Dating a widower with grown children: what to expect

When you’re dating a widower with grown children, expect a cooler welcome than you might think adults would give, and expect it to depend heavily on how close he and his children were before. Research on widowed parents who date again found that dating tended to strain already difficult ties but brought good relationships closer.1 The other main lesson is that handling his kids is mostly his job, not yours.

Why adult children react at all

It can seem strange. His children are grown, with lives of their own. Why would they mind?

Psychologist Stanley Kissel, writing for the National Widowers’ Organization, describes the first reaction of adult children as often negative, driven by fear of losing something: an inheritance, their father’s attention, or the role they’ve played since their mother died.5 Kathy McCoy makes a similar point in Psychology Today: adult children have an attachment to how things used to be, and resistance to a parent’s new partner isn’t unusual.4

That doesn’t make cruelty acceptable. It does mean that a cool reception is rarely about you as a person.

What research found

Sociologists Deborah Carr and Kathrin Boerner studied widowed older adults over the years after their spouse died. Those who were interested in dating soon after the loss reported more strain with their children.1 The prior relationship mattered most. Where things had been strained before, dating was linked to less closeness. Where they had been good, it was linked to more. The effects were stronger in ties with daughters.1

An earlier study using the same data found that men’s interest in dating depended on how much support they got from friends.2 People who both wanted and had a new relationship were less depressed 18 months later, though that turned out to be explained by having more money and resources.2

These studies involved older couples, so your widower may be younger than the people in them. The family dynamics are what carry over.

His job and yours

In a Psychology Today column, Hara Estroff Marano answered a woman whose 61-year-old widower partner had a daughter who resisted the relationship. Her view: it’s the widower’s place to set boundaries, kindly and with sensitivity to his daughter’s loss, and not to force his partner into family events before anyone is ready.3 Patience on her part helps, Marano wrote, but action on his part matters more.3

A practical split:

• His part: telling his children about you, setting expectations, standing up for the relationship, and protecting time for you both.
• Your part: being yourself, being kind, not competing with their mother, and telling him honestly how it’s going for you.
• Neither of yours: winning over a hostile adult child by trying harder.

If his kids don’t come around, dating a single parent when you don’t have kids looks at the wider dynamics, and what’s different about dating in your 40s covers the bigger picture.

Signs it’s moving in a good direction

• He talks about his late wife openly, without either avoiding her or comparing you.
• He has a plan for introducing you, even a slow one.
• He tells you when his children are struggling, instead of hiding it.
• Over months, family time includes you more, not less.

What the research doesn’t cover

• The studies followed older widowed couples in one long-running American survey, not people in their forties or fifties.
• They measured the parent’s view of family relationships, not what the adult children themselves said.
• The advice columns are expert opinion, not research findings.