It is really easy to think that you would like to get back into the dating pool. Until it actually happens. Then it all comes rushing back - the reasons you didn't give a shit when the asking out stopped in the first place.
Recently a customer at both of my jobs started asking me out. I did not realize it at the time, because the first asking out was just for coffee and talk about 10 days after his wife died. Here I am thinking it is a nice thing to do and giving someone time and an ear outside of family ties. Wrong. My phone now rings more in a week than it ever has in a month. Calls every day. Requests to go out all the time. And far too many liberties.
A few hugs out of compassion and a basic need for human contact is one thing. Forced kisses is another. I just feel really uncomfortable with this quick intimacy so close on the heels of the wife's death. To my mind it is just not right. Thankfully (how sad is that?) I have been sick the last week and able to avoid contact.
The talk right away that he could not cook nor clean should have tipped me off. He is looking to replace #1 with #2 and PDQ. Already he has mentioned moving in together. Like that is going to happen when he has 3 dogs and I have a cat who does not tolerate other 4-footed housemates. This above the fact that I do not know him anywhere near well enough to even be discussing this!
I was supposed to cook dinner at his house tonight, which we agreed on last week. Now last night he tells me he is going out to dinner with the two grown kids and their spouses. Well how nice. This is what I feared - being the dirty little secret kept away from family.
Yeah, I think I will crawl back in my hole and stay alone for another 5 years.....
I think you need to trust your gut on this one-if you think he's trying to avoid grieving and just wants a replacement wife, then the odds are that's exactly what is happening. Don't let him play on your sympathy. Just cut your losses and move forward. Let us know how it goes.
I'm so sorry it's not working out. The guy does sound a bit creepy...or leech-y...
((ozarkmoon)) What a bummer the guy is such a dud. He sounds very lonely and frightened about the future. Luckily you are strong enough not to fall into his trap.
I don't blame you for being turned off by this dude, he certainly does sound like one of those guys looking for a replacement wife/mommy right away. A friend of mine, a male friend, once told me about his friend whose wife died after a long illness, and he found someone and got married again within 8 weeks of the wife's funeral. I was appalled by the story but my friend thought it was something great to be celebrated.
Thinking about it, this must be something pretty common among older widowers. My best friend's father got married again 93 days after his first wife's funeral. It was a little different than the other situation I mentioned, his second wife had been waiting in the wings for over 10 years while his first wife battled cancer. He'd been having a secret affair all that time, but stuck by his wife because she was sick. But instead of just moving in with his lady-friend after his wife's death, he didn't think it was at all in poor taste to get married 3 months later in a church of the lord---right, because living together without being married is a sin, but screwing another woman for 10 years while your wife has cancer is just A-OK!
If for some reason I was back in the single life again, I really think I'd rather just be left alone by men and have my life full of dogs instead.
Yeah, my hackles are really up with this guy. For months he flirted with me at the retail store - only for me to find out who his daughter is (I know her) and figure out he has a dying wife. This was last fall. So apparently I have been on his radar for months before the wife was anywhere near to being gone. I hate that.
(03-10-2010 05:23 PM)anastasia Wrote: [ -> ]If for some reason I was back in the single life again, I really think I'd rather just be left alone by men and have my life full of dogs instead.
You'd have to go back to work!
Ozarkmoon,
Run, don't walk, away from him. Tell him that you aren't interested, in no uncertain terms. Women are often told by society that they need to let guys down gently, but often it just causes confusion and isn't healthy for either side.
If I find the right guy then I'm willing to date, but I definitely don't *need* anyone which is a wonderful, liberating feeling.
(03-09-2010 07:38 PM)ozarkmoon Wrote: [ -> ]I was supposed to cook dinner at his house tonight, which we agreed on last week. Now last night he tells me he is going out to dinner with the two grown kids and their spouses. Well how nice. This is what I feared - being the dirty little secret kept away from family.
Huge red flag here. This would be a deal breaker, IMO. It is way, way waaay to early in the courtship/dating mode to be canceling plans that have been made a week in advance.
This is a sign of things to come. Don't see him again. It isn't worth the grief, IMO.
(03-11-2010 03:33 PM)beachbum Wrote: [ -> ] (03-09-2010 07:38 PM)ozarkmoon Wrote: [ -> ]I was supposed to cook dinner at his house tonight, which we agreed on last week. Now last night he tells me he is going out to dinner with the two grown kids and their spouses. Well how nice. This is what I feared - being the dirty little secret kept away from family.
Huge red flag here. This would be a deal breaker, IMO. It is way, way waaay to early in the courtship/dating mode to be canceling plans that have been made a week in advance.
This is a sign of things to come. Don't see him again. It isn't worth the grief, IMO.
