I was chatting with a friend yesterday about her brother-in-law who is dating less than a year after his wife died of breast cancer. She said, “What is he thinking? If my husband died, I would never get remarried. Who needs that hassle?”
I can’t tell you how many times female friends have said the same thing. They would never get remarried, because they wouldn’t want to have to clean up after the guy and constantly compromise. They would have a house to themselves. Some even get a blissful look on their faces as they think of a life without the work and the drama.
If your spouse died, would you get remarried?
UPDATE: Some of the latest time use numbers from Pew.
Apt. 11d 
I’m sure he wouldn’t put it this way to his deceased wife’s sister, it seems entirely possible that he wants to start dating but has no intention of getting married again.
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Lots of guys get remarried REALLY fast and very thoughtlessly. My grandfather dated, married and divorced very quickly after my grandmother died. Likewise, one of my cousins (who is my age and now on wife # 3) was widowed when his second wife died several years ago and then got some chick pregnant and married her months after his bereavement. He was really broken up after his second wife died–for a couple months.
Personally, while I think my husband ought to remarry if I predecease him (and I’ve told him so repeatedly), I also would like to be mourned one whole calendar year before he starts dating again. When a guy moves faster than that, I feel like it’s disrespectful to his first wife, as if wives were totally fungible.
I don’t know if I would want to remarry if I were widowed. My current focus is on keeping my husband alive and in good health rather than on picking out a new one.
I do know that the welfare of one’s minor children is a very important factor. It’s a really bad idea to be prematurely inflicting step-parents and step-siblings on minor children. The archives of Dear Wendy bulge with stories of crazy-in-love 40-somethings and the miserable step-situations they create when they move in or marry prematurely.
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When a guy moves faster than that, I feel like it’s disrespectful to his first wife, as if wives were totally fungible.
Danton married almost immediately after his wife died. I think I read somewhere that his first wife had somehow pre-approved the second, but I can’t find a citation online. Anyway, he was serious enough about his first wife to have her dug up so he could see her again (he was traveling when the died).
[The above may so more about French people than marriage in general.]
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“Danton married almost immediately after his wife died.”
So did Henry VIII.
He married Jane Seymour less than two weeks after executing Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard less than three weeks after annulling his marriage to Anne of Cleves. There were some longer gaps, though.
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I’d be dead so I wouldn’t personally care how long my spouse grieves for me but I do have a current investment in ensuring that my passing has a minimal impact on my children and him getting into a relationship very shortly afterward doesn’t seem like it would do them any good. So really I would want him to wait until they had adjusted somewhat to their lives post me which seems like it would take a minimum of six months.
But, as MH and y81 said, there’s dating and then there’s “dating.” If “dating” the day after my passing helps to ease the pain, then I have no current objections.
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I like “I would like to be mourned one whole calendar year.”
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While I’m thinking of it, my great-grandfather MARRIED his deceased wife’s sister. So, “Aunt Esther” was both my great-great-aunt and my step-great-grandma.
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I forget the exact relation, but my mom tells me that one of my male ancestors (another great-grandfather?) married his wife’s cousin after the wife died in childbirth and the wife’s cousin raised their kid (or kids). So, step-mom would have been cousin step-mom to the kids.
This may weird some of you guys out, but I think it’s not a terrible idea for a husband to take a second wife from among his first wife’s kin.
(Does anybody else hear banjos in here?)
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My 4th-great grandmother married my 4th-great grandfather, and had 3 kids. Then he died and she married the farmer who lived next door to her sister/BIL and had a bunch more kids, one of whom was named after her husband’s first wife and one of whom was named after my 4th-GGF. Then her second husband died and she ran the farm for years until in her 60s, her sister died, and my 4th-GGM married her BIL. Why she was a widow for so long, then married her BIL at such a late age, I do not know. Secret forbidden love?
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At least one of my kids would eat an unwary step-mom alive.
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I don’t know that I would want to get remarried necessarily but I would probably want to be in a serious relationship that involved living together. If your friend’s brother in law is used to having another adult around, he’s probably lonely as hell now that his wife is gone. I don’t think there is anything unseemly about waiting less than a year to date.
What I’m remembering of the research on divorce is that women are much happier post divorce and men are much less happy, probably for the reasons you’ve suggested. The accepted wisdom has been that men benefit more from marriage than women although I’m not sure if that still applies now that egalitarian partnerships are more common.
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For once, MH and I are in complete agreement. I also think it’s funny that Laura’s friends think their husbands are the source of the “drama.” I’ll bet that’s not how the husbands perceive it.
As for me, I would plan on remarriage, mostly due to religious convictions. If not for those convictions, a set of FWB relationships might be more rewarding.
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I’ll bet that’s not how the husbands perceive it/
No agreement there. I cause all the problems.
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I am getting complaints that I’m being “as depressing as hell.” SORRY! I need to change it up fast….
