Weddingbee boards

i was wondering if there were other encore brides on the board who lost their previous spouses...it's given me a really different pespective and completely changed my outlook, as far as this relationship, relationships in general...heck, LIFE in general...goes.  not that widowhood DEFINES me, but it does play a huge role in how i am defined, or how i define myself...or however you want to put it.  also adds a unique facet of complication to this, lol.

anyway, doing this wedding thing again feels very strange (not bad, just...odd), and i was hoping to connect with people who know what i'm talking about as far as that goes.

ETA: i just reread what i wrote...wow that sounds really awful.  i am NOT in any way implying that it isn't odd and complicated for other encore brides as well...just in a different way.  just wanted to clarify.  having a second go at marriage has got to be strange for all of us.

@BrideToBrit: i have my wedding ring on my right hand now (had to have it resized from a 5 to a 6, lol).  i don't wear my ering except on special occasions because, being right-handed, it snags on EVERYTHING.  i don't have DH1's wedding band.  he was a homicide victim and whoever the perp was took that, along with just about everything else he had with him every day except his cell phone.  glasses, wallet, keys, pocket knife...everything.  our son was born 5 weeks after he died, so everything feels very disjointed to me.  compartmentalized.  it does feel odd.  FI is a lifelong bachelor too, so i suppose that's a little different from marrying another wid.  (i say that like he's old or something, lol.  he'll be 31 in august, so that's hardly the case.  older than me, but not old.)  he's really understanding though, which adds another facet of weirdness to it.  i've cried out my grief while he's held me, and he's perfectly ok with it.  kinda odd, loving one man while still loving and grieving another.

@AlmostMrsP: "I have to say I am lucky.  Not lucky because I'm a widow, but I feel so lucky to have found two men in a lifetime that love me so much.  I'm sad I can't spend the rest of my life with my late husband, but he gave me four beautiful children and those were his ever lasting gift to me.  And I really think he sent Fi our way.  Not everyone gets a 2nd chance at love and life like we have, and I am grateful for it."

i totally agree with all of this, except that DH1 and i only have one child together and he was born after he died.  and in some ways (widowhood having changed my perspective and all that), it makes me a better person in this relationship.  i value the little things so much more.  it's not reasonable to live every day like it could be your last (you'd burn out on it awfully quickly!), but i think possibly i do hold on to those every day moments a little closer than i used to, and i will never ever take a single day for granted.  i also feel that DH1 sent FI my way...i sat out in the subzero wind in the snow by the little memorial in my yard i set up for him on the night of his birthday in january and had a heart-to-heart with him (it was also the 11-month mark since his death), telling him that i couldn't do it alone any more...this was sunday, and the following saturday, i met FI online.  and then little things about how we met, how flukey and how narrow the odds were, and how perfectly we fit...i'm SURE DH1 had something to do with it.

DH1 was just a month past his 27th birthday when he died, and i was still 26.  i'm 28 now.  we sort of eloped as well...we had an intimate ceremony while on a vacation, but immediate family was present (all 6 of them, lol), and FI and i are doing things differently as well.  still low-key and simple, but with guests and music and food, lol.  i will have been widowed two and a half years on my and FI's wedding day next year.  it has happened fast, and i wasn't expecting it, but i know this is real.

to echo what you said, i'm very, VERY lucky.

@AlmostMrsP: i have not...ywbb.org (young widow bulletin board) was my lifeline all last year, before i learned to stand on my own two feet again.  now i lurk more than anything, but occasionally post to help a new wid hang in there.  it's so hard.

@KateRBels:  cool! (well, not cool that you qualified for YWBB.  that part really kinda sucks.  understatement, i know.)  i started posting there...almost 18 months ago now.  had to think about it.  maybe we ran into each other there.  i was "cardus" there too.

DH1 and i did something small and destination-like (altho not to the usual caribbean or hawaiian destination type places), and FI wants something somewhat more traditional, but still smallish and low-key.  he actually wants people at our ceremony (DH1 and i only had immediate family, so including us, the photographer, her daughter/assistant, and the officiant, there were 11 people there, lol), like friends and any extended family who can make it.  all mine will have to travel some serious distance as we're in the midwest and they're on the east coast, and unfortunately FI isn't on speaking terms with much of his extended family, so it'll still be small.  somewhere around 30 people, we're thinking.

@charmed59: i've thought that too, and then i thought about how i might have reacted in the beginning when it was all so fresh...heck, even a couple months before i met FI and hadn't opened up to the idea of dating yet.  it would really make me angry and i wouldn't want to hear it.  so i lurk there mostly now...once in a great while if someone asks a questions or for advice where my new experience would be helpful, i tell them about it, but otherwise i'm pretty quiet there now.