Young Widows
Facing Valentine’s Day as a Young Widow
Congratulations—you’ve made it through the holidays. The mistletoe is gone and you’ve navigated creating new traditions, continuing old ones, and/or taking a break from the holidays altogether. For those whose spouses died, however, the Valentine’s Day candy and advertisements that pop up even before you’ve taken down the Christmas tree offers a stark reminder that…
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Young Widowhood—Children
Many deaths come with a cascade of losses—the loss of hopes and dreams, the loss of specific traditions, the loss of your relationship with specific family members. When your spouse dies young, one of the biggest losses relates to children. If you already have children, you’re grieving not just the loss of your spouse but…
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Young Widowhood—Dating and Sex
Most young widows eventually feel ready to date and perhaps even marry again, but most find that everything related to dating and sex is more complicated as a widow than it was as a younger single person. In the dating world people talk about baggage—and while your late spouse isn’t a suitcase, most widows do…
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Young Widows: Preserving Memories
When you’re faced with living another 30, 40 or 50 years without the person you assumed would be by your side for decades, it’s common to worry about memories fading and/or losing your connection to your late spouse. This fear is often especially acute in young widows who have children—you feel a responsibility to keep…
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Young Widows: Reimagining Life
Our relationships with our spouses are largely about sharing a vision for the future and working together to make those dreams a reality. If you’re a young widow, your spouse’s death is so much more than losing the person you love—it’s also a loss of the future you were building together. These shattered dreams are…
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