The grief workshop is probably a very good idea. Your adult children aren’t wrong - in some ways, New Girlfriend IS taking the place of Mom, but she kind of has to, to be your friend, companion, and lover, and your kids will have to find a way to come to terms with that or they’ll make themselves and everyone else unhappy when all you’re doing is trying to live your life. They have to separate New Girlfriend in YOUR life from Late Wife/Their Mother in THEIR lives - the two are not the same, but have overlapping characteristics.
Personally, I’m rather glad that the posters here have family much better than mine. But bad eggs do exist and even if its even if its just a single percent of a percent chance, financial (and emotional) barriers need to be available to keep the OP from being sucked dry.
Not necessarily by his GF (though thats there too) but by his kids.
[Veruca Salt]
*I want that today
I want this other tomorrow
Why bother with grace? I know my place!
(Soon there’ll be dirt in your face)
And I don’t want pesky taxes to share 'em
I’m owed everything you’ve got; I’m sure there’s some gaff there.
Squander my 'hertance? On trips of some dream?
And if I don’t get all your best things, the stuff that I am after
I’m going to scream!
I want the works
I want the whole works
Silver & china, all antiques & finer,
all you own by designer
And …NOOOOW!
Don’t care how
I want it …NOOOOW!
Don’t care how
I want it …NOOOOW!* [/Veruca Salt]
Your kids are pushing 30. Tell them to butt out.
Personally, my concern with giving the children the cookware would be that the next complaint is “you are getting rid of everything that reminds (us/you) of Mom. That’s like getting rid of Mom. You can’t DO that.”
I think you need to give the whole situation time. But while you might consider doing some family activities without the new girlfriend, I don’t think I’d recommend excluding her entirely, because as long as she’s out of sight, the kids are likely to deal with her by pretending she doesn’t exist, which probably won’t help with the need to process that Mom’s gone, and someone else is Dad’s friend/lover/companion.
Keep talking and listening, and let your daughter work through this. Is there a way to help your kids develop their own relationships with your girlfriend? Not as a substitute for their mother, but as adults who all love you. It’ll take time, and if there are some particular things that make your daughter uncomfortable, it might be a good idea to take that into account. The cookware is probably just a symptom, but changing it, acknowledging your daughter’s discomfort with seeing New Girlfriend in her mom’s place, might let her know you’re listening. Of course, just offering it to her might do that, too, without the expense and trouble.
Just keep things open among all of you, and give things a chance. Acknowledging feelings doesn’t have to mean giving in to them.
My parents had huge, elaborate plans for their retirement. They “always wanted to do X, Y, and Z” and were thinking ahead to the day they would do it. Then my father got sick and died, so they never got to do X, Y, and Z together.
My mom now always tells us never wait to do the things we’ve always wanted to do. Just do them while you know you can, because you never know what may come up later.
My ma died when I was 22, and my dad got into a new relationship a year later. It definitely hurt me inside to see the new woman taking over my ma’s role, changing the house I grew up in, erasing the things my ma had done to the house in favor of her own decoration, and for some reason the fact that she was using ma’s cookware cut particularly deep. Perhaps it’s a woman thing, but the cookware was a particular ouchie spot for me. Yeesh, I’m tearing up about it now, and it’s been 15 years.
I tried not to say anything about how I felt because it really seems petty, and it sounds so stupid, and it’s not the new woman’s fault. When I did mention it, I was made to feel unreasonable, like the people above that say the daughter should just grow up/suck it up. Feelings are feelings though. If I were the OP I’d have a talk with the daughter during one of the father daughter dinners. Ask her what would help her to not hurt so much. Maybe having the cookware would help, maybe not. Perhaps there are some other things of her mother’s that hold particular memories for her that she’d like to have.
I can understand that. There are some objects that have such strong very “formative years emotions” attached to them. Those are the things that always make you think “home”. IME, the things that have a daily ritual to them are the ones that have the strongest emotional strings.
Like for me, there was my dad’s shaving mug. He like shaving soap that you’d whisk up and apply with a shaving brush. So as a wee bairn I would wake up to the “tink, tink, tink” sounds of the brush handle rapping inside the mud as he whipped up his soap. The plain, boring mug resides in my mom’s cupboard. I nearly murdered a buddy of mine who innocently poured himself a coffee into it. I suddenly turned into a toddler: “That’s my daddy’s!”
I think this is a good point, but there are ways of being sensitive to it.
