Would you want your husband to re-marry?

b from nj

Thu, Feb 28 2013, 10:37 am

Raisin wrote:

IME it is very normal for even adult children to be upset at parents for remarrying. I think especially if adult children are not married themselves and so do not understand why a person needs to be married.

Also, second marriages often do not work out, sadly, whether for family reasons (kids not getting on or whatever) or people finding it too hard to adjust to a new spouse.

I would be all in favour of my husband remarrying, Hopefully to someone as wonderful as me, and someone who is a warm and loving mother to my kids. (however old they are)

Agreed Raisin. I have an aunt who passed away in her 50s I think & her daughter who is now in her upper 30s & is unmarried would never forgive her dad if he were to remarry. They are not religious & he dates a lot & has had many girlfriends since my aunt passed away which is hard enough for my cousin to deal with but if he were to remarry, she would have a really hard time with it. Then again, I believe that my uncle has EVERY right to remarry if he so desires (but I think he's fine with just having girlfriends & not committing to any one woman long-term).

shnitzel

Thu, Feb 28 2013, 10:46 am

My experience is also coloured by the fact that my grandfather (mother's father) was the one to advise my father to remarry soon after my mother (his daughter) was niftar. My grandmother died young when and my grandfather never remarried, he didn't want his son in law to have the same experience he had and encouraged him to remarry. My grandfather is still close to my stepmother and father.

There is no maale in being alone.

amother

Thu, Feb 28 2013, 10:58 am

amother wrote:

To be honest, it depends how old he would be. If he's still young (say 30's), I don't see how anyone could be against him remarrying. He has his whole life ahead of him, and if kids are there, of course they need a mother. Also he shouldn't be alone. Not healthy for a man to live life without a woman. Even the Torah tells us this.

If he is older though, say 60 or 70, I think I would be really upset if he remarried at this stage (after possibly, 40/50 years of marriage. Especially if it was a happy one. Can you imagine all the memories the two must have, the love they must have? If he remarried now, I'd be very disappointed and wouldn't understand. This is my personal feeling.

As it happens, I have two grandmas who both lost their husbands and neither of them remarried for, one 26 years and the other 40 years. They feel they will never replace their wonderful husband/soulmate, and the memories are too strong. They are still too attached.
I think this is more common for a woman than a man. But I'm sure there are men too who, at this age, feel the same.

So, what I'm saying is, it depends on the age of the remaining spouse.

Simply because, if they are young, he has his life (and children's lives) ahead of him, and it just needs to happen, both emotionally and practically speaking.

As someone who has been in a very close and vey loving marriage for almost 47 years - We were both 21 when we married -
I agree with all of the points that you made. To add, I know of several older widowed men, that rushed into a second marriage, which turned out to be very unhappy.

PinkFridge

Thu, Feb 28 2013, 12:00 pm

PinkFridge wrote:

[

b from NJ, your friend's husband may have made an excellent decision - his wife can concentrate on his kids, he doesn't have to deal with some of the drama that can come when there are multiple and not always healthy other families to deal with, etc. and one day, hopefully sooner rather than later, his children will come to appreciate the bracha this woman is in their lives, even while treasuring their mother's memory and legacy.

Mrs. Dash, I hope I haven't said anything that's hurt you more.

I wonder if I should just have let this go but when I thought about it I realized that while I was replying specifically to the scenario b from nj described, I wasn't saying that no divorced woman with a story deserves to remarry. Just saying that how it's crucial for one to identify the issues, see how well they're handled, and then determine if this is something one can take on.

saw50st8

Thu, Feb 28 2013, 12:48 pm

MrsDash wrote:

This thread is coming dangerously close to being very hurtful. Wait no. It has already surpassed that. No one has the right to make any assumptions for anyone else's decision. What you want to do is your business, but don't go around spewing garbage about what is right or wrong. Don't speak for others. You don't know all the details. How can you? Intimate life is just that, private. This mindset is what made my mothers life a living hell when she remarried. People saw her as the enemy. They badmouthed her. It was utterly disgusting. People were outright awful to her. My mother didn't kill his previous wife. My mother didn't trick her new husband into marrying her. I can't tell you how many times my mother cried over this abuse. Yes, abuse. People think they are righteous for acting this way towards her, but they are awful people who should beg my mother for forgiveness. It is the most painful thing watching your own mother cry. She's a brave woman, who after 40 years of an abusive marriage was able to get out even though it was the toughest, and scariest decision she had to make.

There many topics we discuss here that are hard for various people to hear. It doesn't mean we should stop. It means you should avoid threads that bother you.

As to your mother's abuse - that's awful. I would never demonize someone like that! We are talking in theory based on our own experiences. My preference is to live a long happy and healthy life and meet my great-grandchildren. Not die wtih 4 young kids left without me.

amother

Thu, Feb 28 2013, 1:08 pm

amother wrote:

I know someone who remarried his wifes sister after his wife tragically passed away leaving a bunch of young kids. I guess thats one way of ensuring your new wife loves your kids as much as you do.

In an earlier age, when death in childbirth and from infectious disease was rampant, and communities and marriage options small, this was practically standard operating procedure. But this in no way guarantees motherly or even aunterly love. All it guarantees is a housekeeper. The dh has to work for a living, and the kids can't stay home alone. He needs a wife, she needs a husband, there's no time for much of a courtship, chances are the sister has already been looking after the kids for a while, so it's a go.

