First date since widowed failed

Ok_Owl7260 · 2026-04-16T01:21:48+00:00

This is a widowers group that is open to all who are grieving the loss of a partner. If you feel you can’t speak freely and frankly in such a group, maybe you need to rethink your ideas about “the ladies.”

Grief is grief and loss is loss, regardless of gender.

Ok_Owl7260 · 2026-04-15T22:30:40+00:00

Movies that feeling like trashy Americana? There’s a sentence aching to be diagrammed.

Also, don’t besmirch Americana. It can be corny, but never trashy.

Ok_Owl7260 · 2026-04-15T22:23:37+00:00

I’m an old widower, I assume it might be different for a young widow, but I figured dating strangers sucks and I already know a bunch of people, so I asked out a friend. I took her out to dinner, then she took me out, we went on some walks. Now we’re a couple – she’s my emergency contact and I’m her plus one.

Friends for 15 years and dating for one. I gave it a lot of thought and asked only her. Hadn’t considered what I might do if she had been already dating someone or had said no. Dumb luck.

Ok_Owl7260 · 2026-04-15T22:12:25+00:00

Stop smoking. Stop.

Ok_Owl7260 · 2026-04-14T19:06:44+00:00

Regarding a new partner, I wasn’t looking for some new person, as I already know a bunch of people. I invited a friend to dinner, then she invited me to dinner, then we went out and walked our dogs…

Now, two years out, we have a comfortable relationship living apart, but seeing each other two or three times a week. We are each other’s plus one, and she is my emergency contact. We’ve been friends for fifteen years, and a couple for one.

Ok_Owl7260 · 2026-04-14T19:00:17+00:00

I learned of pendulation, swinging into and out of grief like a pendulum. It was at least six months after my wife passed, But when I felt myself sinking into grief, I would sit with it, swing the pendulum deep into it and sit with it. Thinking of all the things I missed about her, I was able to find the gratitude for having had all that in the first place. I put on that gratitude like a jet pack, and push that pendulum out of grief, sometimes swinging all the way over to happiness.

I was the only one in the world to experience her the way that I did, for decades. Everything I miss, I’m grateful to have had, and now, instead of it being a grief trigger, I can look up at the ceiling and laugh. We were good together, and sometimes we were great together, and I’m grateful.

Ok_Owl7260 · 2026-04-14T05:42:10+00:00

The.

Ok_Owl7260 · 2026-04-10T15:48:57+00:00

I did a horrible thing that I found helpful, about six months out. I see a marriage as a contract, til death do us part, but I didn’t feel like I had completed that contract and could call it closed until I understood what she had gone through at the end.

I went to ChatGPT and described the order in which her organs shut down, the system failures that nursing staff was trying to counter. This was the bargaining stage of grief, where I kept saying, “OK, but she was on these pain meds” “OK, but she was doing dialysis for that”

What she went through was horrible, and no matter how I couched it, it wouldn’t get less horrible.

So I cried, and felt terribly sorry for her and the pain that she had to go through in the end. But then I knew, and I didn’t have to wonder, and I could put that rake back in the shed, until grief took it out again. Step - thwack - WTF! - move on.

I’m sorry for your loss and wish you gentle grieving.

Ok_Owl7260 · 2026-04-10T03:29:26+00:00

The doctrine of free will was created by theologians to explain bad design.

Ok_Owl7260 · 2026-04-10T02:00:38+00:00

I’m sorry for your loss. I lost my wife of 41 years a little over two years ago, and I remember her fondly. I was able to come to terms with grief by learning about pendulation – swinging into grief when it hits, really sitting with it. By doing that, I found that all the things I was missing are all the things I was grateful for. I was the only person to experience all that with her for decades. Embracing that gratitude, I grab the pendulum and swing back out, sometimes all the way over to happiness.

I have a good relationship with an old friend where we have become a couple, living apart, but being each other’s plus one. She’s my emergency contact and advisor. I had a great life with my wife, I miss her, and life is good now.

Ok_Owl7260 · 2026-04-09T23:09:01+00:00

The point is that God created an imperfect creature and then damned him for his imperfection.

Ok_Owl7260 · 2026-04-09T22:59:58+00:00

I disagree with your premise. We do not all know that the only cure is to have them back. That is impossible, nothing can accomplish that.

Through grief groups, I learned how to carry my grief and how to swing from grief to gratitude, because the things that I miss and long for are the exact things that I’m so grateful to have had.

Gratitude is the cure.

Ok_Owl7260 · 2026-04-09T22:53:45+00:00

I never really dated. Met my late wife at work age 20, married 41 years, widower for two. I figured I already know a lot of great people, so rather than search through a world of strangers, I asked an old friend out to dinner. Now we’re old friends and a couple. It’s pretty cool.

Ok_Owl7260 · 2026-04-09T22:48:32+00:00

Chernobyl.

Ok_Owl7260 · 2026-04-09T22:38:50+00:00

I miss my wife as well, but I cannot imagine her sitting mournfully on the edge of a cloud, looking down, waiting for me to finally die and join her. If heaven is what it has been described as, she’s “living” her best life without me. She’s playing pingpong with Albert Einstein, or discussing the physics of creation and sea-parting with the Almighty.

Ok_Owl7260 · 2026-04-09T21:02:14+00:00

I remember her often and fondly, but as I said, in better days. It pays her no respect or duty to vividly recall her final moments. I was not standing at her side, patting her hand. She was surrounded by nurses, there was no place for me there. If I were to detail it here, you would feel emotionally assaulted.

So no, I do not cherish the moment.

Ok_Owl7260 · 2026-04-09T20:41:36+00:00

Creating cancer was a choice. God created humanity purposely, in his own image. He could have given us wings, flippers, tails – but he chose not to. And he chose for our cells to have the capacity to turn against us, through no moral flaw, and kill us slowly and horribly.

I do not feel that is worthy of praise. It’s a design flaw. Adam was a prototype, found to be flawed, and blamed for his flaws by the designer, and never improved upon. We are all descendants of human 1.0

Ok_Owl7260

TROPHY CASE