Widowed and Dating in New Zealand: The Ring, the Photographs, the House

The emotional side of dating again after losing a partner gets written about constantly. The physical side almost never does, and it is the part that actually causes the awkward moments.

There is a ring. There are photographs. There is very possibly a house you both chose, with his shed or her garden still exactly as it was. At some point somebody new is going to be standing in the middle of all of it, and it is worth having thought about that beforehand.

The Ring

There is no rule and anybody who tells you otherwise is describing their own preference. Some people take it off within months. Some move it to the other hand. Some wear it for the rest of their lives and meet somebody perfectly happy about that.

What is worth knowing is what it signals to somebody new, which is not always what you intend. A wedding ring on a first date reads to most people as "I am not available yet", whether or not that is true. If you are wearing it and you are open to something, you may want to say so out loud, because otherwise a lot of people will politely assume and not ask.

The other direction is worth saying too: taking it off is not a betrayal and it is not forgetting. Plenty of people find they were only leaving it on because taking it off felt like an announcement, when in fact nobody would have noticed.

The Photographs

This one is simpler than people fear. Almost everybody who has lost a partner has pictures up, and almost everybody dating in this age group expects that.

The version that causes difficulty is not the photograph on the wall. It is the photograph nobody has mentioned. A new person walking into a house full of pictures of somebody they have never heard about feels ambushed. The same person, told beforehand "that is my wife, she died four years ago", generally feels nothing but sympathy and gets on with the evening.

So say it before they see it. That is genuinely all there is to it.

The House

The hardest of the three, and the least talked about. Meeting somebody new in the house you built with somebody else is a strange feeling for both of you, and it catches people out.

Most people find the answer is simply to go elsewhere at first. Meet in town, go for a walk, use their place if that is easier. There is no obligation to bring anybody home for months, and giving yourself that time is sensible rather than evasive.

If and when a relationship becomes established, the house question tends to answer itself, and often not in the way people assume. A surprising number of couples in this position keep two homes indefinitely, which is a perfectly good outcome rather than a failure to progress.

What the Family Makes of It

The physical things get noticed by more people than just a new partner. Adult children often have strong feelings about the ring, the photographs and particularly the house, and those feelings usually arrive without warning at Christmas.

Most of it is not really about the new person. It is about the family shape changing again when they thought that part was over. Telling them early and lightly works better than being discovered, and not asking permission matters, because you are an adult who has already been through the worst of it.

Almost everybody comes round, and usually faster than you expect.

When You Are Ready to Look

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