Help Please...

[Mrcelloboy]

Hello my friends.

I've shared with you in the past regarding a new relationship I began this past August, after losing my partner of 10 years on 11/10/06.

Things seemed to be going pretty well with Melanie, but recently I began having doubts that I really "love" her. I just don't experience the depth that I felt with Kathy and have not been able to say "I love you" to Melanie since this realization. I really want this new relationship to succeed but my sharing this with her has crushed her. She's been head-over-heels about me since we met, and now feels that there's little hope of it working out. She feels that many actions of mine suggest that I'm pulling away.

I really want this to work and still hold out hope that we can get through this somehow and succeed together.

We'd talked a bit, a few months back, about how we might be able to blend our households. She has a 16 yr, old. I have an 18 yr. old and my 13 yr. old, who's lived with his mom for most of his life may be coming to live with me. I live in a 2 br. home. Now just thinking about housing on my 2nd son is a whole new challenge. Mel has ideas but I start to feel overwhelmed pretty fast and wonder if I'll be able to hadle all of this.

Any thoughts?

Thank you.

[dpodesta]

I lost my wife of 11 years on April of 2006. From what I have read here and what I have experienced is that your love for someone else will never be the same. It will be different. One thing that you will need to consider is why do you want this relationship to work out. I don't want to sound blunt but I don't believe I shold sugar coat either. This is what I have experienced with a past relationship. I got into the relationship about 18 months after Karen passed away. What I found was I was in the relatoship because I didn't want to be alone anymore, I wanted help in raising my son, and a few other realated reasons. Granted those are valadated reasons, but shouldn't be the basis of the relationship. I wasn't in love with her, I was in love with the situation of going to her house and having dinner with her kids and mine like a family after work. I had to break off that relationship until I got to know myself better and I had to come to the realization that it is ok for me to be alone, I don't have to have someone in my life for compionship, I have pleanty of friends for that.

Having said all that, I did after that relationship become ok with being by myself and I stopped trying to look for someone. Just recently I met someone at work and we have started to go out. However this time I am taking it slower and wanting to take the time to get to know her and see how things go. I don't want to rush like I did the last time.

I know things like this are difficult, we truly love the one that died, we can love again maybe not as deeply but we can love again, we just need to make sureb it is for the right resons. For me the last relationship was an attempt to replace what was missing. This time I don't see it as that, it is just that I want to be with her and get to know her better and see what happens next. I hope the helps in some way and I apoligize if I sounded blunt but since this does involved someone else's life, it needed said.

Love always

Derek

[Mrcelloboy]

Thank's Derek. You're right, it's not what I want to hear, but I fear that at least some of what you say is true.

I want very much for this to work out, but I can't fake what I don't feel is there. I'm searching my soul to come up with the answer. In the meantime Melanie cries and feels like she's been misled. I feel terrible about this and it adds to the stress I'm already dealing with.

I'm still hoping that I'll realize that there are great reasons for me to love Melanie and for us to stay together. I'm upset by the thought that I'm just stringing her along further if I realize that the love just isn't there.

[dpodesta]

It is difficult for those who haven't been through what we have. It is difficult for us as well, we still love the one who died and feel strange when we consider loving someone again. And then there are the swings in emotions that we go through every so often. When we go through those emotions and we have someone in our life it causes us to rethink the relationship.

You are doing the right thing by letting her know how you feel. Give yourself some time to make sure you want to stay in the relationship for all the right reasons. Anytime we have second throughts, the person on the other end is going to feel some hurt, unfortunately that is the results some times.

When I ended the relationship I was in several months ago she was very hurt, she had fallen for me very fast. I even told her at the very begining of the relationship that I was still trying to figure myself out and that I could not promise anything. I then saw her falling faster and faster and I just didn't have the same feelings and decided it would be best to end it which I did. I hate that she got hurt in the process but I believe it was the best for both of us. Take your time and be honest which it sounds like you are and everything will work out. And as always if you need someone to talk to you knopw how to reach me here.

Love always

Derek

[Mrcelloboy]

Thank you again Derek. The experience you share with me is so perfectly relevant.

I wish I had ben wise enough to catch my indecision earlier. We could have saved a lot of the grief we're going through now.

My indescision seems to be tearing us apart.

