A cautionary note: My father started dating 6 months after my mother died. Frankly, I was relieved. She ended up by taking everything he had and leaving him in serious credit card debt. The icing on the cake: he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s about a year into the relationship. His new ‘wife’ failed to contact the neurosurgeon when he started exhibiting signs of drug toxicity. She left him when he was in the hospital, hallucinating like a mofo.
Not implying this is what’s going on here by any means just painting another picture.
Right. She had a right to grieve in her own way, but not to make the grieving of others harder than it had to be. The Father in this story is narcissistically forcing his way on to the children, long before it is reasonable to expect them to respond favorably.
Or, the children are selfishly forcing their needs on their father - it doesn’t sound like either of the live close by, so for them, this whole “mom dying” is a recent thing. For him, its a day to day existence thing. If he is deep in grief, he has found a way to relieve that grief though his relationship with Mary. If he has moved on, then it is time for him to prioritize the living person who is there for him day to day over his dead wife or his absent children.
I wish my mother had started dating after my stepdad died. She was in her late 60’s, but she had the opportunity. Instead, she focused on running my life and my brother’s, and my kids’. She’s a big part of the reason we left Seattle and moved back to Iowa.
I started a relationship about 18 months after my husband died. My kids were fine with it, and they would have been fine if I’d started even earlier. They knew our marriage wasn’t good, hadn’t been for years. One of them even told me that he liked seeing us touching (hugging) because he’d never seen it with their dad. It was the same with my husband’s family. They invited my BF to family gatherings and seemed genuinely happy that I’d found someone.
Try not to judge your dad. You haven’t walked in his shoes and you can’t know what’s in his head. If you really want a better relationship with him, be more accepting of Mary. Anything else and you come off as immature and selfish.
I’m not saying the OP has no reason to be unhappy with Dad’s behavior; some of it is obviously inappropriate in the context of his relationship with his children. Showing up when he says he will, interacting with his family: those are direct relationship-with-kids issue. Whether or not it’s too early for him to date just seems to me like a decision only he can make.
What I AM saying is exactly what I said: I wouldn’t let my mom or dad tell me who or when to date. What adult lets other people do that?
And please accept my condolences on your loss, OP.
I would be pissed if my mom died and my dad showed up for the 1st Christmas with a girlfriend. I think I could understand that people grieve differently, I think I could understand that it wasn’t an insult to my mother, but I would not want the girlfriend there the first Christmas.
The first Christmas after my mom dies, I expect to spend talking about her. Every meal will be missing the things she always made: every tradition will have a gaping hole. God, on a practical level, we will have to reorganize who does what, who stays where etc. etc. I don’t mean I expect it to be a maudlin time: rather the contrary, I would expect it to be bittersweet, full of shared memories and stories and love and grief. But if my dad’s girlfriend were there? It couldn’t be any of that. I mean, how awkward would it be to sit there waxing over the apple pie mom used to make, about her way with the little babies, about her tendency to drink a little too much wine, with Mary sitting right there? The 1st Christmas after such a loss should be about closure, and memories, and instead “mom” has become an awkward topic to avoid. And I think that’s terrible.
Furthermore, I can’t imagine any woman–any person–worth her salt wouldn’t understand that. I mean, all you have to say is “This first Christmas my kids need me to be their dad, they need me there to talk about their mom, to remember her, to say goodbye to a family dynamic that isn’t coming back. I very much want you to meet my kids, and I think we should plan to go [any other month] for that, and by next Christmas we will be finding our “new normal”. But this year I have to be a dad”.
And for whatever it’s worth, I wouldn’t bring ANY newcomer (unless it were a baby) into a family Christmas the year the matriarch died. That’s not fair to anyone.
There is no all-encompassing “should” in this: that’s what you feel Christmas after a death ought to be, but that doesn’t make it a universal human rule. There was a bereavement in my family a year ago this Christmas just passed. On Christmas itself there was a little quiet reflection, some hugs and tears and smiles, and then we carried on as usual: he was remembered, and honoured, and loved, as he had been throughout the year, but Christmas wasn’t a day of weeping and reminiscing and rending mourning garments to which only those who knew him were privy or invited. It worked for us as a family, in a way that donning the bombazine wouldn’t have. Christmas for me would be a time for including the new girlfriend, not shunning her as not being a proper part of it, otherwise you run the risk of having a celebration turned into an annual sepulchre-fest of exclusion.
