SemperFidelis

Wow, that is pretty intense. I wonder what's wrong with people like that..... Are they even thinking?

I am also not the "living together type". I will only share a house with NG once we are married.....but not necessarily with a marriage certificate. The good news is you can still be married without legalizing it. There's nothing preventing you from having a wedding or other ceremony, exchanging vows, committing your lives together and living together, and wearing rings. Your religious family members don't even need to know that there isn't a visit made to the courthouse. And if it comes up, you are married in the eyes of God. You can make other necessary legal arrangements through other legal documents like a will or power of attorney....that kind of thing. NG and I won't be getting a marriage certificate when we get married, for similar reasons. I lose all my VA benefits if I get a legal marriage certificate..... There's no reason to flush those benefits down the toilet just in the name of tradition or legalism. LH and I got married early but didn't legalize it for about three years, because he had been so screwed in his prior marriage/divorce. We didn't get the legal certificate until there was good sense for it.

Exactly.

How does one go about getting married with a marriage certificate? Re-read my operating definition of marriage. So to answer your question, you get married by committing to one another.....til death do us part, All that stuff. Marriage can then be marked by rings and/or a wedding or other special acknowledgement.

Hmmmm..... Maybe I need to have a conversation with NG about this. Whenever we get married (we have established that we both want that) I am not willing to get a marriage certificate. If I get a marriage certificate I will lose all of my VA benefits as the surviving spouse of a 100% disabled veteran. Any legal arrangements that come with a marriage license can be arranged with other legal contracts(a will or trust, power of attorney). Hopefully this isn't a deal breaker for him. To me it seems like in the majority of situations the marriage certificate protects or benefits a woman not bringing in her own substantial income..... I don't see much benefit for the man, it actually seems pretty high risk to me since so many marriages fail.

Very strange to me - I wonder why they would have zero intention of divorcing legally..... I don't know enough about the legal system to understand what the benefit would be. Puzzling.

So true, Quixote. That is such a succinct way of putting it. Just about 4 years for me... and I still feel this giant hole in my heart. Even being in a relationship for the past 2 years hasn't filled it. So, I can attest that "being with someone else" doesn't necessarily solve that. Doing things meaningful is the key. We need to fill our cup in different ways now. Big hugs, rooshy. Do what feels right to you. I feel like if and when you're ready for someone else, it will happen. Like you, I had absolutely no desire to ever meet anyone new. I wrote about that so much on the YWBB. Then I ended up meeting someone on an airplane of all places. We didn't even live in the same city. Be kind to yourself... moving forward is what we are doing every morning we wake. xoxo Solid words you guys. Thanks for articulating the whole thing. I am nearly 16months out. It's true that I have learned of holes that weren't being filled while with LH, but didn't know any different so wasn't bothered....but NG fills those holes and it's incredible. However, the hole that LH filled is still empty. NG is more than I ever bargained for, but I think I will always have an empty hole for LH. There's no replacement. And yes, I do find myself having to seek out more meaningful endeavors now.... I am on some kind of weird transformational path, confronting old demons I could not have battled before I lost LH. Bettering myself is my current meaningful endeavor.

I am definitely of the mindset that marriage is a state of relationship, a commitment. The legal certificate from the courthouse is an entirely different legal matter.....essentially meanjngless in terms of whether someone is single or not. LH and I married early on but waited a few years before getting the marriage certificate....there just wasn't a reason to until of course there was. So to me having the ongoing legal loose end of unlegalized divorce hanging is not a big deal. No bigger than any other legal dispute. The imperative thing in my mind is that the relationship is over and they aren't savoring any hope for working shit out. Sometimes there just isn't any reason to deal with legal garbage until there is good incentive to do so. So I would totally agree with the guy that separated is equivalent to single.

Too funny, Needytoo. ;-) At least he's honest?

