Last week I posted a list of unique problems and challenges GOWs and WOWs face when dating a widower. This week, at the suggestion of the women in the support group, we’ll talk about some of the positive aspects of dating a widower that GOWs and WOWs have experienced when dating their Ws. Feel free to add your own list of positives to the comment section below.
Positive aspects about dating a widower include:
- Being with someone who no longer takes the woman in his life for granted.
- Being with someone who enjoys spending each and every moment with their new love and works hard to make the relationships stronger and more wonderful.
- Being with someone who doesn’t hold grudges because he knows how short and precious life is.
- Being with someone who learned to be more patient, cooperative, and understanding.
- Being with someone who has a new appreciation for life, its beauty, and all that it has to offer.
- Being with someone who put the happiness of the new woman above his own.
- Being with someone who now lives each day like it’s his last.
- Being with someone who doesn’t waste time doing things that don’t matter.
- Being with someone who appreciates the past but doesn’t let it control his future.
- Being with someone who was willing to learn how to communicate and support someone who is the exact opposite of his first wife.
- Being with someone who knows that one’s heart has a greater capacity for love than he ever thought possible.
- Being with someone who realizes that life isn’t defined by loss but by how one picks himself up and moves forward with life.
- Being with someone who is willing to fall love again even if that means the possibility of experiencing grief and heartache in the future.
Many of the above qualities can be found in non-widowed men too. With widowers, however, many of these qualities are either new or are more of the forefront of their personality. I’m a very different person than I was 12 years ago. Had I been unmarried or divorced when my path crossed with Marathon Girl’s, odds are we never would have married. Even though the widowed experience was difficult, it changed me for the better. I know lots of widowers who can say the same thing.