Trying

Great post! 2017 is going to be about growing my new business, Learning more about networking and marketing myself and pushing myself further outside my comfort zone professionally. On the personal side I will be getting married next fall so I will continue to work on strengthening the bonds of our blended family. Oh, and trying to drop 30 pounds before the wedding😳

I agree that the only way younwill know if you are ready is to try. If it's not the right time for you it will be clear, no harm no foul.

MACC I understand the desire to dream of them. Unfortunately most of my dreams of DH are not positive. Usually he has come back and I am mad that he let me think he was dead for so long and I waste my time with him being mad instead of telling him I love him and miss him. Not sure how you feel about seeing a medium but I have had very good experiences and did feel a lot peace after having that contact.

This was the first Christmas that I really felt like celebrating and not just putting on an act. It all went very well, I really enjoyed time with DHs family, my kids, fiancé and his kids and my mom for 2 days. But today I have completely crashed. Not the grief crash like previous years but just physical and emotional exhaustion. I slept in this morning, took a nap, worked for a few hours and now I'm ready to go to bed at 8:00. House is still a mess and I don't even care. I'm kinda used to being exhausted after challenging events but are the good times always going to take a toll on me too?

Sunshine what an awful ordeal for you to go through. I am so glad you had the strength and insight to follow through and protect yourself. I hope you can begin to put this in the past.

Arneal those first meetings can be so awkward, at least it was less pressure than a whole holiday meal for your first time meeting her. Our Christmas Eve with DHs whole family at my house went well. Finances boys had a great time with all of the cousins, everyone was nice to fiancé, only bummer was he got called into work and missed our secret Santa gift exchange. Christmas morning with our combined 5 boys was awesome! Better than I could've hoped for then my mom came and took on the Nana role with his boys (they have never had a living grandparent on either side). My mon is a widow also and so happy for me, she even asked fiancé to find her a nice man although she said she would be happy with a gay guy who likes to go dancing and tomthe theater, lol! So much tension and worry leading up to the holiday, it was a huge relief!

Holy shit! I am glad you followed your gut and got to the truth before you invested any more of your heart in this creep. So sorry you have been put through this. I hope you put this ugliness behind you, heal and know you deserve so much more. Big hugs.

TooSoon, I'm sorry for you holiday stress and hope tomorrow goes better for all of you. I have a great feeling of peace today for some reason, house is ready for DHs family to all arrive in about 3 hours. My middle son is home from college and getting along really well with fiancé (he has been the last hold out). Wishing everyone peace.

Vent away! It really does suck if you two are not on the same page. I think the important thing is for you to be clear on what you want, what you can and can not accept before trying to have a calm discussion with him. He may or may not even know why he is having cold feet and talking it out may make things more clear. I'm not a fan of ultimatums but if you decide that you don't want things to continue the way they are then I would tell him that while you respect his reluctance to take the next step, it's no longer enough for you as it is now. The holidays are an emotional time of year so maybe that is contributing to the unrest in the relationship. I hope you are able to work things out in a way that is good for you.

MrsDan it sounds like you have very well balanced Christmas plans. I am guilty of overthinking decisions especially when it comes to my kids but I think you should go with your gut that it feels right and enjoy having BF there to share in Christmas morning magic.

Mcdc10, I am very sorry for your lossut I am glad you found this group. My husband also had Crohns (as does my 18 year old son). We thought DH was having a flare and when I finally took him to the ER he had stage 4 colon cancer, a very aggressive type, and only lasted 4 months. A few years earlier we thought he was having a flare and his appendix burst before we went to ER. I can relate to your "if only"s and wondering if things would have been different if we acted sooner. The reality is that my husband suffered daIly with his Crohns, he never had a day of remission in the almost 30 years he had the disease and he lived and functioned quite well with pain and symptoms that would have a healthy person rushing to the ER. I believe this is why he didn't react with more alarm when he had symptoms with his appendix and then with cancer. My husband died September 20, 2013 and I remember all too clearly feeling as if my life ended as well. I still miss him daily and have tough moments from time to time but I have managed to survive and find happiness and purpose again. Keep posting and reading because we do get it. There are no short cuts to the grief processs but knowing you are the only one going through it can be a comfort and having a safe place to express things that we feel our family and friends can't handle.

I find myself torn about things like FB posts too. Fiancé doesn't mind posts about DH on significant days but has admitted he'd rather not see a wedding photo posted on our anniversary(different than me looking at those photos myself) makes perfect sense. There are people in my life who think I don't talk about him enough and others who think I do too much. Peoples opinions mean less and less to me and I also feel the need to keep his memory alive. I'm not looking for sympathy either, just acknowledgement that he was here and still should be.

Laura you are not doomed to feel horrible at 3 years out. I have a lot of happiness in my life at a little more than 3 years out. It doesn't mean I don't miss my DH and I still have some bad moments, I have changed in some very significant ways. Some of the changes can be seen as positive, others not so much. You can't lose your other half without significant lasting effects. At 6 weeks out it is impossible to see the future, to see that joy can ever be a part of your life again. Just tuck in the back of your head some where that it won't always hurt so deeply, that you will some day reach a point where you feel strong enough to look for happiness, it may start with turning your face to the sunshine and smiling without thinking or singing along to a song on the radio. It will start slowly but when those brief moments of break from grief hit, hold onto them and find hope in them.

days- we had 2 Christmas holidays dating, the first was early on and my kids didn't know him yet, the second was last year and he did join us Christmas Day for dinner just my kids and my Mom, then he left to pick up his boys and took them to his home. I keep reminding myself that last year he sat home alone on Christmas Eve because he didn't have his kids and volunteered to be on call so other Dads wouldn't have too. This year will be better no matter what. My older boys would also have no interest in being with his extended family just like your BFs kids. My 12 year old is easier for now. Between us our 5 boys range in age from 6-20. Different ages make it challenging. Blending is tough...kids, extended family, histories. I hope you are able to enjoy the holiday.