Thanks Arneal :-)

Well it's been an intense and exhausting week. But nothing I can't handle. I breached the subject again with NG and was initially quite disappointed and discouraged by the conversation. He insists he had told me about Z before and blamed my memory for not remembering. But that's not in the category of things I have memory lapses on......period. He did later acknowledge indirectly that he had given two conflicting statements (1- that he didn't date in that timeframe 2-he maintains that he told me about her). So.... My hunch is that he truly does believe he told me about her. This has happened with other unimportant things where he swears he told me something but he did not.....so that past behavior works in his favor here. He remained quite evasive about Z and really didn't provide any new information other than clarifying that a mutual breakup can be messy because two people can say "fuck you" at the same time. He does not say one person broke up with the other....He won't allocate that responsibility to either person. He still refused to elaborate on specifically WHAT changed about her. He remained very evasive about any kind of details and was highly aggravated by requests for concrete examples. As I have mentioned before, he doesn't have this behavior about the other exes.....he's open and highly detailed about them. To me this is all just pointing toward something that he doesn't have resolution to or something he doesn't want to face.....probably some shortcoming about himself. I basically think at this point that he is not capable of much introspection.....his way of moving forward is to deny deny deny, even to himself. So I don't think all his denial is malicious in nature, I think to a certain extent he is not able or willing to reflect on his own shortcomings from that relationship. So I am cutting him some slack and am accepting that he is someone who isn't very emotionally aware and is troubled by looking at his past. I get that, I denied my own shortcomings in life for a long time but still managed to make better choices without coming eye to eye with my demons. Only in the past year have I been able to closely examine my darkest hours. So I believe that he can still make good choices today without addressing his past head on. You can't ask a 1yr old to use a fork and knife to eat, it's just beyond their ability or developmental stage. So it is with NG I think. So Monday night my initial perception was that he seriously cannot be trusted, and that his failure to take ownership of keeping her a weird secret from me and his attachment to evasive behavior would not be conducive to a relationship. I basically reached close to the end of my rope and was very close to calling it quits. As a last ditch effort to fill in blanks(having already resolved in my mind that the relationship was coming to an end), I broke an unspoken social rule and I realize I might be frowned on for it. I emailed Z and requested details. My attitude was that the worst was already going to happen, so no further harm could come. And I'm glad I did it. She replied late last night (after I already came to the aforementioned conclusions)and she was short and sweet. Her perspective is that she broke up with him for many reasons but mostly because he was very controlling. So it is confirmation of my hunches that this is probably a touchy subject for him because he fucked up. For whatever reason he can't consciously face his role in it. And it explains why he can't seem to bring himself to provide an example of HOW she changed. Also he points the finger at her "changing" as the reason for the breakup(which he says is mutual but consequent to her changes), but she flat out owns the decision to end it. So again, there's some denial going on....rejection hurts and obviously still hurts for him to think about. Understood. So I feel no need to revisit the subject with him. I had already made peace with everything yesterday and then Z's response only reinforced the conclusions I had been strongly leaning toward. Another breakthrough yesterday was that he could actually speak about her like a person and tell me regular details about her(like his other exes). Granted, this came about not by me asking questions but by me making statements where he would feel the need to explain how I didn't have the whole picture. So I am learning what key fits and allows him to comfortably open up. All right. Problem resolved. Now I can focus my attention on school better; and NG and I can resume our normal peaceful state of things.

Lol, you got a good laugh and smile outta me :-)

While I don't have any pearls of wisdom, I understand your hesitation to do the dating thing.... The pattern you've witnessed and experienced would leave anyone with a bad taste in their mouth. Just saying I see why you don't have much enthusiasm for dating.

Every couple is different as far as what kind of interaction they find acceptable outside the marriage with the opposite sex. I know married couples who are super relaxed and others who have more clear guidelines they abide by. Every man and every woman is different. I base my own interactions with married men on my impression of how the couple is operating....but if I do not have a clear sense of it then I err on the side of more distance than not. My goal is to be totally respectful to the woman half of their relationship. To me keeping distance from a married man is just common courtesy to their marriage. Similarly.....I have a workplace event coming up and a couple people I get along well with at work offered to carpool. One male and one female. I have initially accepted the carpool plan but I am prepared to turn it down if the female backs out(and I might back out even if she doesn't). I feel like it's the respectful thing to do for the guy I am seeing. I'm of the attitude that if something could be perceived as something it's not, it's best to avoid it.

