Advice from the wisdom that comes with age and experience

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oldlady2

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I’ve got a question for some woman who are empty nesters and married many years. I’ve talked to several of my friends. We are all women who have been married for more than 15 years. We have children in various stages of maturity. Most of us are good Christian women. We attend church regularly, believe in Jesus and generally try to live holy lives. Some are Catholic and some are Protestant. None of us are getting divorced and we are committed to our marriages and children. The thing that keeps coming up in our conversations is how none of us will/want to remarry should our spouse die. It is kind of a “been there done that” and not really willing to do it again. I don’t know if this is a normal phase or something peculiar to our generation.
 
oldlady2 said:
I’ve got a question for some woman who are empty nesters and married many years. I’ve talked to several of my friends. We are all women who have been married for more than 15 years. We have children in various stages of maturity. Most of us are good Christian women. We attend church regularly, believe in Jesus and generally try to live holy lives. Some are Catholic and some are Protestant. None of us are getting divorced and we are committed to our marriages and children. The thing that keeps coming up in our conversations is how none of us will/want to remarry should our spouse die. It is kind of a “been there done that” and not really willing to do it again. I don’t know if this is a normal phase or something peculiar to our generation.
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Not married myself, could it just simply be that each of you loves your husband and only your husband? That you will always love your husband? I’m not saying that those who remarry after the death of their spouse don’t love their deceased spouses, but I guess for some they do not care to date and fall in love because even after death, they are still in love with their spouses (I have known even young women who have had no desire to find anyone else after their husbands died at young ages because they are still in love with their husbands and its been over 10 years since the death of their husbands).
 
oldlady2 said:
. The thing that keeps coming up in our conversations is how none of us will/want to remarry should our spouse die. It is kind of a “been there done that” and not really willing to do it again. I don’t know if this is a normal phase or something peculiar to our generation.
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It took 40 years to train this one to do things my way, I don’t think I would have the energy or inclination to train another one. Seriously, I am a hard person to be married to and I think it is unlikely there would be 2 people in the world who could put up with me.
 
I feel the same way, although I’ve only been married for ten years. My feeling is that if something were to happen to my husband while my children were still at home, I couldn’t trust anyone else to care for them. Not to mention that three of my kids are girls and right or wrong, I wouldn’t want to bring a man into the house. If something were to happen later when my children were grown with families of their own, I would want to spend my time helping with my grandkids and volunteer work with the needy, and really get involved with pro-life activism, something that I don’t have much time for now with young children.

I don’t see myself wanting to go through all of the dating, courting stuff all over again. Don’t get me wrong, I love my husband and I am happy, but I put up with certain stuff typical to most marriages because he is the father of my children. I don’t see myself cutting another man the same slack. And in my experience, most men need alot of slack to be cut.
 
I guess it is impossible to know what you would do, unless you are actually in that position. My mom loved my dad very much. She was widowed at 33 after 14 years of marriage. She had really enjoyed being married and wanted to have that again. She met someone really nice, who my sister and I really liked, and pretty quickly got married again, a year and a half after my dad died. They are still happily married 27 years later, and I am really glad to have had a father figure like my stepfather in my life. My kids all love having him for a grandpa too.
 
Marci, I think you’ve articulated it. There are so many little daily crosses that come with living with my husband. So many things that I have to overlook that drive me crazy on a daily basis. I think it is the same with my friends. I’m sure someone will give the advice to “talk” to my husband about these things. Well, I have, but he isn’t interested in changing. His attitude, like my friends’ husbands, is to just get over it. These aren’t major things, but lots of little things. I have sons and from the best I can tell many of these things are typical male things. I’ve tried with my sons to teach them different, but it has been an uphill battle. I really don’t hold out much hope that other men are different. There may be a few, but I think they are the exception not the rule. They are probably created for special women who need them.
 
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