We know of a family whose grandfather married his first wife's younger sister after his first wife died. Let's call his first wife Adah and his second wife Jezebel, I mean Tzila. No sooner did Jezebel, I mean Tzila, get married than she threw her late sister's children, the oldest of whom was at most 13, out of the house to make their own way in the world. One survived, but somewhere along the line the younger children vanished. Nobody knows what happened but chances are it wasn't good.

But G-d has his ways. Jezebel, I mean Tzila, subsequently died, and it seems that the widower then married HER younger sister. Also not an unusual occurrence. History is silent as to how wife #3 treated the nieces and nephews who were now her stepchildren.

zaq

Thu, Feb 28 2013, 1:27 pm

To each his own. No "rule" or assumption applies to everyone. For every family that doesn't want their 80-y/o father to remarry because they're jealous of his 55 years of memories of their mother, is another family eternally grateful to their father's second wife for making him happy for the last 3 or 5 or 15 years of his life.

Friends of mine are a model to emulate. After their mother's petirah in late middle age, their father remarried a widow he knew from the community. They embraced her as she embraced them. The father is long since gone, but his widow is very much a part of their family and their lives, quite as if she were their own mother. So much so that they even invite to their simchas her children--technically their stepsiblings, except that they were all adults when their parents married and so don't have any true shaychus to each other. The only shaychus is the one they created with their mutual loving acceptance. Their attitude is "Renee made Dad happy in his later years and cared for him at the end of his life, and so there is nothing we wouldn't do for her."

It's a beautiful thing.

zaq

Thu, Feb 28 2013, 1:35 pm

Raisin wrote:

IME it is very normal for even adult children to be upset at parents for remarrying.

And this may be one reason why there is a minhag, or maybe a halacha, that children of a first marriage do not attend the chuppa when a parent remarries.

See also http://www.theyeshivaworld.com.....iage.

Clarissa

Thu, Feb 28 2013, 2:03 pm

Would any of us who are married want to be alone? I'm guessing no, unless you're miserable. And if you care for your husband at all, why would you wish him to be alone? Being alone on Shabbos, maybe, alone in illness, alone in sadness, alone in a quiet house. Anybody who's looked over and has seen the empty side of the bedroom, an empty bed, knows that it's really painful.

I'm hearing wicked stepmother stories but still not understanding why one would want one's husband to be alone. Let's say it's a given that:

1) The new wife wouldn't be mean to the existing children. The children will not have to sweep out the fireplace, wear a raggedy dirty dress and be nice to evil stepsisters.

2) The new wife won't take all of the husband's money and run off to live in a villa in Monte Carlo.

3) The new wife isn't a prisoner on Death Row, convicted of killing her first husband, who is hoping for the governor's pardon.

Then would you let your husband have the comfort of a hand to hold during bad times? No? I know nobody will be a better wife and mother than you are, and you should live to 120 in happiness and good health. But the question has been asked.

Last edited by Clarissa on Thu, Feb 28 2013, 2:04 pm; edited 1 time in total

freidasima

Thu, Feb 28 2013, 2:04 pm

Zaq it comes from something very different. Usually after losing a wife fathers of small children or even older children remarried very very fast. Sometimes mothers as well as one needed someone to care for the children or to provide a living for the family. And as a result the parent was no longer in avel as they only keep one month for a spouse but the kids were in avel for a year. Hence they didn't attend the wedding.

That's the makor of the story. If it is a divorce for example no problem for the kids to attend. And many do. And many kids when not in avel attend a parent's marriage. It was just in the days that parents would remarry very fast for practical reasons.

amother

Thu, Feb 28 2013, 2:05 pm

My grandmother died of cancer in her 50's, and my grandfather remarried less than 2 years later. The shidduch (with a woman whose first husband had died as well) was made by my aunt -- his daughter. Although she was the one who was actually the most affected by her mother's death, after a bit she was able to see past her own pain and realize that her father needed companionship. She knew he would never want to hurt her, so she took the initiative to show him that his kids (who were all already married) would be happy for him not to be lonely the rest of his life. He and his wife have now been married over 20 happy years. Yes, there were "politics" over the years as to which yomim tovim were spent by his kids, and which by hers, etc. But overall with a bit of careful communication and an eye on the goal of shalom bayis, they have great relationships with all of both sides of kids, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. I am sure my grandmother, a'h would certainly have chosen this over condemning her husband to 20+ years of living by himself.

I also am closely related to someone who lost her husband in the very early years of her marriage. She had one child at the time, and remarried about 2 1/2 years later. She now has a bunch of kids with her second husband, and her first child, who never really even knew his own father, is just one of the group. She makes sure to keep him in touch with his biological grandparents, but other than that he is growing up with an involved and loving "father" and lots of siblings. I cannot see how it would have been better for either her or her son would have been better off living their entire lives alone, and again can't imagine her first husband would have preferred it that way.

b from nj

Thu, Feb 28 2013, 2:25 pm

saw50st8 wrote:

I don't think I would personally remarry.

In today's day & age (& maybe in the past as well), it is much easier for a guy to remarry after his wife passes away than it is for the wife whose husband passes away, just because of the shidduch crisis in general & b/c men generally have an easier time getting suitable shidduch suggestions from friends & family members.

Last edited by b from nj on Thu, Feb 28 2013, 3:30 pm; edited 1 time in total