In Abel Keogh’s book, it was apparent that Abel was mentally and emotionally ready to start dating again before his family was ready for him to be. It reminded me of the case of my ex-girlfriend Julie’s grandfather, Earl, and his first wive Eliza and second Beth.
Eliza was Julie’s grandmother and, despite having met her off-and-on for a year or so, I never really got to know her. Her mind was almost entirely gone by the time that I entered the picture. Early onset Alzheimer. Alzheimer is a tragic enough disease whenever it strikes, but particularly so when it strikes somebody as early as their fifties, as it did with Eliza. I remember the first time I met her, Julie hadn’t actually warned me about her condition, and since her age made dimentia seem unlikely our first conversation included her talking nonsene and my trying to figure out why I couldn’t understand her.
It was extremely painful from the perspective of Julie and her brother Mack, to whom their grandmother was a daily babysitter as they grew up and both of their parents worked. It was also, of course, very difficult on Julie’s mother and her siblings, watching the woman that raised them mentally fall apart. Their relationship with their father Earl had never been spectactular. Earl wasn’t the easiest person to get along with. Eliza was often left to play peacemaker.
Eliza died a couple years into my relationship with Julie. It’s sometimes the case when someone goes after such a gradual degradation that the family is relieved as much as anything else. Sad to see the loved one go, of course, but happier about them being in a better place or not suffering anymore. That was the case with my grandmother, who died at 91 after having lost her senses a couple of years before. That wasn’t how Julie’s family felt about it. Probably in part because she wasn’t in much physical pain as nearly as they could tell. She was just frustrated, confused, and largely unaware. She also wasn’t 91, so there wasn’t the feeling of a full life well lived, She was cut down before her time. It was one of the saddest funerals I had ever gone to.
Controversy ensued six months later when Earl started dating again. Julie and her family were outraged. They hadn’t finished grieving yet so how could be possibly be? Accusations about him desecrating her memory ensued. Earl didn’t help matters by being Earl and trying to ram his new girlfriend down everyone’s throat without an ounce of delicacy. Things were further strained by the over-all strained relationships that existed to begin with. There was also the matter that Beth, the new girlfriend, looked vaguely similar to Eliza and had the same formal first name. Accusations ran the gamut from concern that he was trying to replace her (by finding someone so similar) to anger that he was trying to forget her (by getting together with someone new so quickly).
I privately stood back and didn’t say much. I listened as Julie ranted. I wasn’t going to stand up for him, but I thought that the family was bring rather unfair. Or maybe too narrow in how they were looking at it. They were looking at it from the perspective of grieving children and grandchildren. They felt that they had lost something very important to them and I think that some of their anger towards Earl was on the basis of what he was doing to them. Not liking Earl much myself and of course loving Julie and with her family being like a second to me, I had every incentive to agree with their perspective, but ultimately I couldn’t.
There were two main things.
First is that however hard it is to lose a parent or grandparent, I don’t think that it really compares to losing a spouse. Particularly when you’ve been with them for decades. They were more than someone you loved, but were the partner with whom you built an entire life. Before the kids were there and after they left the house, it was the two of them together. He was going home to her every day when the kids were visiting on holidays and periodic weekends. It’s impossible to compare grief, but I do have to think that the comparative loss of losing the partner is worse than losing the parent. Even when the latter is lost before their time.
The second issue was the protracted nature of her illness left him a lot of time to deal with what had happened. He’d had a lot of time to come to terms with it. Bit by bit, he watched the darkness swallow her mind. The kids saw it whenever they visited her, but he saw it whenever he went home. Or was home. Since he was retired, that was a lot. Given the peculiar nature of her illness, that she was mentally gone before physically so, he had probably already let go of her before she had died. And I honestly couldn’t even blame him for that. He didn’t get over her in the course of six months. He got over her in the course of five years.
When Earl and Beth married, the family attended but wore an article on their clothing in memory of Earl’s first wife. I would have been more understanding if it had been directed towards their deceased relative as a sort of “We love you and haven’t forgetten you” manner, but in reality it was directed at Earl as a sort of “Well, we love her and haven’t forgotten her.”
In the intervening years since Julie and I parted ways, that side of her family has more-or-less fallen apart. Julie has stopped even visiting them for Thanksgiving and Christmas, even going so far as starting her own tradition with her brother and some cousins. I don’t think that Earl’s remarriage is the reason for any of that. If that were the case the dissolution would have happened much sooner. Unfortunately, Eliza was the glue that held the family together and when she departed and when the departure harbored some controversy, things just naturally fell apart.
For a really strange twist on older remarriage you have the case of my grandfather on my mother’s side. My grandmother died after having been in declining health for many years, when she and my grandfather were in their early 70’s. About a year and a half later my grandfather remarried … believe it or not, to his late wife’s younger sister! She had married for first time around age 60 but had divorced her first husband after a relatively short marriage. Both of my grandfather’s children, my mother and my uncle, were distinctly less than pleased with the arrangement, having seen their aunt become their stepmother, but after a few years accepted it. The marriage lasted about ten years until my great-aunt/stepgrandmother died, which made my grandfather one of the relatively few men who outlived two wives. He didn’t marry again, and lived several more years and made it past 90.