So… this has been interesting to read. I’m not going to go back and quote everyone, but let me address a few things:
When I told Dad that the idea of someone replacing Mom at the table upset me, I followed up by telling him that I knew that wasn’t a rational response, but that he deserved to know that was what I was feeling. I didn’t tell him he shouldn’t be dating, and I’ve never told him to break it off with Mary. I did tell him to be careful and take things slowly, because he had already had one issue where he felt he had moved on too quickly. He donated my mom’s clothes to a thrift store where she had shopped, but when he went to drop off the clothes, he suddenly felt horribly guilty and that he had done it too soon. I told him that it wouldn’t be fair to him or to whomever he was dating if he moved too quickly in a relationship and had a similar epiphany. He told me he would be careful, and that I would have veto power before he ever remarried – not something I asked for and not something I would use.
They are moving quickly, though. They’ve each met with all the family now, and Dad’s planning to sell the house this spring and get a condo downtown, where Mary lives. I would not be shocked at all if they were planning to move in together after that happens.
With regards to the money, I truly don’t care if he spends his money on her. My siblings and I are all in agreement that the money is his to do with as he pleases, and as my brother said, “I hope he spends it all before he dies.” So maybe Mary mentioned those things just to break the ice on what is an awkward topic and it came off the wrong way. I know she was nervous as hell about meeting us, but we were all very polite and welcoming to her, and we’re certainly not going to turn our backs on either of them.
As far as the state of my parents’ marriage goes, they were deeply in love, I can assure you. They were married for 33 years, and Dad was as devastated by her loss as I was. He wrote a wonderful eulogy for the memorial service and I know he misses her every day. As far as the idea goes that he was a caretaker of her for a long time and was somewhat prepared for this, I think there’s a grain of truth to that, though he took strong offense to any suggestion by his friends and acquaintances that they lived anything but a full and loving life together or that he was now relieved of some sort of burden.
I don’t think any of us would have had objections to him dating eventually – none of us expected him to stay single for long. And it’s not even so much that he’s dating her, but that even when he should be spending time with us at Christmas, he seems to be avoiding us so he can spend time with Mary. I think they’re just at that newly crushed, twitterpated stage of luuurve, and they’ll probably cool down a bit in a few months.
A large part of why my siblings are upset is because they didn’t see a lot of him when they were kids after the divorce. He moved out of state, he remarried five years later (and they weren’t brought to the wedding), he saw them less and less often until, when I was a kid, we drove up to Detroit maybe twice a year to see them. Until now, they probably felt they could blame a lot of that on my mom, with whom they had a strained relationship for a long time. But now, they see that his limited relationship with them was our dad’s decision as much as hers. And it didn’t help that, right after my mom died, Dad made a lot of promises about spending more time with his kids, about spending summers in Michigan with them, and now that’s all died down because, to them, he found something more fun. That’s really the biggest issue of all – he told us how happy he was to have us all together again and how nice it would be for us all to spend time together, and now, six months later, that’s all out the window.
But that’s the sort of thing that will be different in every situation. My father died shortly before Christmas last year ( and I mean we almost had to have the funeral on Christmas Eve) and I would have been beside myself with joy if she had showed up for Christmas this year with a boyfriend. My father had his first stroke before I got married and my 23 and 24 year old children don’t remember him being anything other than bedridden. My brother, who didn’t live nearby and wasn’t there much might have felt differently, but I was there enough to know that those last 20 years weren’t a really a marriage , especially as the dementia got worse. It was just caretaking. And I don’t mean that my mother didn’t love my father- I mean it was basically a one-way relationship. My mother took care of my father, greatly restricted her activities because she would rarely go anywhere she couldn’t take him or where he didn’t want to go and in return she got neither affection nor companionship but only demands and constant phone calls on the rare occasions when she did go out. My brother, who saw my parents two or three times a year more than likely didn’t have the same view as my sister and I did.
And there’s also the opposite- when my uncle’s wife died, he didn’t start dating until a year later and that was too soon for his kids. He remarried a year after that, and it was still too soon for them. The man was 70 years old- how long did they expect him to wait?
To the OP- I got the impression that your sister is your father’s daughter, not your mother’s in which case it seems to me the refusal to have Mary stay at her house was unrelated to grief.
It sounds to me like the OP has found a good take on this, and that this is probably more about long-standing issues with the father’s relationship with the family than anything else.
I’m wishing the OP healing and peace.
My shirttail cousins are in that situation. Their mother passed - three years ago now and after a year long battle with cancer. Their father (also fairly well off) started dating and has now married a much younger woman far faster than the kids wanted. But they really didn’t want him to ever marry - its clear talking to them about it that it really WASN’T the short amount of time (almost a year), or the rush to remarriage (another year - by the way their Dad is nearing 80 and his wife is nearing 70). It was that they expected Mom to die and Dad to retire from life - and he has done anything but.
