Prolonged Grief, Mental Illness, and How Long Does Grief Last?

Psychiatry's most powerful body just added a new "disorder" it's diagnostic manual: prolonged grief. This diagnosis started a controversy among mental health professionals and those who have suffered loss. In this Widower Wednesday video I tackle whether prolonged grief should be a mental illness and answer the question: how long does it take someone to grieve? Here’s the New York Times article discussed in the video.

When to Have Serious Relationship Talks with a Widower

At some point you and the widower need to have serious conversations about boundaries, expectations, and the future. When is the best time to have these conversations? Relationship coach and widower expert Abel Keogh has the answers.

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’re going to discuss when is the best time to have a serious conversation with your widower about boundaries, expectations, and the future.

This is a question that comes up quite a bit and the question is usually prefaced by saying they’ve dating a widower a certain number of months or years and is it too soon to bring up questions and concerns or to talk about the future. The short answer, and I’ll get into specifics in a minute, but the short answer is, yes, you should be having these conversations as soon as possible. There’s a time and a place for them and you shouldn't just have an info dump on the first date but there are there are things that you should be talking about once you become exclusive. It's actually a good way to find out if the person you're dating is actually ready to open their heart.

For example, let’s discuss boundaries. If you have certain expectations about behavior from the men that you date and that person you’re with is violating those boundaries, you should talk about that as soon as possible. Let's say you go on a first date and the widower shows up with a wedding ring on his finger. This is one of those situations you probably haven't thought a lot about or encountered before but assuming there’s a second date, you can bring up the issue of the ring or you can let it go. If you let it go, what's the message that you're sending to the widower? If you don't say anything about the wedding ring and he shows up on the second and the third and fourth date and so on and you've kept your mouth shut, you're telling him that the ring isn’t a big deal.

You need to set firm and healthy boundaries soon because that's not only good for your mental health, it's good for the relationship and will weed out widowers who aren't serious about opening their heart again.

The next thing is when do you talk about expectations and a future together. I’m of the opinion that once you're in an exclusive relationship you should be able to talk about the future and what it looks like. You should be able to also discuss things such as finances and, if there str kids involved, how big of a role do they play in your relationship. If you're in an exclusive relationship and you can't talk about these issues, why are you in an exclusive relationship? An exclusive relationship says that you're serious about each other, that you see a future some kind of future together. Ig you're not dating other people, you should be able to bring up a lot of difficult subjects. That doesn't mean like as soon as you're exclusive that you know you do a data dump uh but you should be start getting comfortable discussing these topics.

For example, when Julie and I were dating, after we made it through some of the big widower issues (which basically meant that she felt that I was ready to open my heart to move on again) we reached that point where we were able have conversations about what the future looked like. We both wanted to get married so we discussed if we’d live in Ogden are move somewhere else? Are we going to stay in my house or are we going to rent an apartment? What do our finances look like? How much do we earn? How much debt do we have? Again, this wasn't a big data dump buy a series of conversations we had when Julie felt I was ready to open my heart.

It was nice to have these conversations because, first, it made us both feel like we were serious about this relationship. It also taught us how to better communicate with each other. It also set the expectation of what you know what it is that we were looking for and gave us a chance to again of evaluate the relationship. If there was a lot of incompatibility issues with or you know we didn't see eye-to-eye on some big picture things that weren't widower related, the relationship would not have eventually ended. It was nice to talk with her about things and say this is what's important to me in a spouse or and this is what I'm looking for. We didn't always agree but we agreed nine times out of ten. There were some things we didn't agree on sometimes we kind of disagreed a little bit but we had these conversations and I think when we got married um and we went into our marriage I think we had a fairly realistic expectation of what we were going to expect once we tied the know. Like with finances we knew if we were going to have separate or combine checking accounts and what were we going to do with our debt. Things like that Once we tied the knot we we already knew what we were going to do and we just kind of executed that plan.