[dpodesta]

In the grief support group that I was in for awhile last year the counslers said you should wait for 2 years after the death before you get into a relationship. That gives you time to learn who you are. Obviously you and I didn't follow that rule. Looking back I can see what they mean. For me being married for 11 years, she became a part of me and I a part of her, so when she died a part of me died with her. I had to learn all over again who I was as an indavidule. Unfortunately that process doesn't happen over night. As I look back over the past 21 months, it wasn't until recently that I reaally started really learning who I was. For me I had to come to terms with being single, I had to accept that I am single and that I am ok being single. I think for me that was the most important part, I had to be ok with myself being single. Once that happened and I stopped looking for someone to fill that hole, then is when I was ready for the next relationship to happen. This time I decided to approach it like I did when I met Karen, I gave up trying to find someone and make a relationship work. I decided that someone will come into my life and it will just happen. That is what happened when I met Karen. That is what is starting to happen again with the woman I am going out with that I work with, I have known her for about 1 year so she knows who I am, how I act and what has happened. I feel like I can be who I am in front of her and I don't have to put up any walls. Well keep in touch with how it all goes and I wish you the best no matter what your descision turns out to be.

Love always

Derek

[DesertBob]

I think Derek has given you good advice. I would just add that you are doing the right, loving thing here with respect to Melanie. In order to behave in a truly loving way towards someone, you have to be willing, either in the interest of your partner's growth or your own, to be completely open and honest even if it puts the relationship at risk. I admire your personal integrity in this matter. You're not afraid to do the hard thing, which, unfortunately, is also often the right thing.

I hope that Melanie doesn't confuse what you're doing with a "classic" commitment aversion. Even if there's an element of that in play, you really just aren't ready and want to get your act together first, and that's as it should be.

I don't know about setting a particular time limit like two years on new relationships. I've heard one year, 18 months, etc., but the fact is, it's probably not a bad rule of thumb, especially for us guys. I read that on average, men remarry in 2.5 years. REMARRY. That probably means they are seeing women, on average, within 12 to 18 months. The problem is that if your grief is not mostly resolved, the distraction of a relationship will put whatever grieving / adjusting you still need to do, on hold. Then it will pop up, directly or indirectly, to wreak havoc on your relationship at some inopportune time. That's not fair to you or your new partner.

We men have a problem-solving orientation. Problem: no wife. Solution: go get one. But we have the problem wrong. Problem: old identity and purpose has been destroyed. Solution: Build a new identity.

This new identity may or may not, now or ever, include being a husband. If the possibility that you may never remarry terrifies you, then you probably need to figure out why or you'll never enter into a relationship with a pure motive. It's terribly important not to use new relationships as a way to stop the pain of grief or to avoid the pain of the personal growth that arises out of grief.

I think you're heading in the right direction, guy, even if it hurts.

Hang in there,

--Bob

Hello my friends.

I've shared with you in the past regarding a new relationship I began this past August, after losing my partner of 10 years on 11/10/06.

Things seemed to be going pretty well with Melanie, but recently I began having doubts that I really "love" her. I just don't experience the depth that I felt with Kathy and have not been able to say "I love you" to Melanie since this realization.

[dpodesta]

I agree with Bob, you can't sreally set time limits on when and when not to getinto a relationship after the loss of your spouse. I think though as a rule of thumb 2 years really gives you time to grieve and to make sure that you are not trying to get rid of your pain by replacing it with a relationship. One book that might help you and it helped me a lot after the first unsuccesuful relationship was written by the same author that wrote "Men Are From Mars and Women From Venus" the book deals with relationships after a loss. I can't remember the title anymore and I am sure Marty when she reads this will post it. This book went over the mistakes that men and women do with relationships after a loss. When I read that book, I saw a lot of the things I was doing were written on those pages. It really helped me to get through all of this and make some sort of sense of it.

Love always

Derek

[kayc]

Hey, it's not only men that do this, I did, and I'd have to say 3 years is even better than 2. I'd have to add that it's not enough reason to marry just because you're lonely or want what you lost...you should have that added spark of loving the person to the extent you cannot possibly imagine life without them and no one else could take their place. Maybe you can slow this down and she can wait and see what happens...or maybe you'll need to halt it altogether or she won't want to wait. At any rate, you didn't try to mislead her...until a person has been in our shoes they cannot possibly know what we go through or how difficult this is, and we enter it without a handbook.