Totally and completely normal. I miss my husband dearly....he was my everything and my best friend. I miss our shared laughter and also our shared complaints about humanity...I miss his stories and his smile. But damn I do not miss hearing how he thought every woman was a whore, and I do not miss trying to bring him home from the bar....I do not miss his temper tantrums.... Every person in this world who dies is imperfect. Sorry just because someone is dead doesn't make them a saint all the sudden. You are normal.

Congratulations. ::-) what a lovely and inspiring story.

Yes, hugs from over here too.

And OP, I can see why you were so jarred and thrown off. I would be equally stirred. Several months ago I had a similar but far less extensive interaction with the hardware store clerk who hadn't seen my husband in a while. It was totally weird.

Portside: 2nd everything Maureen said. That said, I wonder if instead what you were suggesting was more to do with widowhood as an identity? Not as much widowhood itself? If that's the case then I can see how you might be able to cognitively separate yourself from the widowhood identity a bit easier than some others. I think when you are married to someone who is mentally ill(and I was also) and you KNOW they are mentally ill too, 1st off the relationship dynamic is already seriously different than other relationship dynamics... You/we/I learn to cognitively separate ourselves from the mentally ill person early on. Im not sure how to better explain that. Maybe we learn to live on our own mentally before the death even occurs. Just speculating. On another note, I wholeheartedly agree with you about the "shame of suicide" thing. I can not relate to feeling any shame for my husband's acts....whether it's to do with suicide or some other ACTUALLY shameful thing he might have done. None of it is any reflection on me. I was an excellent wife and caregiver, no matter his level of participation in his death.

Thank you both for your detailed responses. It is sooooo very useful to have outside unbiased feedback. I don't have anyone IRL that I can consult with on these things. After posting I was able to go spend a couple hours with him and have a very delightful relaxed time without feeling like I had all this mess on my mind. Before leaving the house I was able to rehearse aloud the conversation I need to have with him at some point, and to simultaneously make peace with the relationship ending if it comes to that. I don't think it will come to that, but if he can't get put his big boy pants on and get on the honesty train in the present then that's a big red flag. I am waiting until next week to talk to him about anything, because it needs to be when his young son is out of earshot. SimiRed, on the condom issue, most of the boxes were empty....I think one had a single ancient condom in it....from the relationship that ended in 2009/2010. It would have shattered probably if he tried to use it. The more recent relationship(Z) was in 2013. His truck console had papers going back to 2005....so I have no reason to suspect foul play. I also don't peg him as the cheating type. It wouldn't be congruent with anything else I've seen in him. I am thrilled to hear that after your incredibly sad and sick experience you were able to find a good man. I can only imagine the struggles you had moving forward after MrWacko. Congrats on pushing through and making it to the other side. I did look through the warning signs you posted. Thankfully he doesn't fit any of those...I think I am not dealing with pathological or manipulative lying. I think this is a much more mundane and benign variety.....if lying has benign varieties. Lying about things that he regrets or is embarrassed about, or that he thinks I would reject him for the truth of. I think ordinary otherwise good people lie about these things regularly. I hear you on trusting gut instincts.... Mine tend to be dead accurate....I have refined and perfected what to look for, and over and over I see where my hunches are right. Because this is a relationship I am invested in.....I think I am influenced in ways I am not with acquaintances. So I am treading more cautioualy and not getting too carried away in the direction of self protection or the direction of blind trust. Portside, as far as memory/detail lapses are concerned..... This guy was a police officer for five years. So he is great at keeping facts straight and in order. He hasn't had any inconsistent memory issues in other areas. I completely get that. I have parts of my life I don't care to ever think about again or speak about.... I wish I could bury parts of the past as much as anyone else does. But if NG asked about those times, I would be honest and take ownership. Yes, I have come to this exact realization and I have to remind myself of it more than I would like. The risk factor can never be completely eliminated. So I am glad to hear those words. And I like them too because it puts responsibility squarely back on me. And as far as the solid base of a relationship and fact checking.... I basically agree. And the first two months of our relationship I have to pat myself on the back for how well I was with just trusting him from the get-go.... I took him exactly as he presented himself and didn't have a mind full of paranoia or distrust. I never got the hunch or impression that he was anything other than what he presented. However, when I googled his email handle on a whim, I found numerous sex websites he had profiles on....including pictures of his faceless torso in various states of undress. The height and weight matched and so did the DOB and location. The more graphic photo he outright denied was him; the other he didn't deny but did deny making the profiles and insisted he had no idea how they came to be but it was plausible his ex could have made them. I am basically at the point where I think okay, he was single, curious, lonely....whatever...fine.... I can deal with that past. And I understand him being embarrassed by them and not wanting to take ownership..... As unjustifiable as lying is, I fundamentally understand why he's still denying the profiles. So I have moved forward with this understanding and the small hope that perhaps it is all an exgirlfriend scheme or related to his email addresses being hacked(his prior email addresses come up on spammer lists when googled). So I move forward here not by trusting but more by a sense of "hey I get it, but I like you anyway". If everyone gets one free "bullshit card" he has used his. His character compensates in a multitude of other areas to warrant the forgiveness. I think without that prior incident, I would not be reacting the way I am to the commotion surrounding Z. I might have noticed the discrepancies but not given them anywhere near the same attention. He used his "bullshit card" already.

