Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Having gone through it with my father wife hunting and proposing to multiple women online in the weeks after my mom died, I would say ideally wait until the kids have healed and are adjusting well to life without mom.

At a minumum I would say not until the gravestone marker has been placed and the kids have had time to visit and grieve that. Gravestones go on about one year after the burial so that makes it 1+ years absolute minimum.

The kids needs to grieve the loss of mom through all holidays, Christmas and birthdays especially. If they can have the first Christmas to grieve and tue second Christmas to realize life goes on, that would be especially helpful.

I would also say widowed dads need to establish legal protection to guarantee any assets that were part of mom's estate, especially family heirlooms, family property, family money, or family farms, and also property owned by the original marriage before the spouse's death, are completely protected to be passed on to her children and will not under any circumstances go to future wives, future children, or especially children/grandchildren that new wives bring to the relationship that are not related to you. This shoukd be established before you start dating. If you are not ready to do this then you are not ready to start dating.

I'm a current first wife and I don't feel this way. If I died and left a lot of money, my husband remarries and has more children, I would expect him to treat all of his children the same. I know if he dies, I remarry and have more kids, I would be trying to treat all of my children equally. If you want what you said, you should go ahead and take care of it with your will while you are alive.

That is all rosey and good thatbyou feel that way but too often unfortunately second wives feel completely the opposite.

Over and over, more times than not, second wives of widows cut off the children from the dead wife in favor of kids they bring into the marriage, be they adults with families of their own or actual children. How would you feel if a farm that passed down through your mother's family went to your husband's second wife's children from.her first marriage and your kids were cut off entirely? Or your husband knew that you wanted your daughter to have great grandma's wedding set and grandpa's piano, and second wife sells tue piano on craigslist because it does not match her new decor and gives the jewelry to her own daughter? Or if you prepared for your death with a life insurance policy, thinking your husband would do tue loving and rational thing and take care of your children, but instead he blows it on a huge engagement ring, expensive trips, a big wedding and a relocation of tye woman he met online and proposed to less than one week after meeting her and less than three montys after you were buried?

Second wives generally do not have anyone's interest but their own in mind. Many widowed men react very quickly in their grief and remarry very quickly. Usually the kind of women willing to marry a widow who they just met a few months ago who has not yet laid a gravestone on their wife's grave are not kind souls who will want to help your children grieve or to look after them as their own. Those kind of women who jump on recently widowed grieving men are opportunistic bitches who are trying to take advantage of tye window of griefwhere people just are not thinking clearly.

If a man has not moved far enough along in his grief to honor and protect the children of his dead wife in a logical legal way, then he is not ready to begin dating.

Yes, that pretty much describes my dad's wife. Actually, women were throwing themselves at him almost immediately after my mom died. In fact, the female lawyer who helped him with some paperwork/matters after my mom's sudden death said to him that "I don't usually do this" and asked him out on a date. I would NEVER have expected my dad to have moved on so quickly, and neither did my mom: once, after watching those old movies Love Story and Love Story 2 (or whatever the sequel is called) with her, I asked her if she and my dad would remarry after the other died, and my mom said that she didn't think she or my dad would get married again for a long time after the other died because they loved each other so much. So, shocker, my dad was dating within MONTHS of her death, and he went through a series of idiots and it terrified the young me to see the almost obsessive love in his eyes as he gazed upon his girlfriend, snuggling on our couch with her months after my mom was dead. He put ALL of his spare time into dating, and my siblings and I were basically on our own while dad was out to dinner with his newest girlfriend. He finally married a woman who is now his top priority, and he spends all his time with her, her kids, and her grandkids, apparently oblivious and uninterested in his blood kids and grandkids. My mom's family heirlooms are now the new wife's, and her grandkids have destroyed some cherished mementos. She worked super hard to ensure that my dad always had something important scheduled to do with her during any important life events of my siblings/me, and she made it clear from the beginning that she regarded me, the daughter, as an especially threatening entity: she didn't care that we were grieving, and she she moved in super fast. If she had really loved my dad, I think she would have told him that she could see he was maybe not himself because of his grief, and gently told him to stop and think about what he was doing and how it would affect his relationship with his kids, and that when he was a little further along in the grieving process, he might actually WANT a relationship with his kids. But instead she took advantage. Grief is like a temporary craziness, and many, many women are desperate enough to hijack a man who is in the throes of grief to get themselves a husband.