Wishing you the best...

KayC

[DesertBob]

Derek,

Might you be talking about Mars and Venus Starting Over: A Practical Guide for Finding Love Again after a Breakup, Divorce, or the Loss of a Loved One by John Gray?

--Bob

One book that might help you and it helped me a lot after the first unsuccesuful relationship was written by the same author that wrote "Men Are From Mars and Women From Venus" the book deals with relationships after a loss. I can't remember the title anymore...

[dpodesta]

Bob,

That's it. I couldn't remember the exact title and didn't want to get it wrong. THe book talkes about all kinds of losses including divorce. While divorce is in no way close to a death there are similarities as to how men and women react to them. I loved the book so far, I haven't read through the whole thing but it really helped me to see myself and what I was doing and that the feelings I was having were normal.

Love always

Derek

[DesertBob]

Now that is spooky. I just put in "Mars and Venus Starting Over" and suddenly it expands to the whole extended title and turns into an Amazon URL, which I was too lazy to do myself. I would love to meet the genius who wrote the forum software for this place.

Although I suspect he named it "Marty 1.0" ;-)

--Bob

[MartyT]

I just love you guys . . .

[DesertBob]

Hi Kay,

Sure women do it too, but the shocking statistic (shocking even if only half true) is that while men remarry on average in 2.5 years, for women it's more than 30 years. I find that hard to believe but I've read it in a couple of places. If anyone has heard a different number I'd be curious to know what it is.

Then there are the horror stories of men remarrying within weeks or even hitting on women at their wives's funerals. These are not necessarily knuckle-dragging apes; they tend to be the kind of guys whose wives served as mommies and they are lost and in a panic because they don't know how to tie their own shoes. Or they have some other neurosis that makes being alone so intolerable to them that they want to fix it NOW. The behavior is driven by desperation, not lechery.

People will do funny (and not so funny) things when they are hit with grief, hence the standard advice to avoid big changes / decisions for at least a year. Maybe when it comes specifically to new romance, an even longer period is wise for many. I don't disagree with you and Derek on that, I'm just saying I wouldn't make it hard and fast.

The day you can honestly say you've healed and moved on and can consider marriage without a sense of desperation or need for comfort, is the day you can feel free to remarry. If it's sooner than a couple of years or you have any doubts at all, it's a good idea to vet it with a trusted therapist or other advisor.

I think it's also probably a good idea not to date until you get to that point, because there is always the danger of "falling" for someone, at which point common sense takes a vacation. For practical purposes I don't believe there is such a thing as "casual" dating for many people, because they can't keep cupid at bay with any degree of reliability.

--Bob

Hey, it's not only men that do this, I did, and I'd have to say 3 years is even better than 2.

[Mrcelloboy]

I was able to read some excerpts of the Mars and Venus book yersterday and was a bit startled at how closely some of what the author said parallels my experience.

I spent the evening with Melanie, starting out with sharing some of that with her. She wasn't very happy to hear about it. We were able to come to an understanding after much discussion and some tears that we're going to see if it works for me to just back off some in the intensity of our relationship while I try to do some of the "work" I skipped in my grief. We're going to seek some counseling as well.

Thank you all for your continued input and support.

[Dusky]

Marcelloboy,

Actually, I found some of the answers you seek in a post that you provided to us all back in November of 2007. At that time, you were describing how difficult it was to start a new relationship after losing your mate. Following is one of the points you made at the time – you said:

"In basic terms, Melanie is in love with me and enthusiastic about creating a life together, complete with a whole new world of experiences and memories. I, on the other hand, as much as I love her and want to develop this new bond, have a huge set of memories from my lost relationship. I'm still letting go of these, and it may take a long, long time to get to where I really have the space to fully appreciate some of the new stuff with Melanie. Even though she's a trained Nurse Practitioner, and understanding of my feelings, it's difficult for her sometimes that we're in such different places emotionally."

I was touched by how well you stated exactly what was happening in my own life at that time. I have bee attempting to foster a new relationship and have found that it is very difficult – and the difficulty comes because as you said “I have a huge set of memories from my lost relationship. I’m still letting go of these, and it may take a long, long time to get to where I really have the space to fully appreciate some of the new stuff with Melanie.”