I want to add.... I am 28 and this is my first time dating. LH and I went from 0-60 with marriage.

If you want to cut the details and get to the point, start reading below the line of astrixes. So I am the person in a relationship who especially in the beginning asks a TON of questions getting to know the other person. I basically try to build a detailed life history of a person. That's what makes me feel close to someone long term. If I don't have that detailed background understanding of what has made someone who they are, I have a difficult time appreciating who they are today. If I don't know what someone's struggles have been in life, I can't really understand why/how they are responding to a current situation the way they are. It also is a trust building tool for me. I make mental note of what someone has told me, and I know they are being truthful when what they say many months later lines up with what they said many months earlier. My ability to trust was seriously damaged at a young age and I am learning how to move forward in spite of that. LH was a good fit for me in the trust department because he was honest to a flaw. Nothing got candycoated and I got the truth no matter how vile itwas. I could trust that what I saw was what I got. We both connected partly because both of us had our trusting natures manipulated and deceived in life, and both made conscious decisions to pursue honestly in all circumstances. Now I am with this NG. We've been together one year today. He has done a lot of good for me......I've experienced things with him I could have never experienced with LH.....it's been a radically new experience to be with someone who says nice things and makes me feel good inside and out. But to be frank those exact traits put me on full alert to deception because of my young experiences. I know this about myself now and try my best to stay rational and give the benefit of the doubt. I remind myself that at some point I just have to take risks and TRUST whether I feel the trust or not. So I look for actions that support his presented good nature. And he has many good actions to speak of :-) I also use my method of checking current statements with past statements. He's one of those people who feels like "the past is the past and I don't let the past affect me" which I see as at best wishful thinking if not outright denial....and at worst, a tool of concealment. I definitely don't have full genuine trust in him. I had found compromising things online featuring him and he blamed his craziest ex.... And based on what he has said about her, it is a plausible explanation. This happened two months after we started dating.... And it has come up multiple times. It may ultimately lead to our demise because of the wedge in trust it created. The most recent time it came up, his responses indicated concealment. Anyway at the time this came up I basically decided I would give things more time and see more of who he is and gather more information on his character. I decided that I liked enough of what I experienced with him that if he was being truthful, the risk would be worth it. ********************************** So fast forward to now. To my knowledge this 40yr old man has had two serious five year cohabiting relationships.....and has not otherwise dated basically on account of being a very busy work driven young man and father(fitting with his character and upbringing). Well I had inquired a few months ago about a public FB post mentioning an unfamiliar woman's name we will refer to as Z. I don't recall his exact response but it was minimizing and conveyed that he knew her from youth and tried to make it work again but she changed. I was envisioning this as a couple of dates or something. Well then I find condom boxes in his truck consol. Thankfully the manufacture codes can be dated and the dates of the boxes lined up with his past relationships....except one, which is how I found out Z was more than a few dates. They dated five months. Recently I asked more about that relationship, remarking I didn't realize how long it was and wondered more about how it ended. He gave scant details but said it was mutual and she started doing fitness(bikini) modeling and it just changed who/how she was.... I pressed for him to explain more how she changed and he said she was tired all the time and exhausted. I'm sure that's true but in my mind that's just not reason enough to break up with someone after five months....and as I came to find out later, someone he had talked marriage with. So I'm left feeling like something is missing. Why in our initial conversations would he leave her out of his relationship history? I learned via her FB that they dated through her HS years when he was just out of HS. Maybe it's because she was 14-18 while he was 19-23 the first time they dated? Maybe he expected jealousy because of her being a bikini model the 2nd time? He also later said it was a messy breakup.....which to me says it wasn't mutual like he earlier said. Outside this topic he has also told me a lot about a Vegas trip he took with his sister....which seemed odd, what man takes a trip to Vegas with his sister lol! Well I found out Z went with him too....he conveniently left her out tho. He has also explicitly told me in the timeframe Z was around, he had no interest in women whatsoever because of his crazy ex. I guess I am frustrated because this is just one more thing that pushes the "distrust" button in me. Why all of the evasiveness and concealment about this particular ex???? What is it he is hiding? When I ask for more details on the breakup he just jumps to "I told you all there is to tell you. She changed." and "the past is the past" Just a couple weeks ago I was feeling smitten with this man and had felt enough consistency from him that I was clearing some trust hurdles.....I was ready for the next step in our relationship. And then all of this happens. I feel like I am back at square one with him. I am now at the point where I feel like I am with him against my better judgement. BUT knowing I have trust issues, I am trying not to let those sabotage an otherwise great relationship over something I may be blowing way out of proportion. Sorry to take up time on something that isn't explicitly related to being a widow.....it's just the whole process of trying to date for the first time really. I miss the ease of trust I had with LH. What I saw was what I got, whether I liked it or not Any feedback on this subject is welcome. I am all ears. And if no one replies, I am just glad to vent and get this off my chest. Lol. Thanks if you made it all the way through this.

