a messy playroom. It’s the first of the many boxes we’re packing up because we’re moving. (Congrats to Trina and Sue for guessing correctly on the first photo.)

We put our home on the market last month and sold it in seven days to a nice family from California. Now we’re on the countdown to pack up and get out.

The one hitch to this move is that we don’t officially have a new place to live—yet. Back in February we made an offer on a short sale and that’s still making its way through the bank. We hope to have good news in the next two weeks from the bank, but even if everything works out with the short sale it won’t close until 2-4 weeks after our house closes.

For now the plan is to move in temporarily with Marathon Girl’s parents and cross our fingers that the short sale closes soon after. If something happens with the short sale then . . . well, I don’t want to go there.

One way or another everything will work out. Things are just going to be crazy for the next month or two.

Widower Wednesday: A Book for Widowers?

Marrying a Widower is now available in paperback and all major ebook formats. You can read the first chapter here. Thanks to all those who contributed stories, served as beta readers, or otherwise helped make the book a great guide to tying the knot with a widower. I hope all those who read it find it helpful.

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Now that Marrying a Widower is done, I’m finalizing the rest of my writing plans for the year. After taking a break from book-related writing for the next 30 days or so to deal with a big event, I’ll be finishing off a novel this summer then working on another non-fiction book that I’d like to have done by Thanksgiving. The non-fiction project wasn’t widower or relationship related and thought it would be a nice change of pace from my last two books. However, since I announced that Marrying a Widower was available, I received at least a dozen emails from GOWs, WOWs, and widowers asking when I’m going to writing a book about dating and moving on for widowers.

I’ve received requests like this from time-to-time but haven’t thought seriously about writing a book about it because it seems like there are lots of books on the subject already. If you search on Amazon you’ll see at least a dozen advice-type books written for widowers who are looking to date and start a new life. Besides, men are less likely to read these books or, at the very least, express an interest in reading them. I really don’t want to put the time and effort into this kind of book if there’s no real interest from widowers or anyone else reading it.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the existing books on this topic aren’t very good. Perhaps there are lots of widowers out there who want something but are just keeping quiet about it. That’s why I’m writing this: I want to hear from GOWs, WOWs, and—most importantly—widowers about writing this kind of book. I’m more than willing to put off my current non-fiction idea and write a book specifically for widowers (a man-to-man type of book) about dating and moving on providing that I get enough feedback and interest in writing one.

What I’d like to know is:

  1.  What do you you think about existing books on the subject? Are they helpful? If not, what are they missing?
  2. What topics you would like to see included if I was to write such a book?
  3. For widowers I’d like to know your interest level in reading such a book and what perspective do you think I could add that’s not addressed in current books on the topic.
  4. From GOWs and WOWs, I want to know why you’d be interested in reading such a book. Is it something you’d find beneficial or is it something you’re looking at giving Ws simply because you might be frustrated with your current relationship?

Leave any thoughts you have in the comment section below or feel free to shoot me an email if you don’t want them public. I’ll take feedback for the next two weeks on this topic and let you know then whether or not I’ll make this book my next non-fiction project.

Now Available: Marrying a Widower

Are you in a serious relationship with a widower? Are you considering tying the knot? Any lasting relationship takes a lot of work, but a successful marriage to a widower requires the ability for both of you to work through unique issues that most couples don’t face. Are you up to the challenge?

Drawing on a decade of experience as a remarried widower, Abel Keogh gives you unique insight into what it takes to make any long-term relationship with a widower successful, including:

  • How to make sure your marriage is new, exciting, and fresh instead of a rehash of the widower’s previous relationship.
  • Suggestions and tips for making sure both of you can talk about the late wife, his grief, and any other widower-related issues.
  • What role, if any, the late wife’s family should play in your relationship.
  • How to make the home feel like yours instead of theirs.
  • Ten real-life stories from women who are engaged or married to a widower.

Marrying a Widower will help you decide whether or not the widower you’re dating is prepared to make the ultimate commitment. More importantly, the book will walk you through many of the challenging circumstances that come with tying the knot and help you decide if taking this step is right for you.