For me that crystallized in just a few sentences what was happening in my life at that time. As patient as the person was that wanted MORE from me I was unable to provide all that he wanted as quickly as he wanted it. I’m still in that long, long process of categorizing and gently finding the proper places to that huge set of memories that you referred to in your November posting.

It is not easy for us that are grieving – and I am sure that it is equally as difficult for anyone who is trying to touch or enter our lives at this time. I feel bad that my pain has affected another person, but at the same time, I have to be true to my core feelings. For me the reality is that as much as I may want to somehow repeat all the beauty of my past relationship I also realize the reality of how difficult it is to recapture. All I can provide the process is time – with the hope that I can work through the pain and others will be patient with me.

When my Jack die the person I was died with him. It is not an overnight process to re-find and re-define who I am – and that in reality is what I have to do. It is what we all have to do. Creation takes time – and Repair may take even longer. What we all are faced with is a combination of two things - we want to create something new – but before we can we have to repair the means to create.

It is as if we are a sculptor – who has sculpted his entire life. Suddenly he has an accident and his hands are broken – every finger crushed. He must wait for his hands to heal before he can sculpt again. He may struggle for years to regain the skills he lost – the bones heal differently – the fingers move again but at a different angle - because of the break. Eventually he will produce magnificent pieces of art again but how he reaches the point where he is able to re-create again will be a painful journey. Moreover, the pieces of art he creates in this period of healing may not be his best work – but they are still his work and the best he has to offer at that time. His heart is in every piece he creates – and he continues to strive and reconnect with his talent that still lies within the tips of his fingers.

We are all - this sculptor - trying to bring our lost skills back. Moreover, the pieces we produce on the journey back may very well be the ones that in the end have the greatest definition and color than the perfect ones we used to produce or that may come again when the pain has lessened.

The question is – whom that touches our life’s now that we are on this journey of recovery – is able to see us to the mountaintop? My experience has been – so far – that many people say that they understand this journey but the reality is that few can understand the difficult of walking in these shoes. Few are capable of seeing the story to its logical conclusion – to reach the mountaintop and see what is on the other side – with me. It will take a special soul to be able to watch this sculptor struggle to regain his talents. Still I have hope – that there is another person as fine as my Jack – and who will eventually walk with me and work with me to redefine and re-find who I am. It is also true that some of this journey is one that must be traveled alone – and perhaps it is in this “alone period” we sometimes find ourselves and creates difficulty for those wanting to be close to us.

In the meantime, I keep all those who want to be close to me close – I do not send anyone away and only ask for patience. I try to explain that my story is still unfolding – that I am a work in progress. In addition, for those who are having a difficult time understanding what I am trying to describe I offer the following story:

Years ago, I bought Jack a small plaque with a saying on it. It was at a time when I was having a difficult time adjusting to some of Jack’s sometimes quirky personality traits, and being the compromising personality that I was I put the blame on me and gave this plaque to him. Somehow, it helped. We worked on it. We developed over the years and grew into something very special and unique. We became what many called “a real item.” I became more like him and he more like me. We blended into one. Much has changed since that day in 1979 when I gave Jack that plaque. However, what it said and what it meant still have meaning today to all of us as one human being to another. The words are simple – the meaning profound - the message clear. That plaque said:

“Please be patient … God isn’t finished with me yet.”

The sculptors work continues – and I trust and pray that so many who have touch my life in a close and caring way will stay with me – because I am still climbing that mountain – I am still mending the sculptors broken fingers. I am very grateful for everything that so many have done for me – and they well always hold a special place in my heart. However, I must also be true to my self – and remind everyone to …. “Please be patient … God isn’t finished with me yet.”

I hope all these words help – Love and peace to you,

John – Dusky is my handle on here

Love you Jack

[Corinne]

John,

Thank you! You have a way of giving my feelings beautiful words.

Hugs & prayers,

Corinne

[suzanne]

Dusky

Your words leave me speechless. Thank you for your inspiring thoughts. You write so much of what I feel but can't express, especially to the outside world.

Suzanne

[dpodesta]

When I read the book, I was also surprised at how closly the book hit on things I was doing.

Dusky,

I is so great to hear from you again.

Love always

Derek