The OP could ask the daughter to go through the cookware together - there are probably nice pieces the daughter actually wants/would use, ask the daughter’s help in picking out something to give her brother … there is probably also some stuff which is past its prime and ready to go to the Good Will, and even the wife, if she was still with us, would have said she simply hadn’t gotten around to replacing it yet. Dumping it all in a box and foisting it on the daughter without any conversation is NOT the way to go.
It’s entirely possible that the new girlfriend is in fact a complete hozebeast bitch from the darkest pits of hell to everyone but the OP and that the cookware is just the kids first attempt at conveying this information in a way that won’t alienate them from their dad before it’s too late.
Too late, to make up an example that in no way actually happened to anyone ever*, to prevent her from going into the attic of the house the kids were raised in** and throwing away the one box of childhood things they have left, including but not limited to the Kenner Star Wars X-Wing Fighter that was their only gift for Christmas 1979 because money was tight and was being kept in the attic because WHO FRIGGIN THROWS AWAY KIDS STUFF FROM AN ATTIC? That’s what attics are fucking FOR. It’s not like guests are going to climb into a tiny hatch in a fucking closet and complement you on how EMPTY your ATTIC is. “Oh my!” they’ll say “Isn’t it wonderful how free your attic is of anyone’s CONNECTION to their CHILDHOOD?”
“Oh why, yes!” The psycho hosewhore will exclaim “I saw it on Martha! Tomorrow I’m going to take that stack of horrible children’s paintings and photographs dating back decades that had been taken off the fridge and placed with loving care in the otherwise useless cupboard above the fridge and use them to line the cage of my BEASTLY near-feral CHIHUAHUA!”
If she does start throwing out childhood things without asking, it is perfectly understandable for the children to stake her through the heart with an oaken spike and bury her cursed remains at a crossroads. It’s the only way to be sure.
- Nothing like this has ever happened to anyone I know or have met or am.
** A house she doesn’t live in, by the way. She has her own house. Which is full of stupid shit she could throw away at any time if she really felt the need to throw shit away. Hypothetically.
Ummm…yeah. Good thing that never happened. 
Seriously. Damn.
You know, buckgully–and I’m only saying this because I care–there are a lot of decaffeinated brands on the market today that are just as tasty as the real thing.
Stranger
I didn’t see it mentioned, but…have you talked this over with the new lady? You’re both adults, she may or may not have family of her own but it doesn’t seem unreasonable to slow it down just a little bit while the kids get more used to the idea. The fact that your kids are talking about it with you is great, and it may be that they just need more time to work through the idea that life does go on. If all that’s needed is some time, it sounds like maybe dialing it back…just a little…will give them the time to see that hey, dad CAN have his new lady and still have time for us. And maybe that point might be a better one to start doing the joint dinners and such.
My brain went bonkers when I read the original post, and I’d thought it had been over 10 years since their mom died, but I can see it’s been only two. While I don’t think dating is a bad idea, there are definitely going to be speedbumps on the road to moving on, and slower speeds might ensure everyone arrives in one piece. (whew, that was a stretch, huh)
When LW and I had been dating as long as NGF and I are, we were living together and had been engaged for 2 months, and were planning on children (soon to produce the daughter in question). But I don’t think my daughter would find the comparisons amusing.
No, probably not, but this is a different situation. Not saying there’s anything wrong with it, but there are other people involved now, whether you think they should be at 25+ or not; I’m just thinking that they were always going to be icky about you dating after mom, but slowing down a little might smooth over, just a little bit, what was always going to be a crappy time for them. Dig? 
Honore de Balzac’s ghost keeps telling me the same thing, but it doesn’t make any more sense in English than it does in French. De-caffeinated? What sort of crazy moon-language is that?
Anyway, I didn’t want to make light of the situation. It’s really complicated and it’s going to be impossible to keep everyone happy all the time.
It honestly doesn’t sound like the kids really don’t like the girlfriend, but they’re still dealing with losing their mom, and that’s going to come out at weird times and in weird ways, and they won’t have control over it. It’s been more than 10 years for me and that’s still happening for me and my siblings, especially in times of stress.
I’m trying to come up with some useful advice but I’m finding it extremely hard to remain objective.
Never make a life decision for yourself based on someone else’s needs. Go for it.
Grumpy parent response:
Your kids should be happy for you. Your daughter’s behavior is very immature, and I doubt your son is a willing participant in the game. If she/they rely on anger at your girlfriend (who has done nothing to them) to substitute for their grief, it will never end. Neither will the attempts to manipulate you.
Another point of view:
A young woman who has dinner with her father 2-3 times a week has a serious void in her life. She is afraid of losing you, which will leave her life even emptier. Maybe you and your daughter should be working on this instead of the proxy.