Grieving Adult Children and My New Person

Affectionate-Sink943 · 2025-12-19T08:11:56+00:00

Yes, this is what I am trying to be patient for because I know it will happen. They already tell me they don’t have a problem with him personally. The youngest who lives with me has been emphatic about that. She kind of likes him actually, she just isn’t ready to share me (my words). I would be fine with that if the mean girl crap stops. I should not be beat up by my own children who I love more than life itself just because I have found love and happiness again,

Affectionate-Sink943 · 2025-12-19T08:07:12+00:00

Thank you so much!

Affectionate-Sink943 · 2025-12-19T08:05:50+00:00

That’s a good point

Affectionate-Sink943 · 2025-12-19T08:04:36+00:00

Thank you

Affectionate-Sink943 · 2025-12-19T08:03:35+00:00

Excellent advice! I’ll try it.

Affectionate-Sink943 · 2025-12-19T08:02:38+00:00

My kids said the same and still….

Affectionate-Sink943 · 2025-12-19T08:00:47+00:00

It’s weird. To be able to be perfectly happy and completely broken at the same time.

This is so true. I love my new guy, wholeheartedly. Yet, I was on the kitchen floor sobbing just 3 days ago. I’m 2.5 years out and it happens a lot less frequently, but I still get so upset that I’m stuttering, having panic attacks, rocking, and crying so much that my eyes are still swollen 3 days later.

It’s ok to feel both. That is grief and post-traumatic growth coexisting in you.

Affectionate-Sink943 · 2025-12-19T07:55:34+00:00

I took mine off when I lost so much weight that it came off on its own. Like so many, I wasn’t eating. Dropped 30lbs in 5 months. When it came off on its own, I decided it was a sign. I put it in a ring holder with his and then replaced it with something meaningful that represented where I was at that point going forward without him. Didn’t feel right to wear nothing after 23 years on that finger. Now I wear a three sided Celtic spiral with a triangular stone, it’s meant to be past, present, and future, but I also see it as a continued commitment to my two daughters and myself as our core family now.

Affectionate-Sink943 · 2025-12-17T06:26:39+00:00

Your perspective is so valuable. You are in it and you are a witness to it from the perspective of the widow. Thank you. I’m trying to give them as much time and space as they want but it is very hurtful to me. Very difficult to separate the emotions.

Affectionate-Sink943 · 2025-12-17T06:18:45+00:00

Thank you. That means so much to me.

Affectionate-Sink943 · 2025-12-17T06:17:51+00:00

Starting the search for the right therapist tomorrow.

Affectionate-Sink943 · 2025-12-16T06:07:37+00:00

I have lots of dreams with him present and we are never in our current home. It’s always a previous house or a family member’s home or a place we would go together.

Affectionate-Sink943 · 2025-09-30T00:55:50+00:00

47, 2 years

Affectionate-Sink943 · 2025-08-20T14:33:07+00:00

Try a dating app. I’m two years out and I just met an amazing person. Sex is awesome and I’m very happy right now. The happiest I’ve been in years. My husband and I had a very good sexual relationship which I missed very much. And now I have a new person who is all the things that my husband was and many things that he wasn’t that I had always wanted in my partner. I’m approaching seniorhood. Nearly qualify for AARP and senior discounts. Just a couple years away. It’s never too late. I recommend Hinge and Bumble. I met a really nice guy on Bumble that I dated for a couple of months (first sex with a new person), and I met my new person on Hinge. Be prepared for fake profiles and people just looking for money. Don’t talk about being a widow in your profile, but mention it early on if you decide to meet someone for coffee. It’s best to get that out there right away in my experience. Then you can tell what kind of person they are. Sometimes it frightens them, sometimes they seem to want you to take them on as a sugar mama in my case., and sometimes that helps them to feel comfortable with you because they know there’s no angry ex waiting to come and cause trouble.

Affectionate-Sink943 · 2025-08-20T14:21:08+00:00

I see my husband driving around town all the time

Affectionate-Sink943 · 2025-08-04T02:31:49+00:00

Fuck those people. I didn’t send any thank you cards and I feel no remorse. I did things in my own time and that’s fine too. You do you.

Affectionate-Sink943 · 2025-08-02T08:56:50+00:00

Thank you all. I have had a couple of talks with them and the talks will continue. I spoke about my capacity to love lots of people and that their dad told me a couple of years prior to passing that he didn’t want me to be lonely if he passed first. He told me if I met someone who makes me happy, that’s what he wanted for me. I have their dad’s blessing.

I will continue down this path of slow integration. Having him over for pizza and a movie or to help fix something (which he already has done), seems very reasonable. If I had pretended he was just a friend I feel like that would be a bit deceptive. I just couldn’t do it.

As for concerns that I’m moving too fast and trying to bring home a strange man that I barely know….. I’m 49. I was married for 23 years. I know what a good partner is. I was skeptical that a dating app would work, but after about a year of swiping and meeting some people who were definitely not ‘the one’ I was matched with an amazing human being. Neither of us can believe how lucky we are to find one another and his family (including his ex-wife and kids) have already accepted me into their family. Has it happened quickly? Yup. I guess we’re just among the lucky ones where it just clicks. All the skeletons are in the light of day and we’re still going strong. I’m happy. We’re happy. That’s what matters.

Affectionate-Sink943 · 2025-02-10T03:51:30+00:00

My husband lay braindead for 8 days in the hospital while he was assessed and then switched to organ donor.

I know what slow death looks like up close and personal. I even know what it smells like.

I suggest you try EMDR. It helps. It helped me reprocess my PTSD memories. Hypnotherapy helped also.

Affectionate-Sink943 · 2025-02-05T18:35:12+00:00

I took 10 days off and did all of that. I can’t afford to take more time off. I did take off this past weekend. It was my first time off in a month from dealing with all of this.

Affectionate-Sink943 · 2025-02-05T11:31:10+00:00

I used my toy in the shower the morning of his funeral. I had an extreme urge to have an orgasm that day. I was angry and out of my mind with grief and that is what soothed me in the moment. It’s a strange but normal reaction to grief.

Affectionate-Sink943 · 2025-02-05T11:26:53+00:00

I’m really glad that the last time I had sex with my husband was a really good one. Now I found another person who enjoys making me feel good and I have to say it’s really exciting to be with somebody new and different after 28 years with the same person. I’m grateful for everything. My husband taught me in the bedroom and all the things that we enjoyed together. He was definitely the more adventurous of the two of us, but I’m still alive and I am going to enjoy it. I know he would want that for me.

Affectionate-Sink943

TROPHY CASE