Do not assume that you know how your husband will act in the throes of grief because, again, grief is like a temporary craziness, and there are many case studies on the grieving process, etc., that support the premise that men and women act differently in grief. Men often remarry very quickly; their tendency is to replace the thing that was lost as quickly as they can, and if getting a new wife means that they lose their kids, they aren't too concerned by that, even if they were once loving fathers to those kids. They will become loving fathers to their new families.

Protect your kids.

Anonymous wrote:I'd be fine with it after a year. I want my husband to be happy.

I have heart issues and we actually talked about this a lot. He's been instructed that he is to find someone else if I die, unless I die because he's murdered me.

Interesting conversations you two are having LOL

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:3 years but preferably never TBH

+1

Wow, really? If your spouse dies, you'll never see anybody else?

I myself would probably never marry or live with someone again. I would probably date.

I'd be fine with it after a year. I want my husband to be happy.

I have heart issues and we actually talked about this a lot. He's been instructed that he is to find someone else if I die, unless I die because he's murdered me.

Anonymous wrote:

If he found someone awful or selfish, or someone who put my kids' needs last in favor of herself, I would haunt them.

I love you

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Having gone through it with my father wife hunting and proposing to multiple women online in the weeks after my mom died, I would say ideally wait until the kids have healed and are adjusting well to life without mom.

At a minumum I would say not until the gravestone marker has been placed and the kids have had time to visit and grieve that. Gravestones go on about one year after the burial so that makes it 1+ years absolute minimum.

The kids needs to grieve the loss of mom through all holidays, Christmas and birthdays especially. If they can have the first Christmas to grieve and tue second Christmas to realize life goes on, that would be especially helpful.

I would also say widowed dads need to establish legal protection to guarantee any assets that were part of mom's estate, especially family heirlooms, family property, family money, or family farms, and also property owned by the original marriage before the spouse's death, are completely protected to be passed on to her children and will not under any circumstances go to future wives, future children, or especially children/grandchildren that new wives bring to the relationship that are not related to you. This shoukd be established before you start dating. If you are not ready to do this then you are not ready to start dating.

I'm a current first wife and I don't feel this way. If I died and left a lot of money, my husband remarries and has more children, I would expect him to treat all of his children the same. I know if he dies, I remarry and have more kids, I would be trying to treat all of my children equally. If you want what you said, you should go ahead and take care of it with your will while you are alive.

But your NEW kids would have a dad that can support they financially. Your first set of kids would not.
So, what if you shared your money and your NEW husband outlived you and left they money to the NEW kids only, his kids.

Maybe they have a dad who can support them, maybe not. I'm not worried about him cutting out our kids. I guess I feel the same way as some pp's upstream in that I trust him to make good decisions about it. Also, i know that people feel it's rare to have a good stepparent, but I don't feel that way. I've seen a lot of step situations where no one was perfect, but it was clear that everyone was trying their best and it worked out well enough. I think it's rare that a parent would cut his first kids out entirely in favor of new kids. I'm sure it happens - people will chime in - but I don't think that's the norm.

You know, I woukd never had thought that of my own father, but he remarried very quickly after mom died and ended up cutting out his kids, haof of them entirely, due to his new wife.

It wasn't about money either. He did not attend my sister's wedding beyond the actual ceremony which ye had to sneak to and left during pictures. He stood her up for the reception.

New wife has a daughter the same age as my sister, with two kids, one the age of my youngest and one the age of my sister's kid. My father and his wife fly across tye country to spend a month each year with her daughter and grand daughter. My family lived a within a couple hours drive from her for two years. Both times they came out to spend a month with her kid and grandkids, he never mentioned the trip to us and never made an effort to contact us. My kids would have been over the moon to see him, even for an afternoon. My oldest remembers what and amazing grandpa he was before grandma died, and had a very hard time understanding why pawpaw dumped him as soon as second wife came into the picture. All the older grandkids feel this way, although it has gone on for a decade so this is their normal. The younger grandkids just know him as a picture and maybe a ohone call a couple of years. My sister's preschooler is the same age as her daughter's youngest that he spends months with. He has seen my niece three times in her three years of life, in spite of multiple invitations to get together and in spite of her living 10 miles from him.

