Old attitudes live on.

Mcem. Quite possible if that person had a loving relationship and becoming a widow is not an option unlike divorce.

What ridiculous old fashioned sayings. I was widowed 13 years ago and have since met a lovely man (after sampling a few ogres). No I wouldn't marry again, only because I can't see the point. We live together in blissful sin, another outdated viewpoint. I hated being on my own with no one to share life with and I haven't "replaced my husband". Life goes on and you should do as you please without guilt or the need for others approval. Glad I've got that off my chest!

Willow10, you eccho my sentiments exactly! Divorced 32 years, and free to 'do my own thing', solve my own problems and go on my own kind of holidays!

Bit not big

One of my closest friends has started a relationship with one of his wife's friends only a year and a big after her death.they had been married for 46 years, never had a lot to do with the friend before. His daughter finds it very upsetting .

I've been widowed for ten years. I'm not lonely and not interested in a replacement. I enjoy the autonomy of being single. I think that old saying (actually, I'd never heard it before) may be true for men of a certain generation who are used to having their various needs met by a partner. If you are the one who has met those needs for a partner in the past, it can be refreshing to have only yourself to please.

I was 'found', by my OH of 6 years, on a dating site. My ex is still single in every respect and has approached me twice (via our children) to get together again. I prefer living alone.
I shouldn't think it difficult for both parties, in many instances, to move on and meet new people.

I've been divorced and alone for 30 years. In all that time I've never met anyone I wanted to share more than a couple of hours with, let alone my life and home. But then I think men are like parking spaces - the best ones are already taken!

Monica me too, best MIL ever, same thoughts 're DDiL, SiL also wonderful.

I have two friends who, in the same week, lost their late spouses after long and very happy marriages. Nine months later they met via a web site. They are blissfully happy seven years later and I'm sure that has a.lot to do with happy earlier marriages. No baggage.

Grammaretto, he may very well have forgotten his wife anyway - it's not at all uncommon in dementia for someone to cease to recognise their own spouse, or other close family for that matter - and it can happen quite quickly. With my own mother it happened in the space of a week.
One week her eyes would light up when she was me coming - the next,they were just blank - I was just a 'nice lady' who made her cups of tea, etc.
Of course it's very upsetting, though.

A friend's neighbour, who'd only had dementia for a year or two, became very upset and angry with 'that man!' in her house, and wanted him out! They'd been been married for over 40 years.

Grammaretto.
We had a similar experience with my late MiL who had to go into care with severe dementia. We used to take lots of photographs in as a prompt to try and jog her memory. Although she knew who we were ( we think) she rarely recognised her late husband on the photo,s. Think in her mind she had reverted back to her much younger years. The chef who used to bring the menu,s around personally to the residents came with them one day while we were visiting. He showed MiL the menu and went through it with her, asking her choices. All the while she flirted with him like a teenager....he just took it in his stride. As he went on to the next person with menu,s he said " cheerio see you later" dread to think what was going through her mind.

Well my mum obviously didn't read gransnet. Widowed at 75,remarried at 85!?

Widowers (and in fact any man on his own who is getting on) who goes actively chasing after a new partner is looking for a housekeeper on the cheap! Run a thousand miles girls - especially if you suspect his last wife died of pure boredom due to Retired Husband Syndrome.

My grandmother who was widowed very young, and led a lively and independent life, said, when we were reading the obituary and amount one of her ex-suitors had left in his will, (which I pointed out might have been hers if she'd married him ) "Ah but if he'd had me to run round after him he'd still be here and it would be me they'd be burying."
Which has always seemed to me a fair appraisal of how things work.

My observations are that a lot of men move on very quickly ( some women do too) my cousins wife had her next one lined up before he died They used to visit him together I feel sick when I see them out hand in hand now
Mcem I m with you entirely it really grates on me when I hear that old adage about sons and wives etc it’s like chalk on a board and second in cringiness to ‘hubby’ to my ears
I have a lovely daughter in law and had a nice mother in law

The reason men ‘move on’ more readily and quickly is for one reason only....they want somebody to ‘do for them’...they all want a skivvie. Widows take a deep breath and realise what they’ve been missing all thier married life and find independence and decision making a boon ...and like their widowhood. Well that goes for all my friends who are widowed. Win-win!

Don't know about anyone else, but I've certainly known several men who've remarried with what can have seemed almost indecent haste, after their first wife - often of very many years - died.

My mother always maintained that such men can't cope with household stuff and need a replacement 'housewife' to ensure their own comfort.

The woman who married my dh's grandfather very soon after his first wife died went through 3 newly widowed husbands in fairly quick succession!

My mother's verdict - 'She fussed them all to death,' - 'fussing' as in being extremely attentive to their food and general comfort. Since she was certainly no oil painting, and by no stretch of the imagination could ever be thought to exude sex appeal, I have to think my mother was probably right.

Dont agree with you at all. I have been widowed for 11 years In that time I have had loads of offers for evenings out, meals, theatre trips etc. but not interested. I am quite content with my little life, family, and friends.

I was widowed at 25, moved to a new area, bought a house in a lovely cul-de-sac, but only one of the women there bothered to talk to me, and apparently it was because all the others thought I'd want their husbands! And when I met someone the following year and ultimately married him, my late husband's mother was horrified, told me I had never loved her son in the first place. She thought I should wear widow's weeds for the rest of my life, but with my personality, there was no chance of me fitting her ideal. And why should I, as has been said, women get lonely too, women have the right to a life, and just because we remarry, it doesn't mean we forget the husband who died, and nor should we, or want to.

I was widowed at 57, over 5 years ago. I have male friends but no-one I would wish to live with full time. I'm happy on my own being a very independent person, that's not to say I wouldn't marry again if the right man came along

I think a lot of men, whatever their age, need a woman in their lives. My stepson in his twenties, lurches from one relationship to another, moving in together at the drop of a hat! His dad and I are just waiting for the fireworks when the current one goes tits up! ?

I've heard it said that the happier a man was in his first marriage, the more likely he is to marry again quickly. The poor things are so dependent on us, they can't live without us.

Many women, on the other hand, do find the independence a compensation, even if they are lonely.

Perhaps it partly reflects the fact that often the husband's work pension is bigger that the wife's. If a widow(er) remarries, or even establishes a new relationship, the late partner's half-pension is then taken away, and that would often be more of a problem for a widow than for a widower.

I think that this is grossly unfair. A couple I knew had a husband who paid into the pension scheme of a large company, then died in service. His widow had stayed at home when her DD was small, and so had a much smaller pension, but when she remarried, her share of her late husband's pension disappeared. He had many years of contributions, designed to keep them, or her as a widow, in old age, and I think it is a very patronising attitude to think that another man could automatically keep her and that the first husband's concern for her in old age should be disregarded.

She did not find it funny. I think it was better than finding him miserable but she didn't see it like that.

Sad and hurtful, not hilarious.