ITA. Obviously you see who will always come first if you get in a relationship with him.
(03-11-2010 10:48 AM)catsnotkids Wrote: [ -> ] (03-10-2010 05:23 PM)anastasia Wrote: [ -> ]If for some reason I was back in the single life again, I really think I'd rather just be left alone by men and have my life full of dogs instead.
You'd have to go back to work!
What does working have to do with my dating life? Or my dog life for that matter since I do work with dogs? Most military wives in my situation just pump out babies because their careers get destroyed, so that's their "work." I spent a year studying for a new career and I'm doing that now, I am working and I don't know what you're talking about.
(03-11-2010 05:10 PM)anastasia Wrote: [ -> ] (03-11-2010 10:48 AM)catsnotkids Wrote: [ -> ] (03-10-2010 05:23 PM)anastasia Wrote: [ -> ]If for some reason I was back in the single life again, I really think I'd rather just be left alone by men and have my life full of dogs instead.
You'd have to go back to work!
What does working have to do with my dating life? Or my dog life for that matter since I do work with dogs? Most military wives in my situation just pump out babies because their careers get destroyed, so that's their "work." I spent a year studying for a new career and I'm doing that now, I am working and I don't know what you're talking about.
I think she was just saying that you might still run into a pushy male at work, like the OP did.
(03-09-2010 07:38 PM)ozarkmoon Wrote: [ -> ]The talk right away that he could not cook nor clean should have tipped me off. He is looking to replace #1 with #2 and PDQ. Already he has mentioned moving in together.
I was supposed to cook dinner at his house tonight, which we agreed on last week. Now last night he tells me he is going out to dinner with the two grown kids and their spouses.
Maybe he was anxious tell his grown kids that he's found a new love in his life and the two of you will be living together soon. LOL.
I think the word that describes him is "desperate". At this point, he's probably feeling that any available woman will do. Otherwise, how can he even think about you two living together when you don't really know each other well enough to make that kind of decision? I think he's just looking for a warm body to fill the void.
Run! I'm serious. He's looking for a replacement wife and not because of wanting someone to love and cherish but because he's lonely and wants someone to cook dinner and do the laundry. No good can come of continuing any semblance of a relationship no matter how innocent it seems.
Gotta agree with everyone else: run as fast as you can. That guy is creepy as hell. He was checking you out while his wife was dying and then waited a mere ten days after she did die to start hounding you to replace her? Ugh...major issues. Probably not even just the grief since he was flirting while she was still alive. Maybe he was trying to distance himself from the sadness of knowing she would be gone soon...but that's just a maybe. Maybe he's just soulless and wanted a replacement even before the original was gone. I mean...ewww. What kind of person flirts with someone when their spouse is dying?
lulu - that was my thought after I figured out who he was. I mean really, it is a town of 6500 people and he didn't think I would find out he was married after flirting, telling me he was all alone-- just him and his dog. Bah. The more I think about it, the madder I get!
Just him and his dog...he sounds like a piece of work. You can do a lot better, a relationship that starts with mindgames and lies can never be good for anyone.
(03-12-2010 11:14 PM)Lulu Belle Wrote: [ -> ]What kind of person flirts with someone when their spouse is dying?
I'm not defending this guy but when a spouse is dying people go through a whole lot. I wouldn't sit in judgment on how people behave at that time. So what if someone flirts? Maybe it's the only moment of light in what is probably a pretty grim situation that can drag on for years.
Earlier in this thread someone was mentioned who had an affair as his wife suffered from cancer for 10 years.
Imagine how we feel when our pets are sick. Then magnify that by several times, add in serious financial distress, worries about how you're going to take enough time off from your job to care for the person, performing pretty ghastly nursing duties, etc. and there's maybe some very small sense of what it's like to care for a dying person.
Several people on this board have told me that they could never do Hospice. Caring for a loved one who is dying is way worse than Hospice and it's 24/7 not a couple of hours a week.
It bothers me to think about harshly judging someone who is caring for a loved one who is dying. Until each of us goes through that we'll never know what it's really like.
I would also add that in some cases of chronic illness -- specifically Alzheimer's -- you lose the person long before their physical body goes. A lot of people have already grieved the loss, long before the body dies.
But still -- this guy sounds like a creep!
(03-17-2010 12:17 PM)PrairieGirl Wrote: [ -> ]I would also add that in some cases of chronic illness -- specifically Alzheimer's -- you lose the person long before their physical body goes. A lot of people have already grieved the loss, long before the body dies.
Good point. We also have no way of knowing how the marriage was when the illness struck. Some people are already on the verge of splitting up when one is diagnosed with a terminal illness. Fun times.