The 4 Biggest Dating Mistakes Widows Make (And How To Avoid Them!)
Mistake Number 1:
Thinking everyone will be supportive of you dating again.
“But, Jen” you say “everyone wants to see me be happy again, don’t they? This can’t be true!”
I’m so sorry to be such a downer, but the people in your life will not always agree with your choices.
Everyone has a different idea about timelines when it comes to dating again. Some family may tell you to wait a year. Or five years. Or whatever amount of time they deem necessary.
There is no right answer here.
It’s completely and totally up to you and how you feel.
That being said, your in-laws may not agree on your timeline. They are grieving the loss of a son, which is a different grief from the loss of a husband. They can never replace their son. And they may not want you to “replace” him for another man in your life. They may look at it as a betrayal to him.
Sometimes, it’s your children who don’t want you to move forward.
They may be processing their grief at a different pace. They’re missing their dad. They need you and your attention. And they’re trying to figure out their new life without their dad in it. Then if you start dating, that just rocks their world even more. Their emotions, many times, come out as anger, when really they’re just sad.
Annie, a widow of two years, said “I’ve recently started dating a guy and he is fantastic. I can definitely see this going somewhere. I have 2 teenagers who “tolerate” me dating but they get jealous of the time I spend with him. They go so far as to come up with “emergencies” when we’re out so I have to go home. They keep telling me to break up with him. I give my kids everything. All of me. All of my attention, but I just want to be happy again and they won’t let me. I don’t want to pick sides, but I want a life for me too and a future with someone.”
It’s a delicate dance between parenting and having your own life.
Mistake Number 2:
You think you’ll meet another widow/widower and they will understand you completely and they “Get It” and you fall in love and all will be peachy forever and ever
I’m not saying they’re not out there, but most of the time you will not be dating a fellow widow/ widower.
The dating pool is mostly full of divorced people.
And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, of course!
But, for whatever reason, their relationship ended. It’s not always amicable. It can be messy and uncomfortable. Maybe there’s resentment and bitterness that gets brought up in conversation with your date. There are custody disputes, money arguments, sometimes ongoing challenges involving kids (if they are still at home and split time between parents).
We’re not used to this.
As widows, we didn’t choose to end our relationship. Our spouse was taken from us. Our love for them was there until the very end and still continues throughout our lives.
Any new guy that comes into your life needs to be okay with knowing that.
There’s no reason for them to be jealous of that love. There’s no reason for them to feel insecure about themselves. Or to feel like they could never measure up to your late husband.
This is, unfortunately, something you may encounter from a man who has never dated a widow before.
They may not understand why you still visit the cemetery sometimes. They may not understand why you commemorate the anniversary of his death. They may not understand why you keep your wedding movies and photo albums. They may ask you to stop. Or get rid of those movies.
Then you have to ask yourself “Are these things I would be willing to change for a new guy?”
Relationships are always about compromise and give-and-take.
What you need to remember, and this is key, is that you cannot control the way another person feels. You can’t control how they react to things.
You can try to explain things to them and have an open conversation about it, but they won’t always understand the dynamics of your grief.
In my Widow 180 :The Podcast interview with Ashley Neumann, she told me “I did have one guy tell me that I was too close with my in-laws. He questioned why they were still such a big part of my life. He told me that it didn’t make sense that they were still in my life. I just didn’t go on another date with him. That was the end of that. Because that’s still my family even if my husband isn’t here.”
In my own experience, I have one story I can share. Doug and I had just started dating. He came over and we were in the living room watching a movie when I noticed on the wall, to the left of the TV, was a family portrait of Brent, Claire, and I. Then I glanced to the right and saw the other framed photo of Brent and Claire on the wall. I immediately thought “Well, this is probably not making Doug feel very comfortable right now.”
I then put myself in his shoes.
I thought that if I were sitting in house and HIS wife had passed away, I can’t say I would be very comfortable with their photos on the wall. I made the decision to move our family photos to Claire’s room. Not pack them away, but still have them accessible when we wanted to see them.
That was my choice.
Doug didn’t say anything to me about those pictures. He didn’t comment or ask me to move anything or pressure me to take them down. I felt ready. I chose to take that step.
Some things you may be willing to compromise. Some things are deal-breakers.
But, you never want to change who you are or what you believe in JUST because you want to date somebody.
