WIDOWERS IN NEW RELATIONSHIPS
A couple years ago, a therapist and doctoral student, who works with Couples in Conflict Management, contacted me with questions she encountered in conversations with women dating widowers. These questions deal with the challenges faced by a woman trying to understand a widower’s ongoing relationship with his deceased wife. This article includes much of our discussion.
My responses are based upon research for my book, and hundreds of conversations (virtual, email, and in-person) with widowers at various stages of their grief process.
Question #1 from Dawna McKnight, Couples Therapist:
Do you think a widower (with proper time for grief and healing) can go on to love another as much as the late wife?
Response from Fred Colby, Author:
This question often comes from Divorcees who are dating a widower. I am glad you specified, "with proper time for ... healing." Where the widower is in his grieving process can make a big difference in how ready they are to "commit" to someone new.
Many widows and widowers have communicated to me about this. The new relationship may also be impacted by the woman's background: single (never married), divorced, or widowed.
The short answer is: Yes, you can go on to love another as much as the late wife.
The long answer is: Yes, but "love" may take on new/different definitions. I don't recommend trying to define it in a narrow way that filled the bill twenty to forty years ago. Allow it to take on some wonderful new hues and expressions. Don't think that for someone to love you, they must leave a deceased spouse or partner behind.
Question #2 from Dawna McKnight, Couples Therapist:
Can the new partner hold the same level of importance for him?
Response from Fred Colby, Author:
Yes, they can! But allow the new relationship to mature and deepen just as it did for him with his first wife. Don't expect the early protestations of love to immediately hold the same depth and breadth as they did with the first wife of many years. This takes some time to evolve... just as it did in their youth.
There is plenty of room for love and commitment to occur. But the new love must allow room for the old love to remain in the widower’s heart. If the new wife/partner constantly asks, "Do you love me as much as you did her?" or insists on removing all the photos and mementos of the past relationship, they will drive their new boyfriend away over time. There should be a balance and respect for the past relationship which helped to form the person before you today. Honor that.
My ten-year girlfriend (a widow herself) and I have always been open and honest about our past spouses. We still speak of them on occasion as memories occur. We don't take offense or feel threatened by it. We each realize that the other one's spouse is an important part of who they are, and we accept that.
Question #3 from Dawna McKnight, Couples Therapist:
Sometimes the widower unknowingly can make the new partner feel like a substitute for his preferred relationship with his former wife.
Response from Fred Colby, Author:
In some cases, that can be very true. Often this will diminish over time as the relationship with the new friend becomes more real and secure for the widower. In many cases, the widower just wants a woman in his life again, period. For some that is all they want. For many others, they want the whole package (romance, long-term relationship, marriage). That can and often does lead to very real emotional and physical love connections. This is where the added empathy learned from their loss helps them to be more open to a sincere loving relationship. It often can seem very strange (especially after long marriages) to be learning how to be in a loving relationship with a new person all over again. It takes time, so trying to force it along can incur negative reactions.
Question #4 from Dawna McKnight, Couples Therapist:
Should the new girlfriend insist on removing all the photos and mementos of the past relationship? How does a widow/widower give their new relationships focus, attention, intentional care, and nurturing while keeping reminders of a late spouse hanging around? It would seem to me that having such symbols in plain sight would make a widow/widower still feel married to the previous spouse, thereby deflecting attention from the current relationship.
Response from Fred Colby, Author:
Please don't think that for someone to love you, they must leave someone else behind. Love is not finite. You can have one child or six children and love them all equally. Each child may ask questions like, “Am I your favorite? Do you love me more?” They think love is finite with you only able to give out so much. The people who can love unreservedly are often the ones to whom we become most attached.
Too often a new partner feels that they must have the widower wipe the slate clean of their past spouse. The more insistent the new partner is on this, the more likely they are to drive away the widower friend. I encourage my readers to remember, honor, and love their past spouses while moving forward with their lives. That means making room for new friends and/or partners in their lives but not feeling that they must ignore or diminish everything from their past.
The widower should be ready to remove photos in the more shared spaces, especially, for example, in the bedroom, living room, and kitchen. But to expect him to purge all photos from areas such as his office, man cave, or workout room is overkill. Often many of our best photos include not only our deceased wife but also our deceased parents and our children when younger or at their weddings. Asking a widower to purge these is asking him to purge all his family photos and memories. That is a step too far and suggests a very insecure new partner who wants to be the only and everything to the widower partner. Also, consider the impact this could have on visiting children who see every trace of their mom being erased from their dad’s home. That may lead to barriers to building new relations with them as well.
Please Note: We are also talking about the deceased wife's clothing, shoes, jewelry, mementos, and many other personal items that were important to her. I have known widowers who still had many of those things in their house years after their wife’s death. At the same time, many of these men were in new relationships. Eventually, they must come to terms with this dichotomy and finally part ways with the bulk of these items. If a widower is still hanging on to these years later, it may well be a sign that he needs some support from an experienced therapist to work through unprocessed grieving issues.
What to Expect…if you do it right.
For up to two years after losing their wife, she is likely to remain very important and for a time, the primary focus for widowers. As a new relationship becomes stronger and more established the balance will gradually shift towards the new partner. At times both the new partner and the widower will have doubts (only natural) and fears. This can lead to pulling back for a bit. So, yes, the new relationship does eventually achieve predominance in our daily lives, but the new partner needs to allow that there will be moments (e.g. an old favorite song comes on) when the widower will be blindsided by memories that require a few moments of honoring the past relationship. This is where taking a moment to "remember, honor, and love" your deceased wife is appropriate. The sooner the new partner realizes this and supports their new widower friend through these moments (rather than being threatened by them) the stronger the new relationship will become.
Both partners need to realize that photos are evidence of past lives, lives well lived, and wonderful memories from those times. These do not need to be obliterated to make room for the new couple. My partner and I have taken many new photos from our life together, and we each have posted some of these around our houses as evidence of our new relationship and new memories being made. There is evidence of this on our respective Facebook pages as well.
I think part of the trick is to realize that this is an evolving process and that you don't have to suddenly go from one extreme (e.g. photos of past wife everywhere) to another (no photos anywhere). Start small and allow the new relationship to naturally evolve and the expression of it through less of the old and more of the new to unfold as the bonds grow stronger.
© Copyright 2026 Fred Colby
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