So now, in the twilight of his life, he has to choose between his children and grandchildren - who are scattered all over the country - and his new wife, who is there for him every day. Guess who he is choosing - and guess who is pissed as hell about it.
SanibelMan - if you do choose to express your disappointment to your Dad (and I wouldn’t - what would it get you now, this Christmas is all in the past and he won’t slow down his relationship with Mary for your sake - about the best you can hope for is a lecture to your own father that he should have given you at about fifteen or sixteen about appropriate PDA - something I really hope I NEVER lecture either of my own parents on), definitely don’t do it in any way that sounds like an ultimatum.
There is no should. I have never participated in such a Christmas, and would not find anything remotely beneficial in doing so. Not after my father died (just before Christmas in 2003) or after my first husband died.
Also, the OP’s father was going to spend Christmas with his dead wife’s step children as well as her child. Based on the OP’s take, I don’t think the stepchildren were going to be spending lots of time sitting around reminiscing, at least not fondly.
Grief isn’t going to make a bad or indifferent father into some sort of superdad. It sucks, but grief pretty much never brings out the good qualities in someone.
I’m sorry to hear that your new husband’s son is not being a grown-up.
It sounds like you have addressed the issue as well as possible. I hope you and your siblings and your dad can find a way to have the best relationship possible.
I agree with that take.
I agree with this on a personal level, but I also agree that it’s not about “shoulds”.
I’m imagining how I awkward I would feel if I came home for Christmas to find my father with a live-in girlfriend, sleeping in my recently-deceased mother’s side of the bed. I think I would be mightily pissed off about this. I also imagine that my other siblings would feel the same way. It really would be a “weird” Christmas, to put it lightly.
I’m guessing what we would do is have a subdued affair with our father and his girlfriend, just to be polite. Then we’d say good-bye and then go elsewhere, and reconnect with the memory of our mother as mourning siblings. Maybe we’d go over a cousin’s house or something. Or a restaurant. But we’d find a way to do the “remember when” stuff, with or without our father’s participation.
I’m fine with no “shoulds” and being nonjudgmental. This frees everyone to feel and do as they please. If we shouldn’t judge my father for having a girlfriend, then he shouldn’t judge his children for giving him and his girlfriend perfunctory treatment on Christmas. That seems fair to me.
I agree that it sounds like this situation is more of a reflection of how your father has never been all THAT interested in the whole “being a dad” thing and it is hurtful for your half siblings to now realize that.
However, you can’t control his behavior. All you can do is control your own. For that reason, my advice would be to focus on trying to strengthen your bonds with your half siblings, and try to remember your mother in your own way, regardless of what your dad chooses to do.
My condolences to you on your loss. Keep in mind that it really, really sucks to be lonely.
Regards,
Shodan
First let me say how sorry I am for the loss of your mother at such a relatively young age. I lost my mother when she was 49 years old. … My father started dating her cousin two months later and moved her across country and into our family home about four months after that.
Try being the last child still living at home, leaving for your first year at college having just been told your mother is going to die very soon, having her die two days before your birthday barely three months later, having to grieve hundreds of miles away from all the family and friends you grew up with while you finish out that first year away, then finally being able to come home and sleep in your own room in the house your parents had made home for you, only to have another woman not just “sitting at the table,” but sleeping in your mother’s bed, and a father who says, “It’s my life and my house, so if you don’t like it, move out.” Try being nearest your parents’ room when the phone rings, going in there and sitting on your mother’s side of the bed to answer it, pulling open the night table drawer to grab a pen and paper which has always been kept there, and finding a jar of peanut butter and some chocolate sauce.
That’s what my little sister had to deal with.
You and your half-siblings have it easy, my friend. I’d take the leg rubbing and arm-holding over that in a heartbeat.
If you don’t count your blessings, your blessings don’t count.
Again, my deepest condolences. Now quit yer bellyachin’ and go call your dad.
This isn’t a competition.
+1
What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. At least you aren’t grieving.
Seriously, show some freaking sympathy to the guy who is going through some of the worst pain of his life up to now. How hard is it to at least try to understand where he is coming from instead of calling him a teenager? You don’t have to agree, just try to understand instead of enjoying making him feel worse.
And how old do you think you sounded with your response? I knew better than to respond that way to a grieving person well before I was a teenager, that’s for sure.