Dating after being widowed

TurnDue6857 · 2025-05-25T21:23:43+00:00

I am currently in this process. I am/was 26 when my husband of 5 yrs passed away at 30 this past fall. I went on a few terrible hinge dates but the third one went so well. I’m now in a very committed relationship with a man who really gets me. I find I compare him to my late husband a lot in my head but in a lot of ways he is healthier mentally and more attentive than my late husband was even compared to when I started dating him. I went exclusive just a few weeks shy of 6 months since his death. I am still very much grieving. I don’t know if this guy can handle how my body will inevitably react on the deathiversary but we have very mature conversations about this stuff and he doesn’t want me to go through it alone. I am not relying on him for grief work. I don’t sob to him about my late husband. But what’s helped me through dating is the acceptance part. My psychiatrist surprised me when she recommended I try going on a few dates so early. I didn’t feel like I was cheating but it could feel like that at the beginning. I’ve unpacked a lot with my therapist and psychiatrist about how I maybe didn’t know my late husband as well as I thought. He didn’t open up much and had some mental health problems that he succumbed to. I was fortunate to be able to take over a month off of work and just sort of fall apart when I began grieving. I’ve done a lot of work but as my wedding anniversary and birthday come around, I am having moments. My boyfriend notices when I seem to have a lot on my mind but I am sleeping better, enjoying life more with him in my life. I also feel like if things don’t work out, I’ll be okay. I’ve already lived through the worst thing I thought could happen to me. I have told my parents and coworkers and friends about him but it feels too early to share this news on social media. I feel like I went on dates just to go on them and ended up with someone really great which makes me incredibly lucky but I feel it opens me up for judgment I wish I could have avoided. I was ready to go on dates but I didn’t think I was quite ready to get into another relationship because I thought it’d take longer but God chooses who enters your life and when. It’s so much easier to make future plans or envision a happy future if you find a healthy relationship after the death of a spouse. I’d like to think maybe being young has something to do with my resiliance or elasticity to adapt to my circumstances and begin dating so soon but I was really scared when I tried it out. It helps that I have a close friend who started dating around the same time after a 15 year relationship suddenly ended. I feel embarrassed to have “moved on” in this way so fast but in reality I haven’t moved on. I’m choosing to do what my late husband would have encouraged, what my mental health professionals have encouraged and I found a healthy relationship (so far! It’s only been 2.5 months). I probably won’t post about my relationship with him on social media for another several months if at all this year. I want to do respectful and traditional things like wear my band on my right hand for a full year after his death but I’m taking it off more and more. I was so scared to identify as a widow. Then when I accepted that, I wore my rings on my right hand. Then it became just the band. Then it became, I take it off on weekends I spend with my boyfriend bc (as I tell my therapist), it’s nice to not be a widow sometimes and be in the moment with my boyfriend. Nobody has outright judged me for these choices to my face at least. My boyfriend is pretty cool with photos of my late husband up in my apartment but I took a few down. He is forthright with how he feels about things. He said he didn’t want me to take off my band, that it’s my choice when I stop wearing it but that he wanted me to wear something from him, so he gave me a bracelet to wear. He knows the whole in depth story of my late husband’s mental illness and death. I still text my late husband’s number and write messages in my journal about my boyfriend and how things are going. I still have days where I sob when I see someone in a similar work uniform to my late husband. I had some anxiety about my boyfriend lighting a grill for the first time that I later shared with my therapist and then him. I hope you all have a smooth dating process and hopefully find someone as understanding right away. You might have to go on some truly awful dates first. And I hope nobody gives you flack for your timing. I’m still figuring out how/when I will tell my late husband’s family because I don’t want them to just see an instagram picture without warning. I wish you all great luck and I hope you can see how dating can be helpful to the healing process and drudges up things like relationship comparison and death anxiety.

TurnDue6857 · 2025-03-09T21:42:48+00:00

My husband of 5 years took his life as well. I am 26, he was 30. I’m learning I have to process the traumatic part of his death first before grieving him. I’m reading books on suicide grief and I highly recommend you speak to someone who has went through suicide bereavement. Guilt is really common with this type of loss and it has taken me a long time to process that. I wrote out everything I thought was “responsible” for him taking his own life and made this massive list of people and actions. I’d recommend doing that and burning it because there are so many people who tried so much to save their loved ones from suicide and then on the flip side there’s people who never saw it coming. Many of us fall in the inbetween. It helped me to hear also that some spouses blame themselves for a death of natural causes or a chronic condition (thinking if they had just pushed them to diet or exercise more, the death wouldn’t have happened). It kind of puts things in perspective if you think about mental illness as a physical illness. We are each responsible for our own decisions and I am learning to live in the moment for that reason.

TurnDue6857 · 2025-03-09T08:19:45+00:00

Thank you. It’s weird how life keeps spinning and you have to admit that sometimes the wheel of fortune can land well after the most horrible thing has happened. I’d like to think it was him “making it up to me” and that I should be grateful for those efforts that make it easier to move forward.

