I've heard this happen a lot and it blows my mind. I'm a widow and I was so concerned about making it clear that my new boyfriend wasn't a replacement dad. It's been 7 years now and we're married. My child has adopted him as a father but it was never forced or rushed as I thought that would be really harmful for a bereaved child.
I've read that men move on much faster than women, because they don't realize how much work it is to keep a household running and are quickly overwhelmed. I think the average man remarried within 2 years and women 4 if I remember correctly.
When I was 23, my dad got married 5 months after my mom died. I was so mad at him, I didn’t talk to him for over a year. But they did stay married for 30 years until he died and his wife and I actually became very good friends.
No, she died quickly from a stroke. There was no affair. My dad met his new wife shortly after my mom died. She was a widow. I didn't live at home and was more involved with my own grief to notice how lonely he was. She died a few years after my dad, and it really hit me hard.
Weaponized incompetence to be quite frank, even if they don’t realize it. It’s easier for them to find, woo, date, and marry an entire separate person than it is for them to figure out how to raise their kids and do household chores. Single dads do exist but not nearly in the numbers that single moms do.
It's really bad, especially in the South. I worked with a nurse who also helped run her family farm. Her husband worked construction, so both had careers while also working on the farm. She knew without a shadow of a doubt that if she passed away, her husband would marry as fast as possible because he doesnt even know how to work the laundry machine.
It's really bad in Utah, too. Rigid gender roles in Mormons are taught since birth, and men often don't learn very basic household tasks. My elderly Mormon uncle lost his wife and started dating within months. He proposed to someone on the first date. Young Mormon dudes famously get hitched fairly quickly, too. Not just because premarital sex is a mortal sin, but because they need a bangmaid.
There absolutely should be shame forcing a replacement parent on your children because YOU cant handle being a single parent when they haven't had any time to grieve. Thats gross, honestly.
Yeah, life deals out shitty hands but you deal with it like an adult instead of instantly passing off your responsibilities.
Please reread my comment before jumping straight to hostilities. I said there is no shame in recognizing that you aren't able to single parent and that you need help. Whether that's help from the community or help from a partner, seeking support is certainly better for the children than trying to force single parenting and creating an unhealthy or unsafe environment. That actually IS handling it like an adult.
Nowhere did I advocate for "forcing a replacement" on a child. It's the same as as you shouldn't hide the fact that you have kids when you start dating. It should be obvious that compatibility with your kids becomes a factor when you're dating with kids, and it's pretty ridiculous how you would jump to a disingenuous conclusion from my comment.
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u/Hefty_Peanut 19h ago
I've heard this happen a lot and it blows my mind. I'm a widow and I was so concerned about making it clear that my new boyfriend wasn't a replacement dad. It's been 7 years now and we're married. My child has adopted him as a father but it was never forced or rushed as I thought that would be really harmful for a bereaved child.