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MH and y81 have made it livelier for you.
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I think my ideal living arrangement for any future committed relationships would be separate condos in the same building. But sometimes I think that’s because there’s a grass is always greener thing going on though, and if I actually lost my husband/best friend/occasionally upsetting housemate I would feel pretty differently.
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Revising what I said earlier, this is my ideal living arrangement: a duplex, where we each have our own separate apartments. I imagine the reason it is not more common is financial. Paying to keep two separate households when you don’t have to is not a possibility for most families.
My son has a friend whose married parents have two houses. When they met they already owned their own places and instead of selling one off they kept them both. They primarily live in one house but keep the other one for when they want to escape, have gatherings of friends that don’t involve both people, things like that. Both of the houses are quite small and they met when they were well into their 30’s so I guess that’s how they’ve been able to make it work financially.
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For the purposes described, it would be cheaper to have a club membership. (I mean like the Yale Club.) That may not be an option outside a handful of major cities.
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I firmly believe separate bathrooms are the secret to marital happiness
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I’m on the second year of empty-nesting, and we moved way out into the country. I’m hoping for a long run here, while my husband doesn’t seem to think he’s going to live (like his parents) into his late 70s.
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I don’t understand the Pew article. The numbers don’t seem to add up. Like this chart. It leaves 12.8 hours a day from women and 11.8 hours for men unaccounted for, if my quick math is right. Obviously a lot of that is sleep, but not all of it, surely. I didn’t see any mention in the article about what the rest of the time is (and i’m too lazy to go hunting through the underlying time use survey). Does anyone know?
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Ha, this is kind of funny because my husband is leaving this afternoon for a long weekend and I couldn’t be more thrilled. He had to give up Utah because of the shutdown and is now driving through New England instead. I could go, but it’s no fun being a photography widow when you have 2 whiny kids to watch and feed. I’d rather be home catching up with what’s on the TiVo while the kids play Minecraft. He feels guilty, but I’m so excited. The worst part will be having to do all the stuff he usually does, which is … well, a lot.
My thing is that I want a separate bed. I now have to share my bed with my husband and my dog, and I long for the days of sleeping alone.
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“The worst part will be having to do all the stuff he usually does, which is … well, a lot.”
Yeah. A typical night when my husband is on the road features me finishing up housework at around 11:30 PM, having a late night check-in phone call, going up to bed, hanging out later than usual on the internet (because I hate going to bed alone), falling asleep on the internet while flossing, waking up at 2 or 3 AM in my day clothes with the lights on, having to go finish brushing my teeth and put myself to bed, getting up four hours later in order to get the kids to school on time and then doing that every day until he comes home. There’s somehow much less laundry in his absence, but I handle the dishes, trash and all driving, which I do not do when he’s home. The big kids are also a bit more unsupervised homework-wife when I’m home alone, as I tend to be busy with baby.
I also tend to “save” tasks like changing light bulbs for his return.
I’m really not seeing the joys of widowhood.
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These are the things I am going to have to do that I don’t normally do: wash dishes, run dishwasher (do I even know how?), make weekend breakfasts, brew tea (I will have to use the Keurig, but his way of brewing tea is better), get up at 7 to make sure 11 year old gets off to school, take out trash. Things I will be doing more of: walk dog, drive kids to places and pick them up.
Things I get to do that he frowns upon: stay up late reading in bed with the light on. 🙂
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Thrift Horatio Thrift: the funeral baked meats did coldly furnish forth the marriage table…
Buddy of mine lost his mom to cancer. Long grim painful battle. That family was young adults, just in or through college. And then the intensive care nurse who had mainly cared for the mom scooped his dad up and married him! My friends were upset, partly from the feeling that he was dancing on Mom’s grave and partly because their mother was a deeply cultured intellectual person, and the nurse was none of the above, and then they wondered if who their mother was had really.. mattered.. to their dad. I’m with AmyP, fungible spouses, ick. And it’s not just minors who can get upset.
That said, I love being married, so I would probably hope to find someone, after what my kids would see as a decent interval.
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I know a lot of young adults struggle with the happy remarriage of their fathers, especially when there is a fresh set of young half-siblings occupying their childhood home (never been there, but blech). There’ve been a number of those letters over at Dear Prudence.
For some reason, I haven’t seen so much about young adults struggling with the happy remarriage of their mothers.
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Good thing my own parents never remarried after they divorced when my siblings and I were quite young. It gave them the opportunity to cultivate a wide array of obnoxious anxieties and eccentricities and us the opportunity to bear the burden of fully absorbing those delightful behaviors instead of their theoretical spouses.
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I like being married but it’s being married to my husband rather than marriage in general. I don’t know if I would remarry mostly because he’d be a hard act to follow. We both have quirky, eclectic interests that make for an interesting life but aren’t necessarily mainstream.
