Finding Love Again After Loss

​When my husband died, I thought I’d never love again and surely would never find someone as perfect as my late husband. However, as a young widow at 45 years old, I recognized that I most likely had a lot of life left to live and was overwhelmed by the prospect of living the rest of my life alone. In fact, widows who have had happy and successful relationships are more likely to want that again and to find that again. So, I kept myself open to the idea of finding someone else to love and enjoy life with.

As I considered dating after my husband passed, I was riddled with an internal dialog that I was dishonoring my late husband or that people would think I did not love my husband as much as they thought I did, or I was “getting over” my grief too quickly. So, I decided to give myself one full year before I even considered the prospect of dating.

Well, as we all know, life cannot always be perfectly planned. Nearly nine months after my husband passed, I ran into an acquaintance in my hometown. He was a friend of some other friends, so I knew him very casually, but not very well. We spent an evening amongst friends, enjoyed some live music and had a few good laughs. At the end of the evening, he asked if he could take me out to dinner and I said sure.

Two weeks later, we connected for that dinner. I told no-one but my best friend. The guilt and shame were still very heavy for me, and I was so concerned on the appearance of me going out with another man “so soon” (not at the year mark) after my husband passed. To my pleasant surprise, the night was incredible. He was easy to talk to and we had a lot in common, including friends and interests.

Before I knew it, I was seeing him every weekend and slowly word got out around our friend group. Nearly all my friends were happy for me and for him. They wanted nothing more than for me to be happy and knew he was a good guy. I was honest with him from the beginning, telling him that “I’d never “get over” or “move on” from my late husband. I would always love him, have pictures of him in my house and still planned to talk about him. If that was too much, I understood”. His response was incredible. He said, “I would be concerned if you told me you were over it or did not still love him”.

Even despite his kindness and compassion, I was still struggling with the thought of loving two men at the same time. It felt like I was cheating on my late husband or was being insincere with my new interest. And then I heard an analogy that made a lot of sense. If you have a child that you love very much and then have another child, you still love your first one just as much even though you also love your second child very much. Love cannot be replaced, and our hearts are large enough to love many people.

I still waited three months to tell my family about my new love interest and they, like my friends, were also very happy for me. I learned the internal story I told myself of how others would react to me dating was just that – my own internal story.

I believe we all have the right to be happy. Life throws us terrible curve balls that we never expect or feel as though we can never recover from, but we can recover and heal. We must want to heal, and we have to do the work to heal. We cannot expect a new person to come into our lives to make us happy again; we must do that on our own.

However, once we are healed, bringing new love into your life and heart is exhilarating! Just over two years after my world completely collapsed, I can say that I am happy again. I am in love with an incredible man who I share stories and memories with about my late husband, who I also still love. I truly never thought such a life could be possible after loss and am grateful every day I get to live it.
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Are struggling with the thought of dating again after your loss or have you struggled with this in the past? Share your story here.