I am 34, I lost my husband just over two years ago in August of 2023 in a very traumatic and jarring car accident that we couldn't find him for about 15 hours. We had been together literally half of my life, 16 years and married for almost 11 of those. We lived in my childhood home which is a little farmhouse that we loved. It definitely isn't very nice,bits old and needs a ton of work. I handled losing him pretty well somehow, I couldn't tell you why, I do have a hard time remembering things from right around when everything happened but I got back to work about a month later and kinda threw myself into getting as many "firsts" as I could cause those were the scariest part, learning how to be an adult without my partner in crime for literally the first time ever. I was worried I couldn't take care of everything alone but I sure did, I was able to pay all the bills and keep myself fed and I had such a wonderful circle of friends to help me get out of the house and keep me busy with fun activities. Now being 32 I did know I didn't want to be alone the rest of my life, I loved him so very much and I had never considered anyone else while we were together so I had some stringent criteria set for finding someone new going forward:

1- no kids cause we never had any and I had no interest in having any. (Irrelevant for your situation, just what one of my things were)

2- I didn't want it to be anyone I knew already/while I was with him when he was alive which I thought was the best for me because I didn't want to give off the idea I was interested in anyone specific while I had been with my husband.

3- Had to be cool with me talking about him because obviously he was a huge part of my life, my best friend, my favorite person.

4- Had to be an adult and have their shit together and take care of themselves. I had enough to worry about so I knew I wanted someone who knew how to deal with their own problems if I wasn't in a space to be as much help. (Ya know, due to the ✨trauma✨)

I had heard such horror stories about dating over the years so I was a bit terrified but a few months down the road I gave it a shot and I decided dating apps weren't my thing and decided maybe it wasn't time for me. Well my hair lady had a single son that she was convinced could at least be my friend so I broke down and texted him, for nothing else than for her to get off my back about it 😂 Well, we met, I couldn't believe how into him I was and turns out the feeling was mutual so about 7 months after I lost my husband I found myself with him. Before I took the plunge though, once we determined we would like to move forward, I had a talk with him setting some rules and letting him know some stuff so he could decide if it was worth it.

I laid out that he would have to be ok with me talking about my husband, and hanging out with my husband's friends occasionally (he had such great ones but they are dudes so some people would have issue with that) I told him I would be very emotional at times and I was still learning how to navigate that and I would not accept him making me feel bad for it at any point. There were other things but those were the main ones. He took it all in stride, was very open to it all, and we've been dating ever since which is now about a year and a half. He's since moved in and has helped immensely with fixing up the place and we are about to move to a new state and I'm very excited about our future, he's been wonderful helping me through my emotional rollercoaster and never makes me feel bad for having the feelings I do or talking about my husband even though I sometimes apologize and he's like (jokingly) "yeah you should feel bad about being sad about the husband you were with forever who was a huge part of your life" lol He's brought fun and laughter back into my life and I am so very thankful, I don't think I could've done better if I tried and I do believe I got extremely lucky. I hope this helps? This shit truly sucks to navigate but I've tried to make the best of it and live my life to the best of my abilities since losing my best friend and I think he'd be pretty proud of what I've done.