faye

Well, the book BEGINS with the dog dying...

I read the book. IIRC, cried through most of it.

Late Husband's birthday, our wedding anniversary, and new guy's birthday are all in June, only a few days apart. I think this is the first year I've remembered to buy a birthday card for NG.

That works, doesn't it? As my boss says (after offering to bring back coffee and being told no thanks) Hey, I get credit for asking!

My new guy has two grown married children, both with children of their own. He asked if I want to be called "Grammy Faye." Ummm, no. The babies already *have* grandmothers. I wouldn't dream of being an interloper, or assuming a place or title that rightfully belongs to someone else.

Nine months. It wasn't especially romantic. I jokingly asked when he was going to post on Facebook that he was 'in a relationship.' He said, "Isn't it enough that I love you?"

That is what I've experienced and observed. Someone acquiesces to a FWB relationship in the hope that the other person will eventually fall in love. As in many situations in love and life, hope is disappointment deferred.

I briefly had a FWB relationship. I was growing attached to him, and realized I wouldn't give a new partner a real shot unless I ended it with him. There were differences that would have made a long term relationship impossible, so I ended it. Of course, we couldn't be friends in the same way as before the benefits started, so we rarely communicate now.

This happened to a family I knew. Husband and wife purchased and ran a motel. Wife died without a will, and her children from a previous marriage (whom her husband raised as his own) inherited a portion of the motel. In their case it was a happy ending, as they 'sold' their portions back to step-dad for a nominal amount. When Late Husband and I bought our first house, we read through the paperwork at closing and asked what "joint tenancy with rights of survivorship" meant. And we were told, "That's what you want." Then someone explained it, and they were right, it was what we wanted. You need a lawyer to walk you through this. Current partner said it would be unusual for a bank to write a mortgage for a home as tenants in common. Not unheard of, but unusual.

My Late Husband had a will, and I still hired a lawyer to do the paperwork. In fact, it never occurred to me NOT to hire a lawyer for that.

I'm not here much, but a belated happy birthday to you. As for not doing a big thing for yourself, I guess not. I did know a woman who had a small dinner party for her own birthday, and her plans were to tell each of the invited guests how they had helped her or changed her life for the better. It was the big five-oh for her, too. One wouldn't have to do that on a birthday, though.

New Man has an ex he was married to for 25 years, give or take. The have two children together, and two grandchildren, so far. I neither know nor care when they contact one another. His marriage is part of what made him who he is today, which is a pretty decent guy.

It was fairly recently that I figured out exactly what was holding me back from re-marriage. I adore New Guy, we've been together a couple years now. He has zero savings for retirement, and is making do with social security and a part time job. I'm a little better off, but certainly not wealthy, and we're approaching retirement age. If we married, my savings would, at least psychologically, become our money. He'd like to buy a place big enough to build a is barn and have horses, so his grandchildren could learn to ride when they visit. His grandchildren live one thousand miles away, because neither of his children like this part of the country. Even if we moved, I can't afford horses. He'd like to buy a handyman special to fix up. We're in our sixties. Last time I needed him to put some molding up around a door, the molding sat in the corner of the room for two years. I put it up while he was gone. It took about an hour, and part of that was learning how to operate the chop saw. I suspect that keeping my savings totally in my name and under my control after marriage would create resentment, and we'd be divorced in a couple years. He means well. He'd wade through a moat filled with alligators to bring me a glass of water. He's not very practical, is all.

I am so sorry for your loss. You're in my thoughts.

I used to get these from the health insurance company, the same one that paid the medical expenses at the hospital where he was admitted with a "total code." It took several phone calls over five or six years, but I finally got connected to someone who was able to stop them. The kicker: Late Husband was a two-pack-a-day smoker who died from lung cancer. It took only one email to Marlborough to get them to stop sending offers to redeem his Marlborough miles. I've never figured out how their system was somehow better set up than Anthem's. I did get an offer, some years after his death, from Mutual of Omaha for cancer insurance. I wrote across the form and told them the offer had come about five years too late, and that we could all appreciate the irony. I used a Sharpie, as I thought it would show well if someone ran it through the scanner at the office for wider distribution around the company.

