I ask this because my mom died back in March and my dad has had a woman who works at the local library over for dinner 6 times in 2 weeks and they spent all day last Saturday out doing stuff. My dad is 63, if that helps. I’m getting fairly uncomfortable about it, but don;t really want to bring it up to him 'cause I have other stuff to deal with.
Anyone??
Anyone???
If he’s comfortable with it, that’s the most important thing, IMO.
"How long before widowed people can/should start “seeing” people?"
As soon as the widowed person is ready. No sooner, no later. I remember my uncle becoming furious after his mother died and his dad started seeing a new woman after two years had passed!
No matter how long your dad waits, it may not seem like long enough to you. On the other hand, as painful as it may be initially for you to see your dad with a woman other than Mom, it’s not your call.
Unless there is something clearly wrong or evil about the new woman in your dad’s life, staying out of any controversy is the right and proper thing for you to do, IMHO.
I don’t mean to sound blunt, but that’s how it shook out in my family.
Good luck to you and your dad.
You don’t say how your mom died, but sometimes that can be a factor.
Usually if there is a long, chronic illness before someone dies, their loved ones have had time to let them go, in a sense. You gradually come to accept that the person will no longer be w/you and grieve their death while you watch them die.
So by the time all is said and done, some people just need to move on. It doesn’t mean they didn’t love the person, and don’t still miss them.
If you are in your 60’s, facing your own mortality after experiencing the realness of the death of the person you are closest to, there is probably an added sense that time is “running out” for you too. So you don’t want to miss out on life, and fear dying w/out the companionship and comfort of a “special someone”.
Chances are your father is probably wondering how all this is affectiing you (watching him date). He may not know how to approach the subject w/you. It depends on how open you are w/ each other, I guess, if you want to talk to him–somehow w/out making him feel guilty, of course. I’m sure he is lonely and needs this person’s company right now.
I don’t think 2-3 months is unreasonable, personally.
In fact, I think it is the most healthy response. Better than feeling hopeless and miserable and isolated. You can be happy for him and not be disrespecting your mom.
When grampa’s nephew remarried after the death of his wife, gramma and grampa went to the wedding and reception. After listening to the kids bitch, moan, whine, and complain gramma took the three girls (well, they were adults with kids of their own by this time, but to gramma they were still kids) aside and tore them a new one.
“YOU’RE not the one coming home to an empty house; YOU’RE not the one eating meals alone; YOU’RE not the one sitting alone in front of the television; and YOU’RE not the one sleeping alone for the first time in thirty years. Now you go tell your stepmother you’re sorry for being brats and welcome her to the family.”
Gramma knew what she was talking about. Her father met her stepmother at the funeral home when her mother died.
I’m one who has been there. Lost my wife of 24 years in 1996, following a fast-acting (just over a year) dementing illness.
At age 47, with two children (age 19 and 13) it was devastating. But as Nevermind correctly pointed out, I had some time to prepare for it. (I thought I had, maybe, another year to go, but at the time she was bedridden and nonverbal, so much of her was gone already).
It was a couple of weeks later that it came to me that I was allowed to think about the possibility of dating other women, that it was OK with society. A very strange feeling, because we were of the very married sort. It was something that was settled – we had found life partners and that, I thought, was that.
I eventually began dating five or six months after her death, a lady I had known 30 years earlier. We decided to marry a few months later, but waited until a year and two months since my first wife’s death to announce it to our families. We were married just under two years after the death, and have been extremely happy since (coming up on 4 years this fall).
One thing I have read in the literature about widows and widowers, and it is absolutely true – the better your marriage, the quicker you will feel like remarrying.
I have been lucky enough to strike it rich twice, but that may not be the case for all.
I will say that my daughter, who was 20 at the time we announced our engagement, was upset. My son, then 14, was a bit more resiliant. In the time since, they both have come to love her, and I have come to admire her grown daughter as well.
It’s always dangerous to project from a sample size of one, but I can say that the possibility exists for your dad to be as lucky as I have been.
Hope that helps
As soon as he or she is comfortable with it.
My mother remarried less than 6 months after my father’s death. They’d been married for nearly 50 years. I felt then (and still feel now) that it’s unwise to make a major life-altering decision while you’re still reeling from such a loss. She married one of my father’s best friends, a friend he’d known since his high school days, who’d lost a wife to cancer, too. Three years later it seems to be working well, however I still think that it would be wise to take some time before making a commitment.
StG
On the other hand, my father, happily married for 25 years, has never started seeing other women. My mother died 6 years ago, but my dad hasn’t moved on.
I realise you didn’t mean to generalise. I’m just providing another data point for the sample. 
StGermain, Narrad, you’re both right.
When I said “comfortable with it,” I was talking about seeing people, not getting married. My wife died about two and a half years ago and it took me almost two years to decide that I was ready to start moving on and look for a relationship with somebody else.
My marriage was a good one, although it only lasted about ten weeks (we had been together for about seven years before that, though). I do want to get married again sometime down the road, but not right now. For now, I’m just looking for somebody to be a couple with, know what I mean?
But six years of being stuck in the same place is not good, Narrad. Has your father considered getting some counseling?
Zap
At the end of WWI, my Italian grandmother lost her first husband.
She remarried 11 months later to the man who would be my grandfather.
Fast forward 50 years…my father and his two sisters wanted to give their parents a big 50th anniversary party.
Grandmother refused!
Seems she still felt guilty for not waiting a full year after her 1st husband’s death to get married and “didn’t want the neighbors to talk.”
My father and his sisters calculated that anybody who might have noticed probably had died 20 years prior to this party, but sure enough, the big “50th” party was not held until the following year.
I agree with everyone else…although it may hurt you emotionally, it is more important for your father to enjoy his life. And trust me, it could be far worse…I have a friend whose father stayed home mourning his wife for years after her death. The poor guy was a physical and emotional wreck and it was very hard for his kids to see him like that.
Zappo - My condolences on your loss. I hope you find the woman you’re looking for - you’re lucky you found love the first time around - I’m still looking for that.
My mother never even really “saw” this guy - he was living on the west coast for years. She talked on the phone to him and they wrote letters. They married on his first visit out. There was no time to even get used to the idea.
StG
This is just my personal experience talking here: I find that men tend to want to remarry faster than women do after losing their spouse. I can’t think of one widowed man I have ever known that DIDN’T remarry, even if it took a few years. I can think of many women, though, that, no matter how happy they were when married, were glad and happy to be alone.
And forgive me for saying this men, b/c it IS a generalization and I know how people get their panties in a wad over generalizations on this board: men just don’t do as well single as women do. They aren’t built to be alone.
No, and he’s not the type of man I can approach about the issue. We’d never get anywhere, I’m afraid. Sucks, but that’s the way it goes.
I suspect that the OP isn’t really when is it ok for widow(er) to start dating, but ‘I’m not comfortable w/my dad doing this so quickly’.
I can relate. My mom died in September. By that Christmas, dad had his g/f moved into our family home, using the placemats I’d given her for her b/day that July.
But, the truth is, he didn’t really need my permission, nor my blessing. He felt it was time, I didn’t get a vote.
and tho’ I was decidedly uncomfortable about it, now (quite a few years later, I"ll admit) I accept that it was his decision to make.
My memories (and indeed, his as well) are not eradicated because he found comfort elsewhere.
May you find peace.