My husband won’t forget his dead wife
I GOT married in April this year. My husband and I were previously happily married for more than 40 years, but in 2015 both our partners died in our local hospice — where we met four months later at a group counselling session.
We both feel very lucky to have found each other and have a lovely marriage most of the time.
Since I first met my husband he’s had spells of moodiness which at first he denied — then admitted his first wife used to ignore it and carry on as normal, eventually making him laugh.
For a day or two I can ignore his moods but I do get miserable and have to sit him down and say how much it affects our relationship. So far he’s managed to give himself a talking to and reverted back to normal. And he’s getting better.
He still carries a photo of his first wife in his wallet. I said I felt uncomfortable with this, and after I mentioned it again once we were married, he tucked it under his driving licence (still in his wallet) and asked for a photo of me.
He now has both photos sideby-side in full view again.
I feel he’s living in the past and there are three of us in this marriage! Even though he often says he loves me and couldn’t live without me, I feel he isn’t treating our marriage as a brand new start.
Am I selfish and wrong for feeling this way? I haven’t said anything to him yet but feel unhappy about it.
SHIRLEY
While it’s easy to understand how you feel, i suggest it might make you happier if you take these feelings of hurt and give them a little shake. it would be terrible if you allowed them to spiral unchecked, like the bindweed that chokes a flower. You and your husband shared so much even before you met. You each experienced the sorrow of watching a beloved spouse of 40 years die in pain. You were both devastated and sought help in a counselling group — where you met.
looking at the timing of your marriage you didn’t rush into the new relationship — no doubt wary of that inevitable feeling of betraying the beloved dead.
So here you are now . . . with a second shot at happiness in a peaceful older age. how fortunate you are — how blessed, to be able to take care of each other at this time in life.
But do we cast off our pasts like a butterfly’s chrysalis? Slough off our memories like the skin the snake leaves behind in the undergrowth? Of course not. We carry the past with us, always.
i cherish the photograph of my ex-husband and me at our daughter’s graduation that stands tucked in the corner of one room, and i also have a picture of him with others in my Filofax pocket. Why wouldn’t i — after 35 years of marriage?
The point is, my second husband doesn’t mind in the least. he and i had a ‘new start’ — building on the past, no denying it.
When you told your second husband you didn’t like him gazing at his late wife’s image (and he hid the picture behind his driving licence), that act probably tore him up with sadness and guilt — as if he had suddenly denied all she was to him.
So when you gave him a picture of yourself, and he put them side by side, he was able to honour the past and the present. it must have given him a feeling of immense relief.
You mention his moods — not easy to deal with, especially if (perhaps) your first husband was easygoing. But why not listen to what he told you when he said his first wife ignored him then made him laugh?
Rein in your heavy-handed need to sit him down for a serious talk about ‘ how much his mood is affecting our relationship’. it won’t help. You need to be lighter, to smile, to distract.
Tell me, how can there be ‘ three of you in this marriage’ if one of that trio can no longer smell the air after rain, feel the sunlight or enjoy a cup of tea in front of the TV? Surely (and i say this with utmost gentleness) it is not sensible to feel jealous of a poor ghost?
i’m afraid i can’t see what harm it does you that he still wishes to treasure a picture of his first wife in his wallet, because by doing so, and keeping yours there too, this lucky man celebrates all that he has had — and has. That seems to be to be right and proper.
if i were you i would put a picture of both my husbands in my purse — and be thankful for all the love you have known.