In the weeks after my husband died I was certain I couldn’t survive the pain, and I scoured the internet for books, blogs, etc… on how to survive the loss of your husband to suicide at a young age. That book/blog didn’t exist (hence my decision to publish this blog several months later). But what I did find was a lot of blogs in which women discussed their “Chapter 2”, referring to their next love. I remember being completely disgusted and feeling very adamantly that I was incapable of loving another man. I voiced my disgust to a handful of friends and they said “you may feel that way now but don’t close yourself off to the plans God has for you.” If you know me at all you probably know that response was even more frustrating. It simply wasn’t an option for me. So I planned to live out the rest of my life as a broken hearted, single dog mom, and I tried to let go of the deep longing in my heart to raise a family with Ben.
A couple of months in, after moving out of my parents house and back out on my own, I began receiving creepy messages from some of Ben’s “friends” as well as people I distantly worked with— I’m talking 30-50 year old men offering for me to come to their house in the middle of the night to cry on their shoulder *insert vomit emoji here*. I was even more disgusted and closed off to the idea of ever dating again. There are some real creeps in this world, y’all.
So when a friendship with an incredibly respectful and kind man from work began giving me butterflies, I questioned everything. First I questioned myself. I genuinely believed I was a terrible person for having a crush on someone less than 6 months after my husband died, and I also believed if it went anywhere my entire community would disown me. “Am I so messed up that I’m just desperate for attention? What if I deeply wound this man with my baggage?” I also questioned him and his motives — was it possible someone could like another person in such a complex place without sick motives? Spoiler alert: yes, yes it is.
We hung out a few times. Breakfast after work, hiking with my dogs — the same things I did with all of my friends, but I continued to feel the feeling that Seth wasn’t supposed to be my friend. I had no clue at first if he felt any of the same feelings — he was the most respectful person and although he DID have a crush on me, if it hadn’t been for me speaking up he would have contently partied in the friend zone because he never intended to put me in a difficult place or make me rush in to anything. He wanted me to have space and time to process and grieve.
If you’re in a similar place, I want to encourage you to do two things: pray, and talk to your “people”. I prayed a lot about the confusing feelings I was experiencing and for the Lord to give me clarity in sorting through my feelings. I mean, I was still wearing my wedding rings and deeply grieving the loss of my husband (the rings have since been taken off, but Chapter 2 doesn’t mean you can’t grieve anymore — I grieve every single day, still), how could I possibly have feelings for another man? Would that not be infidelity? I had vows with my husband — How could I break those?
I also called my Mom. “Hypothetically speaking, if I went on a date, would I be the worst person in the entire world?” “Absolutely not. You should let yourself live and do things like that.” I later told my best friend from college and she said something similar. I chose not to talk to anyone else (ok, I talked to my counselor, too) because I didn’t want the opinions of people that might just give me their emotional judgement instead of setting aside whatever bias they might have because they knew and loved Ben and actually considering my best interest.
We kept spending time together. And finally, I just threw it out on the table. “I could be completely wrong, but I get the idea that you like me and I don’t know what to do with that because my life is so complicated.” Something like that. And we discussed very honestly and rawly like adults. Crazy stuff, y’all. No games, no secrets, real, raw feelings. We chose not to jump right in, and gave it some more time. I wanted to really evaluate if I liked HIM or I liked the idea of being loved again, because the last thing I wanted to do was wake up one day and realize I had used and subsequently hurt an innocent man.
I had fears. How will I react when another man tries to hold my hand, kiss me, snuggle up on the couch with me, wipe my tears, enter a new covenant with me? Will I freak out? Will that just inflict pain on Seth? How could I do that to him? I felt like a grenade that the pin could accidentally be pulled from at any time. I feared my grief and PTSD would injure a man who didn’t deserve to be injured— and if we’re being completely honest, it has several times. Be prepared for it to be difficult. The first kiss is bittersweet. Fireworks in the middle of a thunderstorm. It felt like home, but how could it be home if my dead husband was my home before? The moment you first interlock your hands with his you feel the difference, you feel the emptiness from your passed parter yet hope and security in the very much so alive person whose hand yours is intertwined with.
I had my moment of “yes, I can do this and not be cheating on my husband” while standing beside my best friend on her wedding day. I wept, because I remembered how she was beside me on my wedding day, how recent that was, and how much Ben’s death still hurt. I wept because I remembered how much I loved him. I wept because I felt like I would never feel that joy again. And then I heard the pastor say “The only thing that can break the covenant of marriage is death.”
Death.
My husband is dead.
Our marriage covenant was broken in death.
If I keep trying to be his wife, well, I can’t, because he’s dead.
That was it for me. Those were the words I needed to hear to free me from the idea that moving forward would be disrespectful to Ben.
The next step was deciding when we were going to “go public with it”. I was terrified to tell Ben’s family because I didn’t want them to think I was “over” Ben’s death (I wasn’t, am not, and probably never will be), but I finally got the courage to do that. They told me they wanted what the Lord wanted for me and seemed happy for me. We dated quietly for a couple of weeks, and then finally I said “I know people are going to judge me. They’ll judge me today, they’ll judge me a year from now. Let’s just be real with the world. You’re too much of a blessing to hide.”
And you know what? I was right. We were judged harshly by church members, friends, acquaintances, coworkers, town gossips, and my in laws. A lady from church who barely knew me invited me to coffee one day and then told me how inappropriate she thought my dating so soon was. A handful of friends at work straight up stopped talking to me. Some of my closest friendships were strained. People told Seth I was going to rip his heart out. It was painful and still is sometimes. But if you’re in this place, I encourage you to step up and talk to those people. Explain the change you’ve noticed in how you’re being treated and ask why. Let them talk. If they knew your deceased spouse, they likely have some emotional stuff going on that they don’t even realize is straining your friendship. And those who won’t give you an answer or continue to harshly judge you and shut you out — let them go, they don’t need to be in your life.
I think I’ll save the “here are the struggles we face now, 7 months in to dating with PTSD while grieving” for its own separate post. But I wanted to at least get this out there: you’re allowed to keep living and you deserve happiness. A friend of mine is in a similar boat right now and reached out a few days ago and said “I think I deserve some happiness.” We talked for a while, but the take home was…
YOU DESERVE JOY. Your life doesn’t have to suck because someone tried to make it suck or something completely terrible happened to you. You get to choose joy and happiness and seize every day for the good in it.
The truth is, Ben loved me, too. He loved me as best he could in spite of fighting mental illness every day of our 3 years together. We had talked before about what we would do if the other person died. He actually told me he would want me to be happy and if that looked like remarrying, he would want that for me. Though Ben and Seth are very different people I feel confident that if Ben could, he would give Seth a hug and thank him for loving me as well as he does.
Chapter 2 is allowed. It’s not disgusting. It’s not a sin. It’s not infidelity. It’s difficult at times. But you owe it to yourself to keep writing your story and to allow good things to happen to you, too. Choose joy.
Til next time,
Julie
youngfiercewidow.home.blog 