I received this email from Mike and found it to be befitting and encouraging. Mike's email is so touching and serves to be a reminder to anyone traveling this journey. With this being said, I hope this excerpt from Mike's email blesses your life. -Tracy
"Tracy, I laid my late wife of many years to rest quite a while ago, and I found myself alone for the first time in many years. We had shared many memories of life together and she was my best friend. I wanted you to know some how or another I stumbled upon your website because I was bored one night... I knew right away that you've got that writing talent because if you can grab the attention of an old geezer like me then you must be on to something... Have you ever been in your house and it is so quiet that you can hear the water running through the pipes. Well that goes to show you how lonely I was. Even though quite a bit of time had passed I wasn't ready to start dating again. Family and friends would set me up on blind dates and I would have no part in it. Now that I look back I was sabotaging the blind dates on purpose because I just wanted my late wife. I laugh now but I learned early on from other widowers how to push back when I felt a woman was interested in me. That special skill was just to start talking about my late wife when I felt women were interested in me and it worked every time. Boy I had found my secret weapon... I continued to do this month after month because I didn't want my family and friends to rush me to get a new wife because they thought my time was running out. I showed up at a friend's retirement party and I met this woman who shook me up quite a bit in a good way... My tongue was tied my heart was open but my head kept reminding me about my late wife. Needless to say I didn't bring up my late wife at all and I enjoyed her company quite a bit... After a long courtship we moved our relationship to the next level but she had a list of things she wanted me to work on. First on her list was to stop expecting her to measure up to my late wife... My new girlfriend gave me a boat load of examples of how I put my late wife on a pedestal that she could never measure up to the saint I had made my late wife to be... Tracy this is why I emailed you because I don't know what the age group of the folks who read your dating stuff but if there are any men who have lost a wife and they make their late wife out to be a saint I would say to them--STOP IT... My new girlfriend made me realize that my late wife wasn't perfect and I had forgot that in all my grief. What my new girlfriend also made me realize was that my late wife will always be my first wife and nobody can take that spot from her. It was up to me to find a shared space in my heart for my first wife and for any other woman I wanted to marry to dwell. Men if your life is like mine and if you aren't getting younger first don't elevate your wife to saint status because no good god fearing woman is going to want to marry you and second don't measure your new girlfriend against your late wife. I know my late wife wants me to be happy because she told me. I know she would not be happy with me sabotaging conversations with women. Now that I think about it I probably hurt their feelings. I know my late wife would not be proud of me for doing that because she was so caring to others when she was alive... If you want to stay a widower then just say so. If you want to get married again then remember your late wife honorably but don't keep resurrecting her because no living breathing woman is going to want to be with you... I know you will always love your late wife like I do to but there's enough love to go around..."
"Tracy, I laid my late wife of many years to rest quite a while ago, and I found myself alone for the first time in many years. We had shared many memories of life together and she was my best friend. I wanted you to know some how or another I stumbled upon your website because I was bored one night... I knew right away that you've got that writing talent because if you can grab the attention of an old geezer like me then you must be on to something... Have you ever been in your house and it is so quiet that you can hear the water running through the pipes. Well that goes to show you how lonely I was. Even though quite a bit of time had passed I wasn't ready to start dating again. Family and friends would set me up on blind dates and I would have no part in it. Now that I look back I was sabotaging the blind dates on purpose because I just wanted my late wife. I laugh now but I learned early on from other widowers how to push back when I felt a woman was interested in me. That special skill was just to start talking about my late wife when I felt women were interested in me and it worked every time. Boy I had found my secret weapon... I continued to do this month after month because I didn't want my family and friends to rush me to get a new wife because they thought my time was running out. I showed up at a friend's retirement party and I met this woman who shook me up quite a bit in a good way... My tongue was tied my heart was open but my head kept reminding me about my late wife. Needless to say I didn't bring up my late wife at all and I enjoyed her company quite a bit... After a long courtship we moved our relationship to the next level but she had a list of things she wanted me to work on. First on her list was to stop expecting her to measure up to my late wife... My new girlfriend gave me a boat load of examples of how I put my late wife on a pedestal that she could never measure up to the saint I had made my late wife to be... Tracy this is why I emailed you because I don't know what the age group of the folks who read your dating stuff but if there are any men who have lost a wife and they make their late wife out to be a saint I would say to them--STOP IT... My new girlfriend made me realize that my late wife wasn't perfect and I had forgot that in all my grief. What my new girlfriend also made me realize was that my late wife will always be my first wife and nobody can take that spot from her. It was up to me to find a shared space in my heart for my first wife and for any other woman I wanted to marry to dwell. Men if your life is like mine and if you aren't getting younger first don't elevate your wife to saint status because no good god fearing woman is going to want to marry you and second don't measure your new girlfriend against your late wife. I know my late wife wants me to be happy because she told me. I know she would not be happy with me sabotaging conversations with women. Now that I think about it I probably hurt their feelings. I know my late wife would not be proud of me for doing that because she was so caring to others when she was alive... If you want to stay a widower then just say so. If you want to get married again then remember your late wife honorably but don't keep resurrecting her because no living breathing woman is going to want to be with you... I know you will always love your late wife like I do to but there's enough love to go around..."
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