I think once you're in an exclusive relationship you need to be able to, little by little, start having these bigger conversations because there's more to a relationship than widower issues. Yes he needs to be ready to open his heart and get through some of these widower issues but if you're disagreeing on issues such as finances, sex, recreational activities, family issues, then it doesn't matter if he's over the widower issues because you're not going to get along anyway.

I know some of you are watching this and thinking “Well, I'm worried if I have this conversation with the widower he's going to be turned off by it and maybe he'll end the relationship or he'll say it's too soon. That's a valid concern and there may be some widowers out there who are turned off by these conversations or maybe they don't want to discuss it, but I'll be honest with you: Someone who's ready to open their heart and someone who's ready for a serious relationship they will want to discuss these issues. I know Julie was worried about having these conversations but Julie also wasn't afraid to lose me. Julie wanted a future with the right person and that was more important to her than having a relationship with the wrong person. She wasn't willing to settle and by that point neither was I.

These are conversations you're going to have at some point so you can decide for yourself is this something that I want am answer to a year or two into a relationship or would I rather find out earlier? Everybody has deal breakers and there's nothing wrong with deal breakers but that's something you need to find out in my opinion sooner rather than later so both of you aren't wasting your time in a relationship that's not going anywhere. And for those who thing it’s too soon to have these conversations, then why are you sleeping with each other? If you can't have these conversations, which are adult conversations, you shouldn't be engaged in certain adult behavior unless that's all the relationship is based on.

You don't want to be left holding the bag years down the road and saying well I wish I would have known about this sooner. Start having these conversations make sure you're on the same page and then be honest with yourself if there's a deal breaker out there and decide whether or not you can live with it. For example say the has tons of debt you can see if he's serious about chipping away at it so it's smaller by the time you guys get married or moved in together. Just don't be afraid to have these conversations.

If you have more questions you can type them into the comments below you can also send me an email. Also, subscribe to my YouTube channel so you get notified when more videos are released. Also, if you want to schedule a coaching session you can do that on my website. I'm Abel Keogh, author of the book Dating a Widower, and I’ll see you next Wednesday.

Does Marriage Continue in Heaven?

What happens to relationships in the next life? Will we see our loved ones again? Will the widowers be married to their late wife? The latest Widower Wednesday video answers these important afterlife questions.

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 I’m going to answer a question that I’ve never publicly answered before and that is what do relationships look like in the next life? Is their marriage in the next life? And what happens to widows and widowers who are married and their spouse dies and they get married again what does that relationship look like in the next life.

The idea for this video was an really good email conversation I had with the viewer that was asking these questions. I'm going to share her question with her permission and my answer to it and we're going to have an interesting conversation.

But before I do that I know a lot of you are looking at the screen here and you're saying, “Abel, what's up with your office the door is open looks like there's a bed in the background there's a like a chest of drawers and stuff. So just to get that out of the way we are actually getting new flooring in our house we're having new carpets and some new flooring put in. As a result we had to move stuff from bedrooms and kind of cram everything into my office. Usually we have lots of room in my office, lots of room to work and to do these videos and other things but I'm kind of really crammed in here today. I'll show you around real quick you can just see like there are beds and chests of drawers and you know all kinds of stuff floating around. I still got to record a video despite that and so it's just kind of really cramped in here but it's okay. By the time I do my next video it'll be gone and I look forward to having my office back.

But the point of this video is what happens with what happens in the next life. What do relationships look like in the next life? How are things going to look with you, Krista, and Julie. Let me read a portion of this email and then I'll answer that question. The email goes like this:

Abel, my widower believes he will see his first wife again in heaven. I struggle with this because I wonder where does this leave me. Sometimes it makes me feel like a temporary—a thing to fill the time until they meet again. How does this work between the three of us? I don't understand how things work. Do you have any thoughts on this? Thanks for your thoughts in advance

Yes, actually I have quite a few thoughts. I've never shared them publicly but I'm opening up now. First of all, yes, I believe you will see everyone that you loved in heaven again or the next life .(I'm going to use the the term heaven or next life but you can phrase it however you want. That's how I'm going to use the term but your terminology maybe different.) I believe we're going to see everyone in heaven. It doesn't matter if it's your parents, your brothers, your sisters, your friends, your spouse—everybody! You're going to see them again in heaven which I personally think is a wonderful thing.

