Dating again after losing your husband

A year after the funeral, or five, somebody says something hopeful about you meeting someone, and you feel two things at once. A small lift at the idea, and a wave of guilt for feeling the lift.

Both are normal. The guilt does not mean you are doing something wrong, and it does not go away because somebody tells you it should.

There is no timetable

People will tell you a year is the right amount of time. There is no such number. Some women are ready in six months. Some are not ready in six years, and then one day they are.

The useful question is not how long it has been, but what you want this week. If the honest answer is a man to have lunch with occasionally, start there. If the idea makes you tired, put it down and come back to it in a season.

You do not owe anybody an explanation

Adult children, in-laws, your husband's friends. Somebody will have an opinion about whether you should be dating, and it will usually be offered as concern.

You are allowed to keep this private for as long as you like. You are also allowed to say it plainly. "I have decided I would like some company, and I am not asking for permission." Both are complete answers.

Guilt, and what it usually means

Notice what the guilt is actually about. Sometimes it is about your husband's memory. Sometimes it is about your children. Quite often it is about the idea that you are supposed to be finished, and that wanting to be wanted at sixty-eight is undignified.

That last one is worth arguing with. Wanting company at any age is ordinary. There is nothing disloyal in it, and nothing ridiculous.

Comparing every man to him

This will happen, and it is unfair to everybody, including you. Your husband had thirty years of shared history on his side. A man you meet for coffee has an hour.

Try to hold onto one thing. You are not looking for him again. You are finding out whether this person is good company for the life you have now, which is a different life from the one he was part of.

When to say you are widowed

At a first meeting, you can say simply that you lost your husband, if it comes up, and leave it there. You do not have to describe the illness, the last month, or the funeral.

Later, if something grows, the conversation deepens on its own. Men your age have often lost somebody too, or watched a friend go through it, and most of them will not rush you.

Two practical things

Keep your money separate at the beginning, whatever the relationship feels like. Anyone who asks you to send money, however good the reason sounds, is a reason to stop.

And keep the life you built. The friends, the club, the Tuesday walk. A new relationship should be added to that life rather than fitted around it, because if it ends you will still need Tuesday.

You do not have to be healed, finished or certain. You only have to be willing to sit opposite somebody for an hour and see what it is like.