Maybe not. I wonder if he's hard of hearing, and has just stopped asking for people to repeat things. He just processes the verbal and other cues and relies on people to repeat themselves when THEY notice he's missed something. I know someone who does this. Sometimes he's a couple sentences into a thought before the other person tells him he's gone off-track.

I got a Christmas card from BIL and wife that read, "stay in touch, but only if you want to." Oddly, the only time we communicated with them was when Late Husband took the initiative to call.They never called us.

I put my widowed status in my dating profile. I guess Late Husband's family knows. They're fine people, but we're not close. I didn't make a big deal about telling people I was dating or keeping it a secret. It's nobody's business but my own.

Meh, I was an adolescent in another life, and family things weren't of great appeal. I also went through an agnostic/atheist period and felt like kind of a fraud going to family Christmas things. I do enjoy my family, they're all really nice, warm folks. The Christmas feeling eluded me, and I just tried to portray someone who was a believer. I really, really was having a hard time with it. By 21, I was living in an apartment with a couple other women: preparing my own meals and cleaning up was not a new concept.

What you described is the way most collection agencies work. They aren't bottom feeders because of that. However...there's always a however...I got numerous calls on my cell phone for ____(Husband's first name) when he was alive about a 'personal private matter.' I finally extracted from them it was a restaurant tab on a bad check. It was ___ Somebody Else and the phone number on the check, written poorly, looked like mine. Or perhaps the bad-check writer just picked a different local phone code and figured no one would ever find him. His full name and address were on he check. If they'd done just a bit of homework, they could have guessed, as I did, that the 2 should have been a 7. A friend of mine got a call from a collection agency, and the woman who called was rude and condescending. She implied my friend's husband had hidden some debt from her and tried to get her to pay up. My friend tried to tell her that they may have the wrong family. Their last name is very common (think, Smith) but the woman didn't think that was possible. (It was) One company didn't provide the service I paid for, so I refused to pay, and filed a dispute with my credit card company. Even after documenting the whole thing, they sent it to collections. As soon as I accepted a call from Late Husband's CC company, I was told I was not responsible for his debt. They DID sue the estate, though. I paid it, as I knew he had a balance on the card, and whatever he'd purchased was around the house, somewhere.

I met my companion online. Along the way, I don't think I met any players. I did meet people who really should have been attending to bigger issues in their lives (finding gainful employment, recovering from the bitterness of divorce). I had a hard time *getting* dates. A lot of men just ghosted on me.

The ten women behind you may not be looking for casual sex. They may be like my college room mate who thought having sex would cause men to fall in love with her.

I had Late Husband cremated, in a box in the house for several years. I didn't know what else to do with him. A new cemetery opened near me. Man-friend was the one who pretty much organized the committal service. He goes with me when I go to the cemetery. Name-calling, or labeling someone as a sociopath when a companion offers to come is frankly a little judge-y. I, too, wince at the DGI label (as I do other derogatory labels) It's hard to comfort people about loss anyway, especially in Western cultures where talking about death is discouraged. Each situation is different. When Mom died, I was frustrated when someone said, "She's in a better place." When Late Husband died, and someone said exactly the same thing, I prayed they were right. He certainly wasn't happy here. What is comforting to one person might evoke sadness in another. It isn't fair to expect people to be mind-readers.

I'll be cremated. Interment with my veteran spouse would be free. New guy hasn't made any arrangements at all, which is a little unsettling, but I suppose half of me could go with him. A friend was hurt that her mother chose to be buried with her second husband, rather than her first (the woman's father). But the mother had been widowed very young, and was married to her second husband a long time.They'd even been childhood sweethearts.