Our family was the kind of family that got togetyer multiple times per week and that everyone envies. Everyone who knows us cannot believe how fragmented we now are and how our father dumped us after this woman came into his life. We are all shocked too.

But talking to other people, men and women, who have lost their mothers, this beuavior is very common.

You might think your husband will look after your children well and treat all of the children in the future marriage equally, but odds are very, very strong he will not.

I think it would be good for my daughter to have a female role model if I die, so I'd hope that my ex would find someone nice at some point.

If he found someone awful or selfish, or someone who put my kids' needs last in favor of herself, I would haunt them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Having gone through it with my father wife hunting and proposing to multiple women online in the weeks after my mom died, I would say ideally wait until the kids have healed and are adjusting well to life without mom.

At a minumum I would say not until the gravestone marker has been placed and the kids have had time to visit and grieve that. Gravestones go on about one year after the burial so that makes it 1+ years absolute minimum.

The kids needs to grieve the loss of mom through all holidays, Christmas and birthdays especially. If they can have the first Christmas to grieve and tue second Christmas to realize life goes on, that would be especially helpful.

I would also say widowed dads need to establish legal protection to guarantee any assets that were part of mom's estate, especially family heirlooms, family property, family money, or family farms, and also property owned by the original marriage before the spouse's death, are completely protected to be passed on to her children and will not under any circumstances go to future wives, future children, or especially children/grandchildren that new wives bring to the relationship that are not related to you. This shoukd be established before you start dating. If you are not ready to do this then you are not ready to start dating.

I'm a current first wife and I don't feel this way. If I died and left a lot of money, my husband remarries and has more children, I would expect him to treat all of his children the same. I know if he dies, I remarry and have more kids, I would be trying to treat all of my children equally. If you want what you said, you should go ahead and take care of it with your will while you are alive.

That is all rosey and good thatbyou feel that way but too often unfortunately second wives feel completely the opposite.

Over and over, more times than not, second wives of widows cut off the children from the dead wife in favor of kids they bring into the marriage, be they adults with families of their own or actual children. How would you feel if a farm that passed down through your mother's family went to your husband's second wife's children from.her first marriage and your kids were cut off entirely? Or your husband knew that you wanted your daughter to have great grandma's wedding set and grandpa's piano, and second wife sells tue piano on craigslist because it does not match her new decor and gives the jewelry to her own daughter? Or if you prepared for your death with a life insurance policy, thinking your husband would do tue loving and rational thing and take care of your children, but instead he blows it on a huge engagement ring, expensive trips, a big wedding and a relocation of tye woman he met online and proposed to less than one week after meeting her and less than three montys after you were buried?

Second wives generally do not have anyone's interest but their own in mind. Many widowed men react very quickly in their grief and remarry very quickly. Usually the kind of women willing to marry a widow who they just met a few months ago who has not yet laid a gravestone on their wife's grave are not kind souls who will want to help your children grieve or to look after them as their own. Those kind of women who jump on recently widowed grieving men are opportunistic bitches who are trying to take advantage of tye window of griefwhere people just are not thinking clearly.

If a man has not moved far enough along in his grief to honor and protect the children of his dead wife in a logical legal way, then he is not ready to begin dating.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no rush to replace me. He doesn't need to think about sex.

What he needs to do is support our kids through the long grieving process. They don't need to see mommy replaced so fast. They don't need to share dad, they need dad 100%. Kids don't need a step parent who wants dad's time and money. A step parent's priority is not my kid.

Yeah, but dad might think of his needs too which is not wrong.

Yes his sexual needs.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Having gone through it with my father wife hunting and proposing to multiple women online in the weeks after my mom died, I would say ideally wait until the kids have healed and are adjusting well to life without mom.

At a minumum I would say not until the gravestone marker has been placed and the kids have had time to visit and grieve that. Gravestones go on about one year after the burial so that makes it 1+ years absolute minimum.

The kids needs to grieve the loss of mom through all holidays, Christmas and birthdays especially. If they can have the first Christmas to grieve and tue second Christmas to realize life goes on, that would be especially helpful.

I would also say widowed dads need to establish legal protection to guarantee any assets that were part of mom's estate, especially family heirlooms, family property, family money, or family farms, and also property owned by the original marriage before the spouse's death, are completely protected to be passed on to her children and will not under any circumstances go to future wives, future children, or especially children/grandchildren that new wives bring to the relationship that are not related to you. This shoukd be established before you start dating. If you are not ready to do this then you are not ready to start dating.