Read Chapter 1

Paperback | Kindle | Nook | Smashwords | Personalized Copy

Widower Wednesday: Marrying a Widower Chapter 1

Below is the first chapter of Marrying a Widower: What You Need to Know Before Tying the Knot. The book will be available later this month in paperback and all major ebook formats. You can pre-order a personalized copy here.

Chapter 1: The End Game

Widowers become involved in serious relationships for different reasons. Some miss the late wife and want someone to “be there” to help alleviate the empty feeling in their lives. Others want someone who will be on call for an occasional roll in the hay, to cook their meals, or to babysit their kids. And, believe it or not, there are even widowers who are looking for someone they can spend the rest of their lives with. Whatever his reason for wanting a relationship, it’s important that you both have the same end game in mind. For example, if you want to get married, but he prefers living together, or he’d be happy with a nebulous, open-ended friendship, you’re going to waste months or years of your life with someone who’s never going to give you the love and happiness you deserve.

While it’s important to be on the same page in any relationship, it’s doubly important to make sure a widower has the same relationship goals. Many men will settle for a relationship with a woman they don’t love simply because they’re lonely. Almost every widower I’ve talked to has, at some point, started a serious relationship because they wanted companionship. These widowers keep the relationship going until they tire of it or until someone better comes along. They leave behind lots of broken hearts and women who feel used.

Sadly, I’ve made this very mistake. Less than a year after my wife, Krista, took her own life, I became serious with a good friend named Jennifer. I promised her the world and implied a life of happiness together. I started that relationship because my heart ached for companionship, and having someone in my life who wasn’t a perfect fit was still a hundred times better than being alone.

When things started to get serious with Jennifer, I thought I loved her—or at least, I had strong feelings that I thought would turn into love. It was nice to have someone to talk to and a warm body to hold, even if I couldn’t see myself spending the rest of my life with her. As time went on and my feelings for her only become more ambivalent, I tried to convince myself that I loved her. I rationalized my lack of love toward her as a sign that I was still grieving. All I needed, I thought, was more time to grieve, and things would eventually work out. It wasn’t until Julianna came along that I realized I never really loved Jennifer in the first place.

If you want to avoid being the woman who gets used by a lonely widower, you need to make absolutely sure you and he both want to get married—to each other. The sooner you can do that, the better off you’ll both be.

There are several ways to know how the widower really feels about you. The best and most obvious way is through his actions—not his words. If he always treats you like a queen, it’s a good sign that he wants to spend the rest of his life with you. But more often than not, a widower will send mixed signals. For example, he may call you every day, but still have photographs of the late wife all over the house. Or he may wine and dine you every night, but won’t stop talking about the late wife and the fantastic life they shared together. This makes it hard for a woman to know where she stands.

Find time when the two of you can have a serious conversation about where you see the relationship going. This can be a scary step, because there’s always a chance the widower may not give you the answer you want. But knowing the truth, even if you don’t like it, is better than wasting part of your life with someone who is with you because he doesn’t want to be alone.

Keep in mind that one talk probably won’t do it, either. Julianna and I had several big talks at different points in our relationship. We had our first conversation about six weeks after becoming exclusive, another when Julianna realized I was still wearing a necklace with Krista’s ring on it, a third when I accidently called Julianna by Krista’s name, and a fourth during a six-hour drive home from a marathon she ran. There were probably lots of smaller talks in between, too. Sometimes I found them uncomfortable, because Julianna was worried about whether I was really ready to commit. However, because we were able to openly discuss what we wanted from the relationship, our discussions helped us move toward our goal of marriage. Knowing that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with me made it easier for me to make room in my heart for her. It also helped me focus on starting a new life with her and served as a gut check to ensure it was something I really wanted to do. The more we talked about marriage, the more excited we became about taking a walk down the aisle together. So when I finally did ask Julianna to marry me, the proposal itself wasn’t a total surprise. We’d talked enough that she knew I’d eventually ask her to marry me, and that when I did, she would say “Yes!”

How Soon Should You Have the Talk?

Over the years, I’ve had people ask me how long they should wait before having this talk with the widower. The truth is, there’s no set timeframe. As a rule of thumb, if you’ve been seriously dating for several months and you can see yourself marrying him, there’s nothing wrong with bringing up the subject—and it doesn’t matter how long the late wife has been dead, either. Julianna and I had our first “Where is this relationship going?” talk about a month after we started dating seriously, about nine months after I became a widower.