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Both my father-in-law and my father remarried within a couple of years after their spouses died. My dad is a couple guy; he has to be in a couple. My father-in-law wouldn’t survive without a wife. 🙂
I might remarry, depends. I think it would be lonely without my spouse. I don’t have that many female friends. I think I’d like a companion to spend time with.
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What am I, chopped liver???
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My great-grandfather married his cousin and his brother married her sister The two brothers’ had a cousin who married the third sister. They all lived in the same very small town, but nobody got married more than once. The marriages must have been arranged by mail since the the men had been in American for years before the women left.
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I can’t see myself marrying again. I think I’d downsize drastically, and learn to play bridge or something.
On the other hand, as they get older my children are starting to be alarmingly concerned about our welfare. I could hypothetically see a tactical relationship with a widower, in order to forestall the debate, “is it safe for Granny to live alone? Wouldn’t it be better if she lived with us/in our neighborhood (etc.)” Two little old people can live independently longer than one.
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All very true. I will have to pass on bridge, though.
I kind of like the idea of assisted living, actually, or a MIL flat or cottage, or some sort of Golden Girls arrangement. I HATE being alone (or the only adult) at home at night, but I really like a nice quiet house during the daytime.
There was a house for sale in a nice near-downtown neighborhood a few years ago. It was a 1920s Tudor duplex that was originally built for two sisters who wanted to live close together, but not be in each other’s hair all the time.
Sharing a kitchen is particularly problematic, I think.
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This captures exactly how I feel: “I like being married but it’s being married to my husband rather than marriage in general.” My husband can remarry with my blessing. I have never wanted to be married to any other guyy that I’ve met.
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Whenever I know a lot about somebody’s husband, I often think to myself how very lucky he is to wake up in the morning.
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Yep. Before sleeping, I always remind my wife about her cousins’ husbands that are far worse than me.
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Henry VIII did seem to genuinely mourn Jane Seymour, his third wife, who died in childbirth. He started asking his minister, Cromwell, to shop around within what I’d consider an indecent amount of time but one male heir was clearly not enough to secure the succession as Edward VI didn’t make it out of his teens!
I don’t want to be mean but men and women often have different experiences of marriage. Men see a partner as someone who relieves burdens. Women? Not as much. And even with the many duties my husband performs in our household system, it’s not an appealing thought to say “hey, I’ll marry someone so I can get the yard mowed and the bathroom floors mopped.”
I wouldn’t seek to be married just to be married. Without someone as amazing as my current spouse, it would be work without real reward – a soulmate who’s endless fun. So why bother? I could contract out any chores that I couldn’t do myself rather than rush into remarriage.
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Very true.
Oh, and let’s not forget one very important gender difference–a lot of women pretty much give up on sex around menopause or even earlier. In their case, remarriage would mean resuming an unwelcome household chore.
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Do some women really feel that way about sex? Maybe I am sheltered in my queer sex positive ghetto but most of the women I know (both straight and lesbians) express a lot of love for the “act of love.” I’ve babysat for a few friends to give them time to be alone with their spouses for this very thing.
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You can be sex positive all day long–it doesn’t matter to your body. At some point, the libidinal pilot light just blows out for a lot of women, no matter how interested they used to be. Here’s a whole blog archive devoted to this interesting and depressing subject:
The title of the blog is “Why Your Wife Won’t Have Sex With You.”
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“Why Your Wife Won’t Have Sex With You.”
Her finding the spreadsheet of people I’ve thought about dating if she died didn’t help one bit either.
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I think Amy P was referring to decreased libido in post-menopausal women, not the same as the population that needs babysitters. I don’t think anyone denies, outside the pages of “you go, girl” women’s magazines, that many post-menopausal women experience declines in libido.
As do many older men. Joseph Epstein wrote a funny piece about a 70-odd male friend who was taking testosterone supplements, to maintain the desire, and Cialis, to maintain the capacity to fulfill the desire. Epstein intimated that he could dispense with both, and achieve a new, possibly happier and definitely cheaper, equilibrium. But this decline may come somewhat later in men.
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“I think Amy P was referring to decreased libido in post-menopausal women, not the same as the population that needs babysitters.”
Oh yes. Unfortunately, with late enough child-bearing, it’s easy to both be both perimenopausal and need a sitter. Plus, a minority of women goes into early menopause naturally or winds up with an early hysterectomy.
By the way, Laura, if you’re looking for more depressing subjects, menopause is always there waiting to be written about (some of your readership is already enjoying that very special time). I suppose there is a “good news” aspect to menopause–namely that we don’t go on having babies naturally into our 70s, but the craziness, physical symptoms, and low libido make it a very scary subject. Time it right, and we can wind up having hormonally-fueled spats with similarly demented tween and teenage daughters.
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My sister recently discovered that the two words that are almost as bad the three words “you have cancer” are “vaginal atrophy.” (She had to be put into early menopause to treat the breast cancer–which has worked, btw.)
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