Yeah, I feel what you are saying. I am pretty introverted so I do better than most people with living alone, and at many points have felt "wow this is great, I could date forever". But at some point in the past month a switch flipped where I just felt ready to be married again, and share a life and household together. I have felt the desire to share a bed with NG every night, not just once or twice a month(what our current schedules permit). I have felt tired of living alone, and of basing our relationship on 1-2hr timeframes spent sitting on his couch in the evenings(because of his son, I am the one making all the 1hr roundtrip drives to his house and back...and because of my animals I cannot stay overnight). Once every few months we can spend 3-5hrs together going somewhere while his son is in school. Its just not enough, but it's what we have. I'm thankful for the time we have had, and heaven knows I have needed a lot of solitude to have my own thoughts and do the necessary HARD post-trauma and post-death internal work. But damn..... I just want to merge lives and be a wife again. We had the hard talk recently about our future.... Its complicated, but basically he has the dream of living on his late grandfather's property once his grandma dies. Me, I am financially and legally tied to my current dream home/property for at least five years(pending some probate stuff)..... So to me that means he needs to relinquish his dream of living on his family property. As someone who has lost every dream my life was built on, I don't feel out of line for expecting him to walk away from his dream....I sympathize with the difficulty though. I told him all of this. Our conversation basically ended with 1)him watery-eyed trying to "let me go" because he can't agree to someday move in with me. 2)him expressing a sincere desire for marriage and a wife in me 3) no conclusions about where our future is headed, but me stating I will cling to hope and patience. Subsequent days included phrases from him like "well if we lived together......" He's 40, never married but two five year cohabitation relationships and one four year non-cohabitation relationship. So he has never gone "all in" with someone before. Anyway. Hope I didn't hijack this, but wanted to say yeah, I am right with you on really wanting more with the NG. It is sometimes hard to have patience.

Delightful Laurel, congratulations 😊

I am sorry jen, that you are suffering in this dark place. After an unexpected and uncharacteristic week of deep depression, i really empathize with you and relate to what you are saying.... I don't have the answers or solutions yet; wish I did though. I challenge your ending statement. I don't think that we can know when or if there is an end to a dark and hopeless state of mind. We cannot know what lies ahead of us in time the way we can know what lies ahead of us in space.