When adult children can’t let go of grief
There was Doug, at a charity golf event, whacking woods off a practice tee. His shots looked great. He did, too.
He smiled broadly when I shook his hand. He said his business was in fine hands — those of his adult sons. At 65, he told me, his health was excellent, his bank account was stuffed and his house was paid for.
And then, the bomb: “I’m seeing someone,” Doug said.
Until two years earlier, Doug had been happily married, to his first and only wife. She developed cancer. Doug nominated himself as her daily caretaker.
The playout was agonizing, as it so often is, and it ended the way cancer too often does — with the patient’s death.
At the funeral, Doug told me two things. He would never recover, and he would never try to replace her. I nodded and gave him a hug.
Now, amid the soaring golf balls, he studied my face for a reaction to his dating news.
I asked if he was happy. “Very,” he said. Which should have closed the books on the subject.
But of course, it did not and has not.
Doug’s two sons continue to mourn their mother, understandably. They have both condemned their father for beginning a relationship with a New Someone — too soon, by their reckoning.
The rift is growing.
Doug told me that frost develops every time he sees his sons, whether he’s accompanied by New Someone or not.
The sons think that Doug is disrespecting their mother’s memory. Doug thinks it’s his life, darn it, and he has the right to seek happiness.
“I have maybe 20 good years in front of me,” he said. “Am I just supposed to curl up in a corner somewhere, by myself? Who wants to be lonely?”
And then: “My sons are just being selfish. They want me to live in a time tunnel. They want to live in that tunnel, too, where nothing ever changes, and their Mommy will always be there to kiss their boo-boos and make them better. But life isn’t like that.”
Doug didn’t invite me to comment, so naturally I waded right in.
Is this new relationship serious?
Neither party has mentioned marriage or cohabitation. But Doug said he wouldn’t rule out either.
Has the new partner taken over any roles that used to belong to his late wife? Like remembering family birthdays?
None, he said. She respects his history, and she maintains her own, separate from his.
How did they meet?
No dating apps for this guy, said Doug. The pair has known each other for 30 years, in the business world. When Doug first asked her to dinner six months previously, it felt destined, he said.
Is she single?
Widowed.
Have the sons delivered any ultimatums about any of this?
They’ve both said, separately, that their respect for their father has taken a tumble. But no threats to stop seeing each other, or to withhold visits from the grandchildren. Yet.
Isn’t this all still pretty early?
Very early, Doug said. And too early to know whether the romantic relationship is a keeper. But that’s not enough to calm the waters with the sons.
I told Doug that this scenario is littered with clichés.
It’s true that nothing will bring back his sons’ mother. It’s true that Doug has the right to make his own decisions. As long as the new lady friend isn’t a gold digger — Doug was quick to report that she isn’t — the sons cannot claim that their inheritances are being threatened.
And yet …
“My sons keep comparing my girlfriend to their mother, right down to how she dresses and how she wears her hair.
“I tell them that isn’t useful or fair. But nothing about any of this is fair, right?”
Nor is any of it susceptible to one-size-fits-all reasoning. What’s right for Doug in his situation might not be right for anyone else. What ruffles the feathers of his sons might zoom right past other adult children in the same situation.
“Bottom line?” said Doug, as he got a look on his face that said he wanted to turn back to golf.
“It’s my life. It’s my future. I just wish it weren’t so difficult and so painful.”
Bob Levey is a national award-winning columnist.
