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Ask a Widow: What About the In-Laws?
Ok, I’m now going to answer a hot-button topic that widows write me about ALL THE TIME – yes, it’s the subject of in-laws! At least once a month, someone contacts me and asks what to do about their late spouse’s family. Sometimes, they want to know how to make sure they will still get invited to family gatherings, and that’s an easy answer for me – just tell them! (Sample wording: “I know it might seem strange to still have me over for Thanksgiving, but it would mean a lot for me to join you. I’d be happy to bring dessert!”) But some stuff is….trickier. Here’s an example taken…
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A Review of “A Widow’s Guide to Healing” (Part 2)
Almost three years ago, in the depths of grief, I decided to go online and order every book I could on grief. I figured that maybe I’d find the answer to my question: “how am I supposed to survive this?” I found a number of great books, and I’ve reviewed them periodically on my blog. But there were a lot of terrible ones, too. Anything with a photo of the ocean on the front was usually pretty bad, and I really didn’t get much out of books written by people who’d lost a parent or a sibling. I was hopeful for the book entitled, “A Widow’s Guide to Healing” not…
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Ask a Widow: Am I Moving Forward if I’m Still Angry?
Answer: Yes. That’s my answer to the question “am I moving forward if I’m still angry?” It’s a question I get frequently from readers in one form or another. So many widows I know – both my friends and people I’ve met online – want desperately to move forward with their lives. (On the whole, most widows say they want to “move forward” rather than “move on,” since the latter seems to imply leaving behind all memory of the person who was lost.) Regardless of how a widow wants to define it, there often comes a point in a widow’s life when you begin to move beyond the initial loss.…
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A Conversation
People write me sometimes for a variety of reasons, but one of the most common things I am asked is, “how are you navigating love after loss?” After some prodding (he initially said, “who am I to dole out advice?” and I countered that he knows a whole lot about this specific topic), I got Chris to let me publish a discussion that we had. When he re-read it, he said, “I hope people understand that most of our relationship – like 99.9% of it! – is happy and joyful!” That’s true, of course, but today’s discussion is about the tough stuff – because that’s what people ask me about.…
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Ask a Widow: Why is Sex So Complicated?
Do you want to know what my most popular post of all time is? Take a guess. As you’re thinking, remember that I’ve written over 450 blog posts, many of them about intense grief, therapy, single parenting and finding new love. So….did you think of one you believe was really popular? Yes? Well….I bet you didn’t think it was one about sex. BUT IT IS! Yep, my most popular post of all time is “Ask a Widow: Yes, It’s Okay To Want To Have Sex Again,” from November, 2019. If somehow you haven’t read it (like Google Analytics tells me thousands (!) of people have), here’s an excerpt: Just the…
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How We Met (A Valentine’s Day Story)
It’s an easy answer: he’s my best friend Becky’s brother. But that’s not really the answer to the question, “how did you meet?” We met a half-dozen times when the kids were tiny and I first knew Becky from preschool events. Chris would be visiting from Colombia or Maine or California wherever else he was living back then and I’m sure we chatted a bit, but neither of us can really remember that time period. So, if I’m literally answering this question, I’d probably have to say that we first met as I was cramming goldfish crackers into some child’s mouth, with spit-up from another child running down my arm.…
There’s No Handbook for How to Do This