We've all lost somebody that we were close to and just think how nice it would be to see that person again, to talk to them and hold them and catch up with them. I’m personally glad for that because I’ll see Krista again but I’ll also see my deceased daughter, Hope. (For those who know that story, she lived for nine days and I only got to hold her for a short period of time. I never got to see her grow up and I think it's a wonderful, wonderful thing that I will have a chance to actually see her again.

I also believe that marriages have the potential to last into the next life so is there a possibility that Krista and I will be together and there’s a possibility that Julie and I will be together. I want to emphasize the word possibly. First of all, I think it's wonderful that you can be with your husband or wife again in heaven and not just be friends but actually be with that person and continue that marriage and have that relationship in the next life.

If you notice when I talk about eternal marriage, I said there's the possibility that it can continue because I just don't think because you're married in this life that it's guaranteed to happen in the next life. I think that in order to have that husband-and-wife relationship in the next life it’s based upon you both keeping your vows and your covenants to each other. I don't think you're going to be forced into being with somebody for eternity that you don't love. For example, if you were unfaithful to your spouse, he or she will be there in the next life but will they really want to be with you? I think you have you know when we when we marry somebody you make promises you make vows to that person to be faithful and loyal and I only believe that your marriage is going to last if you keep those vows. So, if you're a good person and I think you're faithful to your spouse when he or she is alive, then there's a good chance that both of you are going to be together in the next life as husband and wife.

If you want to throw the complication in with me and Krista, you know I was loyal to her she was loyal to me but she killed herself when she was seven months pregnant. So where does that leave her in the next life? I have no idea.

Where does that leave Julie? Is she going to be married to me or is there going to be some other arrangements if I’m with Krista? We both believe that marriages can last forever that they can last in the eternities. If julie was here, I know she'd tell you that she wants her relationship with me to last into the eternities. How things will work about between me and Krista is something that Julie really struggled with when we were dating. Several times it almost caused her end the relationship because she wasn’t sure if she could deal with it.

What happens to relationships in the next life? Will we see our loved ones again? Will the widowers be married to their late wife? The latest Widower Wednesday video answers these important afterlife questions.

I think it's easy to get focused on things that might happen or out of our control. It’s easy to get focused on events or what-ifs. The way Julie and I have come to peace with this is because we both decided to focus on things we could control and how much we love each other instead of how things will work out. As a result, we have this wonderful marriage, we have seven wonderful kids, and are we doing our best to live our lives.

A lot of the you know that we have a book coming out soon and it's told from Julie's point of view. It’s about her struggle with the afterlife questions, and her struggle of feeling like number two, and setting healthy boundaries. It also gets into her story and how she came to peace with eternal marriage questions and some of the answers she received.

Anyway, I focus on being the best husband to her and Julie focuses on being the best wife to me and we both focus on being great parents to our kids, and we just have faith that everything is going to work out. Again, we don't have all the answers or know what our relationship will look like, but we do know this that if I'm not a good husband to Julie and if she's not a good wife to me and we're not good parents to our kids and we make stupid, bad decisions that destroy our marriage, it's not going to really matter what things look like in the next life because either not going to be together or want to be together.

If you have more questions you can type them into the comments below you can also send me an email. Also, subscribe to my YouTube channel so you get notified when more videos are released. Also, if you want to schedule a coaching session you can do that on my website. I'm Abel Keogh, author of the book Dating a Widower, and I’ll see you next Wednesday.