Thanks to all those who gave feedback on the Dating a Widower book cover concepts. It was very helpful to read all of your reactions and suggestions. I’m going with the first concept but will be working with the designer to make several changes to it. Thanks to your feedback, I think the final cover is going to be really awesome. I’m also going to be reworking the subtitle of the book too. Look for some different subtitles to choose from soon.
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Sometimes I’ll get an email from someone dating a widower who thinks that the widower’s failure to commit or other odd relationship behavior is due to how his late wife died. For example, someone recently emailed me and wanted to know if the widower’s hot-cold behavior toward her could be attributed to the fact that his late wife took her own life.
Depending on how the late wife died may add a layer or two of complexity to the grief process, but her manner of death shouldn’t play a role in whether or not the widower can open his heart to you. For example, my late wife killed herself. As a result there were some anger and forgiveness issues I had to work through that probably wouldn’t have been there if she had been hit by a bus. However, Krista’s suicide had zero relevance of wanting to start a new life with Marathon Girl. If anything, falling in love with Marathon Girl gave me an added incentive to forgive Krista and move on. The process of making room in my heart for her would have been the same regardless of how Krista died.
There are lots of ways to die but the process of opening one’s heart to someone else is the same for practically everyone. Don’t excuse a widower’s bad behavior because his wife died from cancer, took her own life, or was killed in battle. If he blames his lack of commitment or inability to make you #1 on his late wife matter of death—he’s just passing the buck. A widower who is ready to open his heart to you will find a way to make it work no matter how the LW died.