Comment by Peter — January 25, 2009 @ 8:02 pm
The second issue was the protracted nature of her illness left him a lot of time to deal with what had happened. He’d had a lot of time to come to terms with it….He didn’t get over her in the course of six months. He got over her in the course of five years.
Nailed it. I’m sure he had said good-bye to her long before she was actually gone and this probably made the process of dating and remarrying again much smoother than those who lose a spouse suddenly or unexpectedly.
On a personal note, I know there were still family and friends that had a hard time when I remarried 15 months after my late wife died. To their credit, they all acted like adults about it on the day I married Marathon Girl. Had they pulled any crap like wearing something of the late wife’s on that day, I think it would have strained my relationship with them for a long, long time.
Comment by Abel — January 25, 2009 @ 8:15 pm
I have read that the happier the marriage, the sooner widowers start dating after their wife dies. This may seem paradoxical, but as a happily-married man, I completely understand. If I were in a bad marriage, I would probably just want to be left alone should something terrible befall my wife. But as we have a good marriage, I could easily see myself wanting to tie the knot again should something happen to my wife.
I also completely agree with you about losing a spouse versus losing a parent. I have never lost either, so I cannot relate from first-hand experience, but I did watch my wife’s father pass away three months after being diagnosed with cancer. My wife has two sisters, and I do not care for either of them. I think they are both immature, narcissistic twits. (They don’t particularly care for me, either, although I cannot imagine why.) It saddened me to see how one of them was unable to understand that, although it is terrible to watch one’s father die, it is much harder to watch one’s spouse die. They had been married for almost 40 years when he was diagnosed, and now my mother-in-law was going to have no one in her home and no one in her bed, a hard thing to get used to after that much time. When my wife gently reminded this particular sister of this fact, her response was, “I think it’s equally hard for all of us.” I know I’m a judgmental and self-righteous s.o.b., and I know that I’ve never experienced what she has, but I’m sorry, sister-in-law, it’s not equally hard. You will never understand what your mother is going through until you bury your husband after a lifetime together and raising three children. I do not presume to understand what that is like.
Not to be sexist, and Will, I hope that this next comment does not fall within the scope of what you try to avoid posting on your web site, but it seems to me that women tend to think they know how a man should grieve, and if he does not act the way they think he should, they tend to judge him harshly. A man can be a loving and devoted husband for decades, but woe to him should he start dating before the women in the family decree him ready.
Comment by kevin — January 26, 2009 @ 5:36 am
I have lost two parents and would agree that a spouse is a different level of grief, and I think it will be harder to get over that than my parents. Everyone deals with death differently and the family needs to respect that. I can understand if Earl had been cheating on his wife before his wife died, but it sounds like this was not the case and it’s a matter of him having some companionship at a time in his life when people are most lonely. My grandmother lost her husband 31 years ago at the age of only 48 and never even dated another man since. My mom lost my step-dad at about the same age, and we know that she’s going to remarry b/c she’s just not the type of person that’s meant to be alone. She can’t handle it. However, it’s kind of strange b/c we think she’s dating someone but she’s afraid to tell us, of what our reaction is going to be (even though I’ve tried telling her that we’d be okay with it and even our step-dad knew that she wouldn’t be alone forever).
Comment by Becky — January 26, 2009 @ 10:45 am
I don’t see that any justification is needed. Life’s too short to waste time, especially when you’ve already used most of it up. If he thought that getting on with his life as soon as possible was the best way to make the most of his remaining years, he was right to do so, and it was pretty lame on the part of his family to demand that he alone bear the cost of satisfying their sense of propriety.
Regarding Kevin’s comment, was there any division along sex lines, or was the family, as far as you could tell, unanimous in opposition?
Comment by Brandon Berg — January 26, 2009 @ 7:02 pm
Peter,
From what I understand, it used to be not extraordinarily unusual for someone to marry the sibling of their deceased spouse, though I think that it was something that generally happened when when they were younger. Clancy isn’t really compatible with either of my brothers (nor I with her sisters), but if that weren’t the case, I figure that she could do worse marrying someone that I trusted as much as my brothers (well, one of them anyway).
Comment by trumwill — January 26, 2009 @ 8:20 pm
Kevin,
In addition to being more enthusiastic about marrying again, it’s probably the case that men (and women) in happy marriages are probably better adjusted and more marriage-ready for a second go-around. Someone that in a bad marriage (particularly one that lasted a long time) probably has a pretty big chip on his or her shoulder that comes through.
It’s funny you should mention the gender thing. Now that I think of it, the three big protesters were Julie, her mother, and her aunt. Maybe her uncles did, too, but I don’t remember it.
Comment by trumwill — January 26, 2009 @ 8:48 pm
Perhaps the real issue is that they saw in Earl’s actions a suggestion that they themselves could be replaced more easily than they would have liked to believe. I wonder how it breaks down when the sexes are reversed. Is it the men who object most strenuously when their female relatives remarry soon after being widowed?
Comment by Brandon Berg — January 27, 2009 @ 9:15 am
Brandon,
Good question. If anyone has the answer to it, I’d like to know.
I do know that widows are much less likely to remarry than widowers, however. For whatever reason, men have more of a need to be with someone.
Abel
Comment by Abel — January 28, 2009 @ 7:29 am