Saw one of the many history posts on Facebook this afternoon. Was of someone I met when I was like 21 or 22 and she was very late teens. We had fun together and both of us were significantly involved in EMS. I had last spent time with her like maybe 3 years after my D so at least 10 years ago. It would have been more than 20 years since we had first met. I’d have reconnected more fully as we were both single but it never happened. She finally married for the first and only time about 5 years later. I didn’t know the guy at all other than he was a firefighter, divorced with two younger kids - grade school age. They seemed to have a good life. She seemed happy.
I was then shocked to find out she got a very odd illness that shut down her organs. She had turned the corner but sadly died at around age 52 I think after months in the hospital. I thought it had been longer but it was just 2 years this past December she died.
Thanks to the insanity that was Covid she was never given a proper funeral until a celebration of life was held on September 21, 2021. I was not connected enough to attend even had I known. But as I’m just looking back now after entering this whole rabbit hole, 3 days after her celebration of life, on September 24, some 9 months after her totally untimely death, her widower husband announced he was in a relationship with one of her very good friends. They didn’t at all appear to hide it and every comment I saw was in support of them. In fact many posts tag my deceased friend, her good friend and her widower husband. Some months later they announced their engagement for later this year.
I can’t even anymore. No one finds this at least a little odd? Or perhaps they are afraid to post what they really think? How does a guy in true tragic form lose his wife, and then take up with one of her best friends within the year - possible within months? Was something going on prior? Am I the only one that finds this healthy if not strange as Fock? Loose your wife, start dating her friend within months and marry her a year after her funeral?
I cannot stop my head from shaking side to side. I guess some guys just cannot be alone.
DonH Midwest Me 56 WAW-EXW 55 Met 11/95 / Married 5/00 Bomb 6/20/05 / She Filed on 6/2/06 / Divorced on 10/9/06 4 who'd qualify as GF since D & dated about 25 women since D
I do know a fair share of elderly couple friends who each lost a spouse and they ended up together…
I had a sad hospice case with a 42 year old married woman with 2 young daughters…… her single sister helped her husband with the kids and granted them her blessing before she died if they fell ever fell in love……
It’s a common trauma and loss that sometimes bonds people. No one else understands and they grew close and it happens.
I have some really interesting situations I would have never been open minded to in the past…… but sometimes I just get it
I do think it's odd they would tag the deceased friend in the post almost celebrating that her death brought them together. Definitely seems a bit strange.
That said, who knows when their relationship started? Doesn't necessarily mean affair. Could be they spent more time grieving their loss and it brought them together.
Originally Posted by DonH
I guess some guys just cannot be alone.
Agreed you could be on to something here.
Me:39 Ex-W:37 M:7 T: 9 S:6 D:3 BD/IHS/Confirm EA/PA: Feb '20 OM1 affair ends: May '20 W/OM2 & moves out: June-July '20 W files for D: Jul20 OM2 confirmed: 9/2020 Divorced: May '21
Singer Stevie Nicks married her best friends husband after she past. She said it was to help grieve and raise her daughter. She soon realized it was a mistake and had it annulled 3 months later.
I can’t even anymore. No one finds this at least a little odd? Or perhaps they are afraid to post what they really think? How does a guy in true tragic form lose his wife, and then take up with one of her best friends within the year - possible within months? Was something going on prior? Am I the only one that finds this healthy if not strange as Fock? Loose your wife, start dating her friend within months and marry her a year after her funeral?
I cannot stop my head from shaking side to side. I guess some guys just cannot be alone.
Until you have been there, and I truly hope anyone here is never faced with that situation, you just don't know.
Understanding the depths of the pain of losing a long time loved one is something that we can all be judgmental about until it happens to us.
Several years ago, I had a cousin that was married for twenty plus years to a woman that passed from Cancer. Within 6 months he had remarried. I remember feeling at that time that there was possibly something before she passed, and I remember feeling judgement toward him for moving along so fast.
Well, that certainly has kicked me in the a$$ lately....
Imagine if you may, being in a relationship with a person that you have chosen to spend your life with, you share everything. You are their sounding board and they are yours. The first person you call when something happens albeit good or bad in your life, the person that comforts you, celebrates you, as you do for them. And to have it ripped apart so soon. Too soon....
It's a pain that you cannot imagine until you have stared it down. The feeling of desperation, loneliness, isolation, the feelings of ending it all so that the pain goes away. Most days deciding whether or not you wanted to live and go on......
What you also don't know, are the conversations that may have been had beforehand between them. I know K talked about who I could be with, and maybe I should think about asking this friend out when she was gone, or I should call this friend of hers for sex if I just needed to get off.....
