Warning, this question might be somewhat of a downer.
I was listening to a radio show and one of the hosts is engaged and mentioned where he is having his upcoming honeymoon. And for some reason, that got me to thinking, if you were married and will, or pretty sure you will, get married again. Or if you are married, and think you would get married again should anything happen to the current marriage (sad thought, I know, but this is just a hypothetical), would you, or could you, have your next honeymoon at the same location as your previous one? Or would it have to be in a completely different place?
For example, for our honeymoon my wife and I went to a hotel at the coast. To be honest if, for whatever reason, I became single and were to get married again, the though of having the honeymoon at the same city, even if it was a different hotel, doesn’t sit well with me. I’m not sure I’d be comfortable having it at any coastal city.
I was a broke grad student living on Ramen when we got married, so we had no honeymoon. Although I can’t imagine being with anyone else at this point (I mean, she stayed with me when I had nothing. How lucky am I?), I could honeymoon literally anywhere with the new wife and meet your criteria.
ETA: Bleh…even thinking ‘new wife’ makes me uncomfortable.
A friend of mine lost his husband to cancer in the late 1990s. When he remarried, he took his new husband to the very place where the previous husband and he had honeymooned.
The second husband was very respectful of the memory of the first, and knew the place meant everything to his partner. They’ve been together for eight years and still going strong, and have even revisited the same place a couple of times since. (I met up with them in the same place for a vacation in February.)
At first I found the tolerance of the new husband odd; now I find it moving that he respects the wishes of his new partner, and the memory of the old, that much.
We had no honeymoon. No wedding either (we eloped).
But we did take a trip to a lodge up in Lake Placid and went hiking, etc. before we were married, and had a lovely time. When our daughter was in her teens, we went on a family vacation to the exact same place, also had a great time. If I remarried, I would have no problem going back with hubby #2 - The Hungry Trout Restaurant would, hopefully, still have scrumptious fried fillet of trout sammiches on the menu.
I’d like to think I could do better than a weekend in Milwaukee. Heck, it’s not really all that meaningful to us now . . . just someplace close to hang out for a few days. We were married on Friday afternoon, and neither of us had vacation to blow (new jobs).
But there was one restaurant that I refused to take a girlfriend to because it was my previous girlfriend’s favorite place. It just seemed disrespectful.
We spent a week in a rented house on the beach in NC. There wasn’t anything special about that particular spot, we just wanted to get away and do something relaxing and summer-y and we both enjoyed the ocean.
Now, I don’t plan to trade Typo Knig in on a newer model… but if something did happen to him and I managed to find a replacement (tough act to follow), I wouldn’t have any objection to going to a beach with spouse 2.0. Unlikely we’d wind up at the exact same town, obviously, and I wouldn’t especially urge a beach vacation.
I wouldn’t rule out a whole city, but wouldn’t return to the same hotel, attractions, etc.
For me it depends on who makes the suggestion to return.
If Hypothetical Guy says “Let’s honeymoon at Niagara Falls, I’ve never been there and I’ve always wanted to.” that will hit me differently than “Niagara Falls is where I took Sheila so I’ll take you there, too”
Similarly, if he really wants to go there and I’m the one who’s already honeymooned there what would I say? If we’re comfortably financially I would say “I want to go there with you but not for our honeymoon.” If it looks like we won’t be taking vacations for several years I could suck it up, but definitely different hotels and restaurants and everything.
ETA: I have had two weddings and no honeymoons. Should a new relationship develop in the future there won’t be a wedding, but I’m not closed off to finally taking a honeymoon.
Our honeymoon consisted of driving my wife’s car from Philadelphia where we got married to Louisiana where I was living, with lots of stops along the way - so it is extremely unlikely that I’d repeat it.
I’ve been married twice, and our honeymoon the second time was completely different from my first. I tend to see my second marriage as a new beginning and a new direction for my life, and so I just don’t have any desire to revisit milestones of the first one.
I do still have the same pet as I did in the first marriage – damned long-lived parrot – but he’s adapted just fine.
It wouldn’t have to be, but it would. Different age, different interests, different resources than when we married - and an entire world to go experience.
My “honeymoon” was in a crappy hotel in Springfield, Missouri, and I hate that city with a fiery passion. I don’t know if the hotel is still there, but I would never return to that city by choice…as it is, I have relatives there and I don’t really have a choice.
Even if the crappy hotel was in another city, I doubt that I’d want to go back there, unless we were really, really broke, which is why we used it in the first place.
I’m planning to get remarried in the future. I wouldn’t want to honeymoon where he previously did, nor would I want to go where I did before. Who wants the beginning of their new life to be peppered with “This is where the ex and I…”, whether in actual conversation or in memory?
I prefer the thought of making brand new, untainted memories with my sweetheart.
I am getting remarried. I wouldn’t have any objection to doing another honeymoon in DC. It was lovely. I also wouldn’t have any objection to getting married on the same date as before. I think that losing a spouse to death can set up a different set of feelings about previous marriages than losing one to divorce might. I’m not trying to avoid memories of my late husband, and our relationship in no way tainted locations or situations in the way that I might feel if he were my ex.
If I re-married I wouldn’t go to Bermuda for the honeymoon, as I did with my wife. Not because it would be weird, but because, besides the sex, it was the most boring vacation either of us has ever been on. We will never go back there if we can help it.
