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[quote=Anonymous]This isn't just about the father as a person, though, who has the right to move on at his own pace, but the responsibility of a father to respect his children's grief of their mother. It would be one thing for the adult children to shun the father just because he has moved on. But this first trip without their mother is going to be hard. How can the FIL in this thread not step outside his own desires for one moment and think to himself: "Hey, my children are grieving their mother. Even if I no longer think of her as my wife, or grieve myself, I need to respect the way they are feeling."

We are not talking about years here, we're talking about less than a year.

I suspect that some of these men who remarry immediately are infants looking for caretakers, and selfish ones at that; which fits with what OP's FIL is doing. Still others are just afraid of their own grief, and that's a bit more complicated because FIL may be using this new woman as a way to avoid facing the death of his long time partner head on. Either way, parenting is hard. It doesn't stop being hard when your children are adults. If I lost my husband, with young children, do you think it would be right to bring in a new husband right away and just expect them to get used to it?

Well,  these are adults, not kids, but the dad in question does not need to put it in their faces so harshly. How awful to be at a vacation home at such an emotional time with a stranger to the family?

OP, I would back out of this vacation. There will be other years. Take your children somewhere fancy. They will get over it. But if your husband is forced to deal with this unfair situation your dad is placing him in because you will not back out of a vacation, he may not. For the long term health of your husband's relationship with his father, he needs to politely decline and say "not this year dad, it's too soon for me to go to that vacation house without mom as it is, and I just can't bring myself to go through those emotions in front of your new girlfriend. You deserve to be happy, but I deserve time and space to grieve my mother."

Bottom line: the father lost a wife, but the children lost their mother. They're all grieving and the father doesn't get to dictate how the kids grieve any more than the reverse. Skip the trip this year, do it next year or start a new tradition altogether. Times change, obviously. [/quote]

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