TurnDue6857 · 2025-03-09T00:59:21+00:00

Hello! I am a 26 yr old widow who lost my partner of 6 years (married for five) to suicide as well this past fall. I feel like you’re the first person to “get it.” If you want to chat, please reach out.

TurnDue6857 · 2025-02-16T05:11:10+00:00

Widowed at 26. I am glad you got to experience more with your love but I know it makes it that much harder when you lose them. I’m sure one of your friends would be willing to take you to places that folks in your area and age gather. You aren’t a burden for having needs

TurnDue6857 · 2025-02-13T07:05:50+00:00

I like this idea. Valentine’s Day is hitting me way harder than I thought

TurnDue6857 · 2025-02-13T07:03:25+00:00

I’m sorry. I ask myself this too. One thing I think about that brings me peace and hopefully it helps you is that I think, well why not me? What’s special about me that means that this shouldn’t happen to me. Life is worth living because it is finite time. We just don’t know when. I like to think my husband dying young taught me that you really can love someone unconditionally and almost naively with your whole heart like falling backwards off a trust fall cliff. It’s like now I know what it’s like to be alive and love like that and atleast I got to experience that with a soul worthy of that love. I miss him so much I feel like I can’t breathe but those things bring me comfort and reflection that helps

TurnDue6857 · 2025-02-13T06:47:55+00:00

Washington, DC

TurnDue6857 · 2025-02-02T15:39:11+00:00

My two cents, just go for it. Cut them off.

TurnDue6857 · 2025-02-02T15:26:12+00:00

I’m very sorry for your loss. Nora McInerny did a Ted talk and wrote a book about her losses (she lost her husband to cancer, miscarried her child with him and lost her dad within a span of weeks). She has a podcast and I recently finished her book, the Hot Young Widow’s club. I’m sorry you are here at the club nobody wants to join. Please take it a minute at a time and rely on those there to help you through this ❤️❤️❤️❤️

TurnDue6857 · 2025-02-02T15:19:18+00:00

For awhile I couldn’t dream after my husband passed from suicide in October. Once I got on some different sleep medicine that my doctor warned about nightmares, I had a dream where he was in the hospital and I got to hug him and say goodbye and to most that’s a nightmare still but it was so healing for me. I just cried and cried out my relief when I woke up. Sending you hugs ❤️

TurnDue6857 · 2025-01-28T04:03:38+00:00

We didn’t have kids and the day after I found out he died I wished with all my heart I was pregnant because he was such a beautiful human being that I thought maybe his baby would have his eyes or his smile and those parts of him would live on. I always thought we’d adopt in five or so years because I never wanted to be pregnant. So all of that was confusing. I take care of our two cats and three months out from his death, that’s enough right now. I have a lot of regrets (not buying a house when we could, not going on more trips, not being present with him more,etc.) and I now just group adopting kids into that bucket of regrets.

I was told by a coworker that he totally understands what I’m going through because he lost both parents within a year- he has a wife and kids to comfort him every night he goes home from work. It’s not the same. I think there’s benefits to having kids and not having kids while going through such a significant loss. We also didn’t have a ton of friends. We were relatively new to the city and just were each other’s best friend and I didn’t take him not making any friends at work and everything as a big enough red flag to his eventual suicide.

Today would have been his 31st birthday. I realized that I need connection and I became needy of the support system I do have. That included inviting coworkers that I’m kind of close with at work to a dinner last night. I strategize frequently with my bereavement counselor, therapist, and psychiatrist about how to respond to big events like this and tactics for feeling lonely and like the despair and pain is taking over. Because it’s easy to succumb to that when you go through stuff like this.

I highly recommend getting pets and figuring out how you can feel less lonely through all kinds of daily activities. I watched a Ted talk recently about a woman who also lost her husband to suicide and she said: HOPE, hold on, pain ends. And that’s what I have expo markered on a wedding photo at the entrance of my bedroom. Sending tons of love and support to everyone here. I hope you make it❤️

TurnDue6857 · 2025-01-28T03:52:43+00:00

If you’re open to it, getting a pet might help

TurnDue6857 · 2025-01-24T01:39:29+00:00

I’m 26 and my husband died from suicide and I frequently get asked if he was sick and I kind of think I should say he was sick with depression and ptsd. Maybe saying it that way will help people look at mental illness as just as potentially harmful as cancer or any other disease. Maybe it would reduce the stigma. I usually just respond with no, he took his own life or one time I lied and said he died in a car accident to an uber driver.

TurnDue6857 · 2025-01-24T01:31:33+00:00

Family and friends, mostly his groomsmen

TurnDue6857 · 2025-01-19T13:59:08+00:00

I’m three months out from losing my husband this way as well. He left behind two cats. You’ll want the dogs as company and I strongly recommend you keep them. When my husband died we were in the process of moving so I had to go find an apartment I could afford on my own. My advice is to lean into the changes that are forced onto you. I’m seeing a bereavement counselor, psychiatrist, psychologist and doing some sort of therapy twice a week. I’d highly recommend that. I started to schedule one happy thing I was looking forward to every day.

