Building a new relationship after my wife's death.

It has been sometime since my last update. Not too much new to report. We are still on the marriage track. I haven’t told my kids yet. I had planned to tell them the day of Joyce’s big Christmas party but Joyce asked me to wait in case Deanna was upset after hearing it. I think it will fine but I agreed to wait. Since I want to do it in face to face the first chance will be in San Diego this weekend, so I plan to tell them then.

Deanna has gone above and beyond to accept Joyce. Bringing desert to here party and being very supportive so I am confident that she will accept the marriage plan but it will no doubt be “weird” for her. I am not too concerned about Jake but he will be concerned about the time and logistics.

Joyce and I have continued to talk about the wedding and marriage; so far the plans shape up like this:

-We will see Bill about the ring in January and figure out what we want but I am pretty sure we will have him design a ring. On the weekend we tried on some engagement rings to see what looked good to her.

-Our plan is to formally announce our plans on Joyce’s birthday, March 31.


-The wedding will be in the first part of September, either at one of our houses or a nearby park. The guest list is the issue it may be too many for a house. The wedding will be casual, outdoors. A Lutheran Pastor will marry us.

-She has called a lawyer she knows and we will meet him in January to help us figure out the best way to protect our estates and one another. This should not be too complicated but it needs to be understood and thought through.

Joyce has told many of her friends as well as her boys that we are getting married. We are both concerned that it is so soon (less than four months) but by the time we are married it will have been nearly a year so to me it seems very right. We both feel confident that we have made a good decision but if you consider that we have until September to grow together it seems very right, to me.

I am not sure that I will keep this blog going much longer. The last act to deal with the grief was visiting my Pastor last week to tell him that I was moving on to a different church because the memories were too difficult to shake at our old church My life is moving into a new phase and the grieving is faded now to the point that I am comfortable with it and my priority now is to move into my new life with a new wife so I will not dwell in the past. I will certainly never loose the memory of Jo Lynn but my life now centers around Joyce first and the kids second and I will move on from here. .

Our romance is steadily moving forward I think.

At dinner on Monday we discussed the engagement. I asked her if she was would accept my ring on her birthday, I actually said; “will you marry me?” She said yes. So we are pre-engaged now and will become engaged on her birthday. She then asked if I would give her a two-carat diamond ring. I told her yes. We agreed that the idea of marrying in Sicily is two complicated so we will figure out something else. She seemed to suggest late summer but we didn’t decide. We have also talked about what kind of wedding but so far we have not decided.

Last night she proposed that after Christmas we change the living style a little. Now I spend nearly every night with her at her house and that’s fine but it is hard to get my normal things done at home. She suggested that we change so that she spent the nights with me at my house. She had several reasons: She is in the process of establishing residence at her condo so she can sell it but she is really at home. She thinks it would be better if she weren’t there at night. And once tax season starts for her in February, I was planning to stay at home anyway to keep out of her hair. She would sleep at my house but go home to do her work and other things. It seems like it will work so we agreed to plan it. Once the plan is set I will tell Deanna that we are going to live together so that there will be no surprises.

Yesterday Joyce visited her friend and client Bill (the jeweler). She saw an invoice for a two-carat diamond for $20K. She wanted to back out of the ring but we agreed that we would talk to Bill about what we could get for less money and then decide. But she wanted me to know that she didn’t expect something that expensive. I had expected it to be $6K to $8K, so we will have to see.

We also talked about how to handle our assets and family inheritances, we agree that we will keep them separate and protect them for the kids. She is less concerned about keeping things separate than I am but we agreed that we will see a lawyer and get advice on what options we have and what to be cautious about. She raised a very good point about housing though; the idea is that we will live in some house and if it is not community property we need to make certain that the surviving spouse can stay there as long as he or she wants too. This might be one of our existing houses or a new one but it is an important thing to do. I suggested that since we will inevitably accumulate some community property we might want to set up a new trust (she and I both currently have such trusts) to assure that everything is clear to all the kids. (I can’t imagine that any of the four would be troublesome but it is always better to have things defined clearly and in advance.) It just occurs to me now that in addition to having the house we live in protected we need to make sure that there are enough liquid assets available to support the surviving spouse too. This is something that we need to work out with the help of the lawyer.

Just to wrap this up. I am very happy with our situation and I feel comfortable about committing to marriage. But I realize that it is a big step with a lot of changes and effort required on both our parts to make it work. I think we both share the commitment to make the changes that will make it work.