I'm a current first wife and I don't feel this way. If I died and left a lot of money, my husband remarries and has more children, I would expect him to treat all of his children the same. I know if he dies, I remarry and have more kids, I would be trying to treat all of my children equally. If you want what you said, you should go ahead and take care of it with your will while you are alive.

But your NEW kids would have a dad that can support they financially. Your first set of kids would not.
So, what if you shared your money and your NEW husband outlived you and left they money to the NEW kids only, his kids.

Maybe they have a dad who can support them, maybe not. I'm not worried about him cutting out our kids. I guess I feel the same way as some pp's upstream in that I trust him to make good decisions about it. Also, i know that people feel it's rare to have a good stepparent, but I don't feel that way. I've seen a lot of step situations where no one was perfect, but it was clear that everyone was trying their best and it worked out well enough. I think it's rare that a parent would cut his first kids out entirely in favor of new kids. I'm sure it happens - people will chime in - but I don't think that's the norm.

They obviously have a dad, the guy you would be married to. I see it in this forum all the time, dad leaves everything to second wife, first set of kids get nothing.

What you see in this forum all the time could be 3 or 4 people posting over and over. I definitely don't believe that what I see here is real life for most of us. In the actual real world, I just haven't seen this happening. By may or may not have a dad, I thought we were talking about the stepkids' bio dad, not my recently widowed (and now remarried!) husband.

Anonymous wrote:There is no rush to replace me. He doesn't need to think about sex.

What he needs to do is support our kids through the long grieving process. They don't need to see mommy replaced so fast. They don't need to share dad, they need dad 100%. Kids don't need a step parent who wants dad's time and money. A step parent's priority is not my kid.

Yeah, but dad might think of his needs too which is not wrong.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Having gone through it with my father wife hunting and proposing to multiple women online in the weeks after my mom died, I would say ideally wait until the kids have healed and are adjusting well to life without mom.

At a minumum I would say not until the gravestone marker has been placed and the kids have had time to visit and grieve that. Gravestones go on about one year after the burial so that makes it 1+ years absolute minimum.

The kids needs to grieve the loss of mom through all holidays, Christmas and birthdays especially. If they can have the first Christmas to grieve and tue second Christmas to realize life goes on, that would be especially helpful.

I would also say widowed dads need to establish legal protection to guarantee any assets that were part of mom's estate, especially family heirlooms, family property, family money, or family farms, and also property owned by the original marriage before the spouse's death, are completely protected to be passed on to her children and will not under any circumstances go to future wives, future children, or especially children/grandchildren that new wives bring to the relationship that are not related to you. This shoukd be established before you start dating. If you are not ready to do this then you are not ready to start dating.

I'm a current first wife and I don't feel this way. If I died and left a lot of money, my husband remarries and has more children, I would expect him to treat all of his children the same. I know if he dies, I remarry and have more kids, I would be trying to treat all of my children equally. If you want what you said, you should go ahead and take care of it with your will while you are alive.

But your NEW kids would have a dad that can support they financially. Your first set of kids would not.
So, what if you shared your money and your NEW husband outlived you and left they money to the NEW kids only, his kids.

Maybe they have a dad who can support them, maybe not. I'm not worried about him cutting out our kids. I guess I feel the same way as some pp's upstream in that I trust him to make good decisions about it. Also, i know that people feel it's rare to have a good stepparent, but I don't feel that way. I've seen a lot of step situations where no one was perfect, but it was clear that everyone was trying their best and it worked out well enough. I think it's rare that a parent would cut his first kids out entirely in favor of new kids. I'm sure it happens - people will chime in - but I don't think that's the norm.

They obviously have a dad, the guy you would be married to. I see it in this forum all the time, dad leaves everything to second wife, first set of kids get nothing.

That's lame on the part of dad, but he is free to do as he wishes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Having gone through it with my father wife hunting and proposing to multiple women online in the weeks after my mom died, I would say ideally wait until the kids have healed and are adjusting well to life without mom.

At a minumum I would say not until the gravestone marker has been placed and the kids have had time to visit and grieve that. Gravestones go on about one year after the burial so that makes it 1+ years absolute minimum.

