It was about two months after I lost my first wife Krista to suicide that I felt like I wanted to date again.
I was 26 at the time and I thought there was something wrong with me – maybe I was just feeling this way because of how my wife had died? – so I fought it off. But I did start dating again a few months later and, just over a year after Krista passed away, I remarried.
Now I work as a relationship coach for widowers and women who date widowers, and I don’t think most people really understand what we experience.
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Seven months after Krista died, I met Julianna at church and I couldn’t stop thinking about her. She’d recently won a local marathon and her picture had been in the paper, so I asked her out by congratulating her and asking if she wanted to go for a run.
We had an awful first date – Julianna didn’t know I was a widower and when I blurted it out, it threw her completely off and she had a hard time wrapping her mind around it. But she agreed to go on a second date and it was then that I realised we could be serious. It was weird.
There weren’t any doubts or worries that I was doing something wrong – it was the exact same feeling that I had with Krista. And it got stronger and stronger the more time we spent together.
Part of that feeling was a motivation to move past my grief. I couldn’t keep both the emotions of grieving for Krista and loving Julianna in me at the same time, so it was a battle before I eventually let love overwhelm it.