Don’t worry about having the talk too soon and scaring him away. You’re both adults, and you should be able to have adult conversations. Talking about the future isn’t a proposal. It doesn’t mean you have to get married the next day. It’s better to know sooner, rather than later, if you both want to get married, so you can work toward that goal or move on with your lives.

Know What You Want Before You Talk

Before you talk about your future together, it’s vital that you know where you see the relationship going. Do you want to get married, or do you want something more casual? If you can’t clearly define what you want from the relationship, don’t bring up the subject until you can. It’s unfair to the widower to expect him to talk about a possible future together if you don’t know what you want.

Beware of the Grief Card

Widowers willing to settle for companionship with women they don’t love will often play the grief card when talks about the future arise. They’ll say things like they’re still grieving, or that they need more time before they can figure out what they want. If a single or divorced man said something similar, most women would hesitate to take the relationship any further. Widowers, however, tend to be given more leniency when it comes to opening their hearts, and a woman will move forward despite the widower’s inability to articulate how he really feels about her and the relationship.

The truth is, widowers know how they feel about the woman they’re with. Those who know they want to get married again don’t have a hard time saying it—even if they’re still mourning the late wife. I dated Julianna less than a year after Krista’s death. My heart was still tender, and I was still grieving. There were times before or after a date with Julianna when I’d cry my eyes out. Despite being an emotional wreck at times, I knew I didn’t want to spend my life with anyone but Julianna. I also knew that the only thing keeping us from getting married was my own sorrow and sadness, so I worked as hard as I could to forgive Krista and move on with my life. I did it because I knew that the reward of taking Julianna by the hand and exchanging vows would be well worth it. Widowers who feel the same way about you will do the same. A widower unable to make room in his heart for the woman he’s dating has no business being involved in a serious relationship.

Widowers Act How They Really Feel

Sometimes it’s hard to distinguish between widowers looking for companionship and those who want to get married. The best way to know how he really feels about you is to pay attention to his actions, not his words. Any widower can proclaim his love, or say he wants to spend the rest of his life with you. Only a widower who really loves you will treat you like the only woman he’s ever loved. Widowers who talk a good talk, but don’t really have your best interests in mind, will eventually betray themselves through their own actions.

When I was dating Jennifer, I said lots of wonderful things I didn’t mean. For a while, I was able to back up my sweet nothings with actions: I called her every night, flew down to see her on a regular basis (we lived several hundred miles apart), and sent her emails throughout the day. But eventually, I couldn’t put the physical effort into the story I’d weaved. I stopped calling her as often, made excuses why I couldn’t fly down, and sent fewer and fewer emails. Despite this, I continued to tell her that we had a future together, and she continued to believe it.

If you have any doubt about how the widower really feels about you, pay close attention to how he treats you. Those who are sincere about tying the knot will align their actions with their words. They’ll do everything in their power to make you feel like the only woman they’ve ever loved. Widowers who are in relationships for their own selfish reasons will be able to put on an act for only so long. With these men, sooner or later, you feel like you’re competing with a ghost.

Have the Courage to Walk Away

If you believe he doesn’t have the same relationship goals as you do, don’t be afraid to walk away. Some women hold on to a relationship that’s not going anywhere because they think the widower will change his mind or eventually grow to love them. Don’t fall into this trap. Love doesn’t work that way. If he can’t fall in love with you after several months or so of serious dating, he never will.

Never settle for a relationship with anyone who can’t give you top billing in his heart and mind. If you settle for second place, you’ll never be truly happy. Life is too short to waste on someone who can’t treat you like you deserve to be treated. If you wait for the widower to come to his senses, the relationship will eventually end, and you’ll have nothing to show for it. Have the courage to walk away. You’re a queen and deserve to be treated as such.

Marrying a Widower: Done

The writing and editing part of Marrying a Widower is done. The final manuscript has been sent to the designer for typesetting. I formatted it for the various eBook formats last night. Depending on how fast the typesetting goes the book could be available as early as next week. I'll post Chapter 1 on Wednesday. Until then I'm going to catch up on sleep and spend some time with Marathon Girl and the kiddies.

May 1 I start another writing project and the process starts all over again.