Hey, Aarde,
I’ve been a widower for over ten years now, and it still seems like yesterday that I was happily married. But now I feel like it’s time to get back out there, as scary as that sounds, and try to make a new romantic connection. Re-entering the dating world after forty years is terrifying. I’m scared that, even though so much time has passed, I will feel like I am cheating on my wife when I’m on a date. I don’t want to lead anyone on, and I don’t want to drown a first date in my grief. Any advice?
Tentative Tease
Hey, Tentative Tease,
I am so grateful you’ve experienced love that stood strong in life and has transcended death. If my math is correct, your wife has been a part of your life for at least 50 years, and probably more if you count your dating years before your marriage. It’s no wonder that it would take a decade to adapt to life without her, which is a beautiful testament to how connected you were.
Hear me out. Did your wife love you?
I’m sensing a soft yes coming across the wavelengths.
Then I’d bet that she wouldn’t want you to live in punishment for the rest of your life simply for loving her.
So, in honor of your wife’s love for you, I’d like you to take this as permission to find and enjoy love again.
Sometimes the permission comes when you look at it in reverse. If you had gone first, would you want her to remain in eternal mourning? Or would you want to see her smile again, dance again, love again?
Love is BIG. It is all-encompassing, ever-expanding, and always growing. It can hold many people in its embrace, and it is permanent to those who hold it. What you had with your wife is yours forever, and if your love wraps its proverbial arms around another, it doesn’t take that previous experience away from you. Your love didn’t fail; your vows weren’t abandoned. Your marriage concluded because a physical journey ended. And there is a difference between leaving someone and being left behind through death.
There is no shame in needing time to process deep emotions, and sometimes processing somatically can offer longer-lasting effects between bouts of grief. Try listening to music that you once shared with your wife, allowing the grief to flood you with movement. Moving your body, shaking your arms, jumping in place, and throwing your feet around can really shake the grief loose. There is something about actively planning a good cry, letting yourself scream into a pillow, or punching the air. Your grief is never finished, so give it a space to really shine. (A song suggestion that really opens the floodgates: “I Just Don’t Think I’ll Ever Get Over You” by Colin Hay.)
Then, after you’ve wept all the tears you have for now and shaken all the dulling vibrations out, try going on a date.
The first few dates may feel odd. And they should. Forty years of knowing where you stood doesn’t just disappear overnight. And know that grief will show up as guilt at first. But when you first experience happiness with someone else, it doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong. It means you’re gently stepping beyond a place where grief has asked you to stand still for ten years. Grief will never be finished. It is an emotion you carry with you forever, just like joy and sadness.
Grief will still arrive unannounced, and you will learn to carry it differently when you respect the space it needs in order to land for a moment. This is a great way to merit the women you will date, as they need to hold this space respectfully too. They must understand that they are not in competition with your grief, and they must embrace it wholeheartedly.
You are the biggest contributor to building a strong foundation. There is no shame in sharing your history and your grief, even though you still love and miss your wife deeply. The right person will understand, as long as you are not setting up someone new to compete with a ghost. While this new woman won’t be your departed wife, she deserves the opportunity to become someone else to you in her own right, not a replacement but a stand-alone partner in the next chapter of your life.
None of this has to happen on the first date, so concentrate on your first goal: to enjoy yourself. Start small, with no pressure, to enjoy a walk or a cup of coffee. Flirt badly. Practice being you. You might want to wait to see if you even want a second date with this person anyway, before wondering whether you’re capable of a second great love.
This isn’t to say the woman sitting across from you doesn’t have goals, dreams, wishes, or a history of her own too. It’s almost a certainty that she isn’t untouched by loss, divorce, heartbreak, or mistakes that make her just as nervous as you are! Everyone brings some luggage to new relationships, whether they know it or admit it.
Your wife taught you how precious it is to have someone beside you, to be known deeply, and to share the ordinary days that somehow add up to a full life. There should be no guilt in knowing what companionship is worth just because you were lucky enough to know its value firsthand. Learning to be alive while you are still alive may be one of the greatest tributes you can offer her. You do not have to leave your love for her behind to make room for someone new. Carrying that love forward and letting it grow into even more love is love in its fullest form.
Go forth, Tentative Tease. I now deem you Hopeful Heart.
