How easy is it to start a relationship after being bereaved? And how do new lovers cope with an idolised ‘ex’? Three couples tell their stories

Carole Henderson was only 40 when she lost her husband Kevin to skin cancer in 2006. As she struggled with the pain of her partner’s death, she found that her social life was beginning to disappear. “So many people didn’t know how to act around me or said silly, hurtful things.”

Eighteen months on, she was ready to start dating again. “I had reached the point where I loved Kevin, but was no longer in love with him,” she says. “I wasn’t looking for a husband, but I was lonely and wanted to enjoy male company.”

Having met Kevin when she was a teenager, however, she found jumping back into the dating pool a daunting experience. Many men were put off by the fact she had been widowed, too. She enjoyed a year-long relationship with another widower, but it wasn’t until 2012, six years after losing Kevin, that she started dating Ian, whom she has since married. They were friends before a relationship began to develop.

“Initially, I was so excited; I didn’t think too much about her previous relationship and how that could affect us,” says Ian. As his feelings for Carole grew, though, he had a few concerns. Seeing pictures of Kevin around the house was a bit intimidating, and he was nervous about meeting Kevin’s family, with whom Carole maintained a close relationship. “In the end, it turned out my imagination was far from reality. They were lovely, and I think they were just pleased to see Carole happy again.”

It helped that Carole was so open with him. Nothing was out of bounds. He quickly became comfortable asking questions about her past.

I thought I’d never want to find love again ... I was so scared of losing another person that I loved Thomas Dowds

“When we started dating, I was divorced and I felt I had made a lot of mistakes,” he says. “Carole is very emotionally astute and she encouraged me to do some of the Grief Recovery Method. It helped me to manage my own insecurities and emotions much better.” Carole discovered this programme, which is designed to help people come to terms with loss, after Kevin died. She has since become a senior trainer and managing director of the UK team.

When their relationship became more serious, Ian moved in to Carole’s house, but he says he never felt entirely at home surrounded by the furniture and paintings that she had chosen with Kevin. After talking things through, they decided to move to create a home together.

“There are still pictures of Kevin in our house, but, although he’s a presence, I don’t feel threatened,” says Ian. “I’m grateful to Kevin, because it’s made Carole who she is. She wouldn’t be the woman I fell in love with if she hadn’t had that experience.”

But other couples find that accepting the past isn’t quite as simple. Joanna met her partner Colin (both names have been changed) on a dating website, 13 months after her husband died of cancer in early 2017. “When John was ill, he told me he wanted me to move on after he died so that I could be happy again. He said he wanted someone else to see my eyes sparkle.”

She and Colin hit it off from the moment they met, but she says he struggles to come to terms with the fact she has been widowed. “John and I had been together for six years and he was my soulmate. I think Colin felt like he was in competition.”

Social media has made life harder, as it brings up so many memories. “On one occasion, Colin came across some old Facebook photos, which really upset him, because it was evidence of how much John and I adored each other. He told me he wasn’t sure if he could live up to John – and that’s when his insecurities began to affect our relationship.” She says he has never felt comfortable meeting John’s family and didn’t want to visit her previous home, which she had shared with her husband.

Although it can be difficult, Joanna works hard to put herself in Colin’s shoes and talk to him about how he is feeling. “I care deeply for Colin. You can’t compare two relationships, because they’re two totally different people. It’s like having more than one child. You can love more than one person in your lifetime.” She says she is no less happy than she was – just “a different kind of happy”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘His children call me Moira and mine call him Thomas, because we want to be respectful to Rhonda and Alastair’ ... Moira Stockman and Thomas Dowds with their children.

Respecting former and current partners is a balancing act for many widows. Carole says that while she celebrates Kevin’s memory on special days, she doesn’t talk about him all the time, because that would be disrespectful to Ian. As well as avoiding comparisons, she says it is important to remember your previous partner in a realistic way. “There’s a tendency to view someone who’s died through rose-tinted spectacles, which can be hard for a new partner. I loved Kevin deeply and he was a fantastic man, but he wasn’t perfect.”

When anyone starts a relationship, particularly later in life, it is not unusual for jealousy to surface. We all carry emotional baggage, whether or not bereavement is part of it. But Carole and Ian’s attitude proves it is possible to respect the past without comparing it with the present.

For Thomas Dowds and Moira Stockman, who married earlier this year, jealousy has never been an issue. When they met, they had both been widowed, which they say made it easier to talk about their former partners.

“My family and I were on holiday in Florida in 2016 when my wife Rhonda suffered a sudden cardiac arrest,” says Thomas. He attempted CPR and an ambulance was called, but there wasn’t anything they could do. In the weeks that followed, he says, there was no opportunity for him to grieve, because he was trying to stay strong for their two girls, who were seven and nine.

After the dust settled and his well-wishers went back to their normal lives, Thomas sought counselling to help him to cope with his loss. He also joined Widowed and Young, a charity support group for widows and widowers in the UK. “I ended up making friends with Moira and it felt good to talk to someone who was in the same boat. She’d lost her husband to leukaemia several years before and had two children around the same age as mine.”

Following Rhonda’s death, Thomas’s girls were reluctant to talk about their mum, for fear of upsetting him. But meeting Moira’s children meant they were able to open up for the first time and talk about their shared experiences.

“When Rhonda passed away, I thought I’d never want to find love again. As well as dealing with grief, I was so scared of losing another person that I loved.” But after a month of getting to know Moira, those feelings began to change. “We had so much in common that it progressed naturally into a relationship and it felt completely right.”

Moira, whose partner Alastair died when her children were toddlers, says they were aware they needed to take the relationship slowly. Although the four children got on brilliantly, her eldest son struggled to come to terms with the idea of her and Thomas as a couple, because he was worried about losing his mum to him. “With lots of support and counselling, he came round to the idea of us being together. One day he told me that he knew Thomas was a good man, and I think that was a real turning point for us.”

The couple say that talking about their past relationships is an important part of their marriage and helps the children to understand where they came from. Rather than “Mum” and “Dad”, “his children call me Moira and mine call him Thomas, because we want to be respectful to Rhonda and Alastair,” says Moira. “They might be gone, but they’ll always be their parents.”

Thomas adds that being widowed has taught him to enjoy every happy moment and stop sweating the small stuff. It is a common philosophy among those who have experienced loss. Although he knows he and other widowers will always feel sad about the loss of their partners, finding love again has given him a new lease of life. “Our children are really happy for us, and it has helped them open up about their own feelings of bereavement. It feels like we’ve taken two broken families and made them whole again.”