Dear Dr. Respler:
I am a seventy-two-year-old woman who lost her husband two years ago. We had been married for fifty years and had a loving, giving relationship. We were best friends.
By nature I am a very positive person with a great outlook on life, and it was hard for me when my husband died. But as time passed, my children encouraged me to date and even set me up with a very special man. He treats me like a diamond and has asked me to marry him a few times, but I just don’t feel ready to make a commitment. He is similar in many ways to my first husband and he had a good marriage as well. We speak about our spouses and he feels that our good marriages will help us create a successful one together.
My children are concerned that I will never be ready and don’t want me to pass up a good relationship because of my feelings for their father. “Tatty would have wanted you to remarry,” they tell me. And maybe that’s true, but they don’t understand how scared I am at the thought of letting myself love again. There is the guilt, of course, but I also don’t want to experience the pain of loss as I have already done.
Am I wrong for pushing this new man out of my life? Please help me make a decision – I don’t want to regret my actions!
B.D.
Dear B.D.:
Let’s begin with some facts: Statistically, people who have healthy and productive first marriages generally have excellent second marriages. There is an art to being married and it appears that you have the talent to sustain a loving relationship. Your children are probably right that your first husband, who loved you, would want you to remarry and not live alone. Would you want him to be alone if the reverse would have happened? The Chumash tells us, “Lo tov heyot ha’adam levado – It is not good for a person to be alone.”
You need to see this second relationship as another chapter in your life. This does not mean that the loving years you shared with your first husband should ever be forgotten. However, you need to move on and create new happiness.
It seems that your children want you to be happy and they know that you have the ability to be in a great relationship. Listen to them; they want only the best for you.
As for your fear of loving another man and losing him – the joy one experiences in being in a relationship is great. However, it comes with the risk of losing that love. There is so much truth to the old adage, “It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” Companionship and love increase life expectancy, as well as physical and psychological health. A healthy marital relationship will bring out the best in you.
I think it’s amazing that your children sought out a person to make you happy. It could not have been easy for them to arrange a shidduch for their mother. You seem to spread sunshine wherever you go. I think that you should not miss this opportunity. Hatzlocha!
