I had an interesting conversation a couple of weeks ago at the butcher shop with a widow who works there.
Her husband passed on about 5 years ago and she mentioned that she's still reluctant to date although her kids are pushing her to. I could see the hurt in her eyes when she talked about how wonderful her marriage had been. I think it would require one heck of a guy to step in to his shoes.
I think that's one big difference for us. If my ex had died and died without an affair being involved, my house would undoubtedly have lots of pictures up of us as a happy family and I would have pretty much only good memories. Yes we had our ups and downs. We had talked about it like many couples do and I do think that I would not even be considering a new partner at my time of life if she had died. Now though I've scrubbed her from my life and home and any potential new partner has a pretty low bar to cross to be better than her.
The OM my ex went after was a widower. His first wife was an active part of the community, a mother and grandmother. Filling those ghostly shoes would be quite tough I would think and she will always be competing against the memory of her predecessor.
On BD H52, W50 T27, M26 S21, D23 BD-9-Mar-16 D-15-Jan-18 Final-19-Apr-18 I am a storyteller. The story may do you no good. But a story is never for the listener. It is always for the one who tells