The kids needs to grieve the loss of mom through all holidays, Christmas and birthdays especially. If they can have the first Christmas to grieve and tue second Christmas to realize life goes on, that would be especially helpful.

I would also say widowed dads need to establish legal protection to guarantee any assets that were part of mom's estate, especially family heirlooms, family property, family money, or family farms, and also property owned by the original marriage before the spouse's death, are completely protected to be passed on to her children and will not under any circumstances go to future wives, future children, or especially children/grandchildren that new wives bring to the relationship that are not related to you. This shoukd be established before you start dating. If you are not ready to do this then you are not ready to start dating.

That's true for what was moms that wasn't joint property at the time of her death and it should have been mom that set up a will.

For Dads property he might wish for it to be distributed to future kids/step kids/grandkids and wives. Dad might have a long happy life with his next wife too and many relationships might stem from that. Dad should do as he wishes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:when would it be ok for your spouse to start dating again? If there are kids, let's assume that whoever the spouse dates would be good to them if it comes to that (not some evil stepmother stereotype).

I'm basically asking what you think is an appropriate time to mourn your death before moving on.

I think a year is appropriate and decent, but that depends. If it was a long decline and said spouse was 'out of it' maybe sooner.
Also, I mean - dead is dead. There's nothing else you can do about that and life is for the living. I think I'd mourn my husband for a long time but I'd respect
someone doing things differently too.
However, I would wait years to introduce anyone to the kids as they don't need the drama. You don't really know what will crop up until you are in the thick of things, trust me.
Have your fun dates and companionship but leave the kids out of it - for at least a year and preferably longer.

+1, more or less. I would actually really want DH to remarry eventually, though perhaps wait a year before dating to try to get his head on straight. I love him to pieces but he lacks a certain amount of common sense necessary to solo-parent, and like everyone else, he really needs companionship. He's a bit socially awkward and prone to depression; without a partner, he'll just be so solitary. I'd want someone to love him as much as I do, or better. And to help him with hard task of raising 2 little girls.

weirdly, I think if he died, I probably would just wait until the girls were out of the house. I fly solo pretty well (based on limited experience and extrapolation), but it's hectic and all-consuming, and I can't really imagine trying to fit a romantic life into the life of me-as-single-mom.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Having gone through it with my father wife hunting and proposing to multiple women online in the weeks after my mom died, I would say ideally wait until the kids have healed and are adjusting well to life without mom.

At a minumum I would say not until the gravestone marker has been placed and the kids have had time to visit and grieve that. Gravestones go on about one year after the burial so that makes it 1+ years absolute minimum.

The kids needs to grieve the loss of mom through all holidays, Christmas and birthdays especially. If they can have the first Christmas to grieve and tue second Christmas to realize life goes on, that would be especially helpful.

I would also say widowed dads need to establish legal protection to guarantee any assets that were part of mom's estate, especially family heirlooms, family property, family money, or family farms, and also property owned by the original marriage before the spouse's death, are completely protected to be passed on to her children and will not under any circumstances go to future wives, future children, or especially children/grandchildren that new wives bring to the relationship that are not related to you. This shoukd be established before you start dating. If you are not ready to do this then you are not ready to start dating.

I'm a current first wife and I don't feel this way. If I died and left a lot of money, my husband remarries and has more children, I would expect him to treat all of his children the same. I know if he dies, I remarry and have more kids, I would be trying to treat all of my children equally. If you want what you said, you should go ahead and take care of it with your will while you are alive.

But your NEW kids would have a dad that can support they financially. Your first set of kids would not.
So, what if you shared your money and your NEW husband outlived you and left they money to the NEW kids only, his kids.

Maybe they have a dad who can support them, maybe not. I'm not worried about him cutting out our kids. I guess I feel the same way as some pp's upstream in that I trust him to make good decisions about it. Also, i know that people feel it's rare to have a good stepparent, but I don't feel that way. I've seen a lot of step situations where no one was perfect, but it was clear that everyone was trying their best and it worked out well enough. I think it's rare that a parent would cut his first kids out entirely in favor of new kids. I'm sure it happens - people will chime in - but I don't think that's the norm.

They obviously have a dad, the guy you would be married to. I see it in this forum all the time, dad leaves everything to second wife, first set of kids get nothing.