Mistake Number 3:
Jumping into another relationship too soon
I’m just going to come right out and ask you this…
Are you dating someone to avoid being sad? Did you jump right into another relationship because you’re trying to have some sort of distraction from feeling the sadness and loneliness of your loss?
This is an easy trap to fall into.
You are lonely. You are sad. You are hurting so
I’m telling you. The initial shock phase, survival mode phase, get-your-bearings-cuz-your-world-has-been-rocked phase of grief is NOT a good phase to start a new relationship with someone.
You don’t feel like you. You don’t know who you are anymore. You might be searching to find out who you are and what your place is in the world and what your role is going to be now.
You’re not going to find out who is the “real you” from dating a random stranger.
Now is not the time to introduce a new guy into your life, when you don’t even know what that new life consists of.
When you jump into dating, you might start to make the wrong choices. You might allow a new person into your life just to fill that void, to fill that emptiness, to fill the loneliness. You might allow certain disagreeable, unhealthy behavior to continue with this new person JUST because you don’t want to be alone.
What do I mean?
I mean, maybe you let him talk down to you or try to control you or even manipulate you in some way. He may feel like he has the upper hand because you’re acting so desperate to have someone in your life. He might try to get away with pushing limits and boundaries with you.
Why? Because you’re allowing it.
Why? Because without said new guy you will be alone with your thoughts and your grief.
Here’s my advice: Be alone with your thoughts and your grief.
Feel all the feelings.
Think all the thoughts.
You are on shaky ground and you need to steady yourself again.
You have to grieve. You just do.
As fellow widow and grief facilitator, Jenna Lebron says “Make sure you go through your grief. You cannot go around the storm. You can’t avoid it. Don’t push your grief under the rug. It’s painful. It sucks. You have to go through the storm to get to the rainbow. And I’m grateful I walked through the storm because that rainbow is peeking out right now. I’m still here.”
Take the time to figure yourself out again. Be patient with yourself. It can take a while to re-establish your identity. But it’s worth the time and the effort to process all that you have been through.
Laurice Duffy, life coach, says in episode 10 of the podcast,” The only way out of the pain is through the pain. And sitting with sadness. Allowing the feelings to happen is more important than the time that goes by.”
Once you’re in the right headspace, you will be in such a better place to be open to love again.
MISTAKE NUMBER 4:
Thinking you will never love again, so you don’t even try
I hear this one often from a lot of widows. They say they can’t possibly have a love like they had before with their late husband. And I don’t disagree with that. The love you had with your husband was one-of-a-kind. True.
However, you have the capacity to love again. And that love with a different person is, well, different. It’s unique in it’s own right.
A new person that comes into your life has their own personality, demeanor, sense of humor, all of the things that make them unique and all of the things that you love about THAT person. So, the love is different. Yes. But it’s still love.
I heard an analogy not too long ago that compared this to when you have a baby. And you fall in love with that baby and its beauty and its smile and its chubby cheeks or whatever. If you were blessed to have another baby, you don’t love that baby any less. At all. You love each child, each person, individually and differently. But you love both with all your heart. You don’t split your heart apart, you keep filling it with that love.
When I think of this I think about my interview with Autumn Toelle-Jackson from Episode 19 of widow 180: the podcast. She talks about a phone conversation she had with her mother-in-law about dating again. At first, her mother-in-law was not supportive at all of Autumn being in a new relationship. Within a couple of weeks, she thought about it and not only accepted Autumn’s new boyfriend but welcomed him into their lives. She told him, “There is always room for more love.”
Autumn says, “There’s been love and loss before and it doesn’t take away from what’s coming. But it’s part of the story and you can’t pretend that part of the story doesn’t exist. You can embrace it and love it and honor it and still move forward with wonderful things.”
So, the thing you need to understand, is that it is perfectly possible to love again and to have all of that love in your heart.
You don’t push one aside to make room for another. It simply doesn’t work that way.
If you’re struggling with the whole idea of dating again and finding it to be, well, overwhelming, I want to help!
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Other dating blog posts you may be interested in:
Dating Again After Loss - What To Think About Before You Get Back Out There! Check out the post here: https://www.widow180.com/resources/datingagain
Widow 180: The Podcast Episode 30 - Dating Again! Advice and Tips from Ashley Neumann and Jamie Hattier
Listen to the podcast here!
Join us on Facebook at Widow 180 Community!
