# Devoted son or something else?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devoted-son-or-something-else/983045>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [April 22, 2023, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devoted-son-or-something-else/983045 "2023-04-22T10:00:27Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\
**Post date:** [April 23, 2023, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devoted-son-or-something-else/983045/21 "2023-04-23T04:42:55Z")

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> [@thorny\_locust](#):
>
> Maybe he doesn’t want another relationship.

It came up for discussion because he had some new relationships developing. OTOH I do hear often enough of people who after losing a long time partner express no interest in finding someone new to share their life with that closely. That’s probably what my grandmother said for 25 years after my grandfather passed away, until she formed a serious relationship with a man that had been in her social circle for even longer than that. They were married for 10 years until he passed away and she might have expressed that she preferred her second husband to her first. She never said it to me, but if she did say it then she said it to a bunch of people.

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**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\
**Post date:** [April 23, 2023, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devoted-son-or-something-else/983045/22 "2023-04-23T15:41:29Z")

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> [@TriPolar](#):
>
> It came up for discussion because he had some new relationships developing.

Ah. With that added information I’ll withdraw my speculation.

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**Author:** ![phs3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8491ac/32.png) [@phs3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phs3)\
**Post date:** [April 23, 2023, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devoted-son-or-something-else/983045/23 "2023-04-23T17:05:31Z")

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When we lost our daughter at age 18 in 2010, I was slightly gratified to realize that when I’d heard previously about people doing things like OP wrote about, I’d mentally filed it under “I don’t and cannot understand this”. Now I do; we did not leave her room untouched, but have not, for example, redecorated. Nor can my wife contemplate moving, although it’s a lot of house for two people.

Not that I’d have any right to be offended, but I do appreciate OP’s careful wording as a straight question, without apparent judgment. You really don’t know until you’re in it.

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**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\
**Post date:** [April 23, 2023, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devoted-son-or-something-else/983045/24 "2023-04-23T17:11:37Z")

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NP. There’s obviously a spectrum of coping with the death of family members, and divorce too.

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