How soon is too soon to f ind love again?
Mother ‘shunned by friends and family’ for going on dates two months after death of her husband
A WIDOWED mother says she was shunned by friends and family when she began dating just eight weeks after her husband died.
Natalie Drury married husband Tim Madeley in 2010, but he died aged 50 on New Year’s Day 2015 of brain cancer.
Less than two months later, the nursery cook, now 42, went on her first date since his death.
Although it didn’t go anywhere, Mrs Drury says she was condemned by some family members, friends and colleagues for looking to find love again so soon.
And the mother-of-one described how when she joined dating site Plenty of Fish two years after Mr Madeley’s death she was forced to ask friends if they wanted her ‘sat on the sofa wearing black’ as many still said it was too soon.
She went on to meet Paul Drury on the website and they married last summer after 18 months of dating.
Mrs Drury, from Stalybridge, near Manchester, said: ‘When Tim took ill in the August, they told me pretty early on what the outcome was going to be.
‘I did my grieving in those four months while he was still here. I knew what was coming and I had to stay strong for our son Oliver.
‘When the time came it was a release and when you lose someone, you lose your friends.
‘When Tim died, my friends didn’t call because they didn’t know what to say. I was in shock and so lonely.
‘Eventually I got to the point where I did want to go out and so I went on a date with a local man. It didn’t go anywhere but it caused people to say I had disrespected my husband. I had every respect for him – but I knew he was never coming back.
‘I couldn’t sit alone in my house crying. Soon after Tim passed away I was walking down the street and people would cross over because they didn’t know what to say. You do feel isolated.
‘If you haven’t been through it you can never understand. [Finding love again] doesn’t mean I’ve no respect for Tim.’ After starting to date Mr Drury in late 2016 Mrs Drury got a job as a nursery cook.
But she says she was still questioned about the length of time that had passed since Mr Madeley died. She added: ‘People would say, “it’s only been two years”. But I’d say, “exactly, do you want me to sit on the sofa wearing black and never go out?” People are so quick to judge. It’s not right.
‘Tim had older children. He had five, including Oliver. I’m still in contact with two of them.
‘They were really supportive from the beginning and came to my wedding in the evening. [But some others in Tim’s family were] really unsupportive and quite disrespectful.’
‘I grieved while he was still here’
Mr Madeley had been on holiday in Spain with his wife and four-year-old Oliver when she noticed her husband was ‘behaving really weird’.
Mrs Drury recalled: ‘When we got back, I took him straight to the doctors and they thought he’d had a stroke. He... was soon diagnosed with a brain tumour. They gave him chemotherapy but it wasn’t doing anything at all.
‘It was horrendous, especially during that Christmas. I was trying to keep things jolly for Oliver but I was struggling for money.
‘Tim survived through Christmas but a week later he went downhill. On New Year’s Day 2015 he passed away.’