She also made me promise that I would find someone to be happy with, that could enhance my life in some way like she hoped that she had. Someone to love and share my life with. And that life was too short to be isolated and lonely.
So maybe just be happy and supportive for them, that regardless the circumstances, they have found some sort of happiness from the grief.
One of my quotes that allowed me to be where I am moving through this....
I miss you, yes miss you like a piece of my being has been removed but as life moves on regardless, and I know you would want me to move forward with it
Edward Lee
That grief isn't the same as having your spouse cheat, or want out, or whatever....
There is no detachment phase. You are a devoted, loving caregiver until their last breath of air in the universe as we know it....
There is zero hope that they will ever be back, and the one person that you want to console you is the person that is gone....
So when you can understand that ......then maybe you will understand how a person just wants the pain to end.
I tell my couple friends now, that the best that they can hope for is that they go out together in a fiery auto crash....so that they will never know this.
I hope your friends have found solace and some happiness.
You have reminded me of the numerous conversations i've had with my one of my dearest friends. her husband passed from cancer at age 44, she was barely 48. We talked at length about our grief, comparing, contrasting, deeply exploring the similarities and the differences.
Is it worse to know the person you loved more than anything chose to leave you, deliberately creating as much hurt as possible?
Is it worse to know the person you loved more than anything was taken?
Her position was that my exh was still alive, and as long as he was breathing, there could always be hope.
I understand her point, but there really isn't hope when you've been so badly hurt that even now, years later, some days thinking about the deliberateness of the cruelty takes my breath away.
My point was that she will always know that her husband loved her as much as she loved him and never left by choice, with extreme prejudice, calling their kids collateral damage on the way out the door.
our conclusion was that it absolutely $ucked, regardless of which sitch one had. Yet you've had both, so your experience and comparison is first-hand.
I'm sorry that you went through what we all faced which brought us here, only to find your person and have her whipped away too soon.
xo
M 20+ T25+ S ~15.5 (BD) BD 4/6/15 D 12/23/16
"Someone I loved once gave me A box full of darkness. It took me years to understand, That this too, was a gift." ~ Mary Oliver
You have reminded me of the numerous conversations i've had with my one of my dearest friends. her husband passed from cancer at age 44, she was barely 48. We talked at length about our grief, comparing, contrasting, deeply exploring the similarities and the differences.
Is it worse to know the person you loved more than anything chose to leave you, deliberately creating as much hurt as possible?
Is it worse to know the person you loved more than anything was taken?
I don't think that either is worse. They are just different....
Originally Posted by bttrfly
Her position was that my exh was still alive, and as long as he was breathing, there could always be hope.
I agree completely...
Originally Posted by bttrfly
I understand her point, but there really isn't hope when you've been so badly hurt that even now, years later, some days thinking about the deliberateness of the cruelty takes my breath away.
My point was that she will always know that her husband loved her as much as she loved him and never left by choice, with extreme prejudice, calling their kids collateral damage on the way out the door.
Hope belongs to you...
You either choose it or you don't..
Best part, is that it's your choice....where as, she didn't get to make that choice...
Originally Posted by bttrfly
our conclusion was that it absolutely $ucked, regardless of which sitch one had. Yet you've had both, so your experience and comparison is first-hand.
Ayep...
Originally Posted by bttrfly
I'm sorry that you went through what we all faced which brought us here, only to find your person and have her whipped away too soon.
xo
Here's the thing for me at least....
I wouldn't trade one minute of everything that I went through in my past for anything different...
The path through Divorce led me to me, and eventually led me to K....
We had a good life that we built together....
And even though I lost her, she chose me, and chose to love me...as I chose to love her...
Even knowing how it will end, I would live every moment of our time together all over again....
I have a good life still, and I am learning to embrace that.
She made me promise her that I would get through this, whatever it looked like, I would survive and thrive once again....
She made me promise her that I would be happy, whatever that looked like....
I think in the end is we simply need to leave our judgment and assumptions behind, especially in the case of loss, in whatever form that comes in. I just learned thought my line of work to be more open minded. There are conversations going on when someone is terminally Ill that we don’t know about. These 80 year old couple friends, they usually give the blessing somewhere along the line. They seek out these people they trust to care and love for the person they care and love the their whole lives. They keep the memory of their deceased spouses alive. Those who have passed many times tell their loved ones “I’ll be at peace knowing you are with so and so” they honor what they shared special with their deceased loved ones and give permission to allow love for eachother .
I may have never experienced the death of a romantic partner, but I have spoken extensively with those who have in practice. And who are we do judge these experiences?
