Sometimes widows and widowers feel guilty about moving forward or look back fondly on their new life. How can one move forward and embrace their new life? My latest Widower Wednesday video has the answer.
Transcript follows.
Hi, it's Wednesday, and that means it's time for another video edition of Widower Wednesday.
I'm Abel Keogh, author of the book, Dating a Widower, and today we are going to talk about widows and widowers who feel guilty about chapter two and starting chapter two.
The idea behind this video comes from several emails and comments I've received from widows and widowers who have started chapter two.
They're in good marriages, they're in strong relationships with their new spouses, or in long-term relationships with their partners, but they feel guilty about the sacrifices they've had to make in order to make chapter 2 successful.
So this video will address these issues.
So for example, sometimes these widows and widowers they may feel bad or guilty about moving away from their adult kids or other family members in order to make the marriage work.
They miss old friendships or traditions they used to participate in back at home.
They may struggle with the challenges that come with building a new life with a new person.
These kind of lead not necessarily wanting to end chapter two but reaching out and asking how do I deal with these feelings so first of all if you're looking back at the past and missing it that is normal and it's not just something that widows and widowers do I think you know we've all had times in our lives where we've gone through a transition and a change and you look back, you know, what the last, you know, it could be 10 years ago, five years ago, whatever, a couple months ago, and you see what life was like.
And we all kind of do it at times.
We all kind of miss the past and just kind of realize, man, I had it good, I kind of miss that.
So there's nothing wrong with remembering and reflecting on the past, first of all, so long as that doesn't interfere with our new life.
Because in order to build a new life, you need to understand that there's no solutions here, that there's only trade-offs.
And I come from the great philosopher Thomas Sowell.
He coined the phrase, there's no solutions, just trade-offs.
In order to have a new life, a new chapter two, you have to give up all or parts of your old life.
And that's just reality.
And no matter how hard you miss it, no matter how hard you miss those good times or those friendships or traditions or things like that, your old life isn't coming back.
And so if you find yourself as a widow or widower kind of feeling maybe guilty or thinking about chapter one and kind of wishing that things were different.
The best thing you can do is understand that there's a price you had to pay for this new life and you have got to focus on and embrace the life you have now.
That means focusing on your new spouse and putting all of your time and energy into him or her.
It means making new relationships, new friendships, starting new traditions.
You need to build a new life just like you did when you got married the first time.
You had to build a new life then, you have to build a new life now.
And yes, it's going to be different than your past life, but that doesn't mean it can't be as good or it can't be just as wonderful.
Now, I know a lot of you are thinking, well, Abel, that's easy for you to say, you know, you've been married 20 years and you've built this thing.
It's like, yeah, And it's not easy.
It's not easy to do.
It's easier said than done, but you need to really embrace, decide what it is that you want chapter two to look like and just embrace that.
And you need to realize all the stuff that you've gained, instead of focusing on what you've lost, you need to focus on what it is that you've gained.
So for example, in my case, you know, back all those years ago, I lost a wife, I lost a daughter, I had to redefine relationships with friends and family, I sold a house, I had to move.
And I'll be honest, there were times where I looked back and said, yeah, I did kind of, not that I felt guilty or bad, but there were times, I mean, it was a big adjustment to create a new life and start a new life.
And there was times that Julie and I struggled with it.
I mean, we're just as human as anybody else.
In fact, if you want to read about it, I have the wife and the next life here.
If you want to read about some of these struggles that we had in building chapter two together, it was by no means smooth.
It wasn't horrible and rough, but it was by no means a smooth and perfect experience.
But really what worked for me is I had to say this is the choice that I made I made a choice to marry Juliana to start a new life with her to start a family with her and I had to embrace that and I had to embrace that decision and just accept it and make the best out of it And instead of focusing on the things that I had lost, like moving and just having to redefine friendships and things like that, I really focused on what I had gained.
What I had gained by starting a new life with Julie.
Well, I had a new marriage, we had new children, we created a new family, and we created new traditions.
And it was different, and again, wasn't smooth.
Read the wife and the next life, You can get some of those details.
It was it wasn't smooth for Julie either but I embraced the choices and I embraced my new life with Juliana And if I have pined after my old life with Krista or my past life or kind of regretted those decisions I guarantee the marriage that Julie and I have would not have lasted and so Really?
You just have to go out there and just accept the life that you have and embrace it.
It doesn't mean, again, if it's okay if you struggle at it, it's okay if it's a little bit hard, but you've made this choice.
You've made a choice to start a chapter two with someone else.
You have got to embrace that choice.
You have got to accept that choice.
And the more time and energy you put into creating a new relationship, creating new memories and strengthening that marriage, instead of focusing on the past, the stronger and better that your marriage will be.
And yes, it's going to be different than chapter one, but there's no reason it can't be as good or it can't be as sweet.
So okay to miss the past, okay to understand you had to make sacrifices for this, but it's when you make sacrifices that's when the blessings come and that's when you create the new life that you're meant to live.
So like, comment, subscribe below.
Leave me your thoughts on this, things that you have done to over to start a new life and overcome feelings of missing the past or guilt.
I'm Abel Keogh, author of the book Dating a Widower, and I'll see you next Wednesday.