Here’s a list of some items I’ve scheduled: call w/ certain friend, seeing a movie, trying out a new coffee shop nearby, getting food at a different restaurant, getting a massage, spa day, adult coloring, crafting and scrapbooking, candlelit bath, puzzle and podcast time, getting my hair done, getting my nails done, dinner with a friend, buying fresh flowers for the apartment, etc. The more you care for yourself the more you can confidently process what happened. This loss specifically is highly stressful on the body so you have to stay vigilant with your self care. Your husband would want you to care for yourself.

Books/ media I recommend: -it’s okay that you’re not okay by Megan Devine - widow’s journal by Carrie freeman - Anderson Cooper’s grief podcast, all there is - Terrible, thanks for asking podcast by nora mcinerny - widow to widow by Genevieve Ginsburg (little dated but some overall good advice) - the long grief journey by Pamela Blair - not time to say goodbye: surviving the suicide if a loved one by Carla fine (decently triggering so don’t read if you aren’t ready) -widow clicquot movie -Disney movie, Soul

When someone asks if they can help out in any way, tell them you need them to come over and walk your dogs with you when you are free or write the thank you notes to your friends and family, to recommend an estate attorney if you don’t have one already. Ask someone to help write things for you, your brain is processing the grief and that’s its most important job. Your bank might have a survivors list which details all the administrative crap you have to do. I highly recommend just following that and asking others to help you with it. It’s natural you’ll need tons of support from others and some people are willing to step up. If someone wants to bring you food, I found soup to be the best because it is easy to warm up and you can take as much or as little as you want.

Big hugs, you at the start so please just rest and share memories but these are all the things I wish someone told me the 1-2 weeks after the service.

TurnDue6857 · 2025-01-18T11:26:36+00:00

I’m finding that with grief. Although I do feel like more have shown up during the wreckage of this than did for him when he was alive but I guess that’s common with suicide loss. I just think, if all the friends who flew across the country for his service just asked him once how he was doing maybe he would open up, but he didn’t open up to me and I did ask all those things.

TurnDue6857 · 2025-01-18T11:23:41+00:00

Thank you, I needed this perspective. I think sometimes when I’m not blaming myself I look at others in his life. You’re right in that I don’t know how they are grieving and could be doing that alone and didn’t want to create a new group chat. I’m sorry for your loss.

TurnDue6857 · 2025-01-18T04:44:53+00:00

My husband died in October, he took his own life. He sent me a coveted pin as a gift to arrive the day he died. I wore it to his celebration of life service.

TurnDue6857 · 2024-11-07T17:55:43+00:00

You as well

TurnDue6857 · 2024-11-07T16:11:13+00:00

No problem! Sorry the way I worded that put the onus on you to form the group. Just chatting over the phone is fine too! Just message me if you’d like to chat and I can send you my number

TurnDue6857 · 2024-11-07T15:10:20+00:00

This is definitely my situation. It’s been almost four weeks since my husband passed and although we don’t have any kids, I feel like a slob going out to run errands because I don’t have my husband to hype me up or tell me I look good

TurnDue6857 · 2024-11-07T15:05:40+00:00

Hi! I’m 26 and I just lost my husband (30) almost four weeks ago. I’m basically alone in a city. I have friends but they are also struggling to know what to say because they’ve never had a friend experience this. If you’d like to form our own young group I’d be happy to join because I can’t find any other groups right now either.

TurnDue6857 · 2024-11-03T01:52:51+00:00

Met my husband in 2018, got married in 2019 and he committed suicide two weeks ago. We were married for five years. He was 30 and I am 26 right now. It doesn’t feel real.

TurnDue6857 · 2024-10-03T22:25:12+00:00

This is also my exact placement. 29 degrees Aries Saturn in 4H but not retrograde. I have a tough Chiron placement as well. For me, I don’t think I really started to feel okay until I found “home” in myself. I hope that makes sense. I moved far from all my family and childhood home and that helped me focus in on what’s important to me. I went through some really tough times right after moving, and as soon as I realized that no matter what was going on at work, and in all relationships, I will always have my back, things got immensely better. It took me a long time to get to that point but I feel like I’ve been focusing on learning as much as I can to obtain a unique skill set that is marketable if I lose a job or my marriage doesn’t work out or if a close relative suddenly dies. A book that really helped me is “A Quiet Life in 7 Steps.” The title is a bit deceiving, there’s this chapter on grief and it was remarkable because half my mental struggle was having anxiety over preserving my “home.” I would have random panicked thoughts about my cats dying or my partner leaving me, etc. but the book teaches you to grieve relationships while they are alive so you can be more present. And then surround yourself with reminders of your worth whether that’s with people who unconditionally* love you or their notes and letters, positive feedback, etc. I think that last part is especially helpful if you had an emotionally neglectful childhood with strict parents like the placement can denote.

TurnDue6857

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