Thanks CW and tybec. The problem I'm having is that he doesn't have many traditions yet with his boys because they are young and he only has them every other year. We are doing the Elf on the Shelf because he does that leading up to Christmas. I've been baking Christmas cookies and asked if there were any recipes from his mom that I could get from his sister, nope, mom didn't do Christmas cookies. I bought stockings for him and his boys because he didn't save the ones he had when he moved in. Christmas Eve with DHs family is hard for me to give up because of my kids, not that he has asked me to, but I think he would like to make new traditions together on Christmas Eve. DH and his family didn't have a lot of traditions before we married and I ended up introducing a lot of my family's traditions and we did develop some of our own over the years. I'm sure it will work out and some adjustment period is to be expected.

Thanks for sharing Maureen, a well written article that left me bawling at the kitchen table. I don't often let myself revisit the last days of Tim's life or the early months of widowhood any more. Recalling that depth of pain is still so hard but sometimes I need to go back there just so I can realize that there has been healing. I hate knowing there are so many of us who have experienced this pain.

I don't have online experience to share but I want to say that on paper my fiancé would have been overlooked and I would've missed out on an amazing man so be careful with too many deal breakers. He was a smoker (but has quit now) has young children (who have become a wonderful addition to my life) was only divorced a few months, financially wrecked in divorce (but frugal and sacrificed to live within his means to rebuild), shorter than my ideal (I hate wearing heals any way). I also would not have come off so well on paper at the time we met. I wish you all good luck. So many weirdos, scammers and poor matches but there are great people just like you too!

Please don't beat yourself up over this, what parent hasn't lost it on occasion? Your kids have seen that you are human and that you are able to apologize for being too harsh. Being a solo parent is the hardest thing I have ever done. Gone are the days of "good cop/bad cop" or DH noticing I'm about to lose it and telling me to walk away and let him handle it (or me doing the same for him). The pressure is sometimes too much and we are tackling these things when we are not at our strongest. Set an appointment with your son's teacher and team and see what can be adjusted to help him be more successful. And forgive yourself. A bad mom would not care or have regrets.

That is a tough one. I'm struggling with this as well. Oldest is slowly getting his act together after quitting college, working, living on his own. I am still paying cell phone and car insurance he does everything else. If his car dies, which it could at any time, he would need help getting a loan. He has a savings account we opened when he was born that he has no access to that I can turn over. Maybe help him enough that he's not under water but not so much he isn't having to tighten his belt a bit still.

Yikes Sunshine! That is creepy and scary. I'm glad you took it seriously and took action, you really never know what people are capable of. Always trust your gut!

This will be our first blended Christmas with fiancé, his 2 boys and my 3 sons. We are working through things but I have to say he is doing all of the compromise. His boys are young (6 & 7) and since he only has them every other year for Christmas they don't have a lot of hard set traditions. Where my kids are 12, 18 & 20 so we have tons of traditions. He wants his boys to have a traditional family Christmas and I am sure that they will love every minute of it but I know it's hard for him to be jumping into our world so completely. To top it off we are having DH's whole family at our house Christmas Eve. There are lots of little cousins his kids age and none my kids ages so again his boys will have a blast but I'm asking a lot of him. Both of his parents are gone and his sisters live out of state so I don't really an opportunity to reciprocate by spending the holiday with his family. I know we should be creating our own new traditions but he doesn't really give me ideas and I am focused on keeping things familiar for my kids and making his kids feel special and included. I feel like fiancé is the only one who is left out of the equation. Any suggestions? Holidays are such an emotional time and I really want to keep things as smooth as possible, it's the first Christmas I am feeling in the spirit since DH died and I want to keep that feeling going. When DH and I were first married we had some stressful holidays trying to keep both families happy and this time around there are so many more complicating factors

I am an over thinker and was never good with risk or change. Now I still over think but have taken several calculated risks that friends and family didn't always understand. I haven't regretted a single major change. There is a "life is too short and there is no promise of tomorrow" feeling since DH died. It sounds like you are putting a lot of thought into this and you are leaving yourself time so you don't rush into it. Listen to your heart and your gut and listen to what the people close to you are concerned about but don't let them make the decision for you.

Danette I am so sorry to hear about all of the losses you have experienced in such a short time, that is more than anyone should have to bear. I agree that the best part of life is sharing it with others and while we can never replace the people we lost we need to make new connections or strengthen old ones to help take the edge off of the loneliness. At over 3 years out I have a new love to share things with but I isolated myself from so many friends in my grief and don't know how to fix those connections. Feeling connected to people is so important, I hope you have that or find it.

I understand the frustration and disappointment, sometimes even decent people suck. Happy birthday to the girls and a big hug to you for parenting two 16 year old girls so well alone! Enjoy the celebration.

I agree with the others, I think it indicates a comfort level with him. Most of us feel free to let things out in family that we suppress around the general public. That being said, it's important to teach our children that we have to show respect to each other. It sounds like things are going really well with N and he is becoming an important male figure in her life!