Oh, Give Me A Clone…Oh, Give Me A Break!
By Julie Donner Andersen
Julie's story
Before becoming a wife of a widower, I will admit to being a card-carrying member of such a society and its views. The fear of societal condemnation twisted my mind to the point of nearly backing out of my wedding plans, as I felt I could never attain the same honorable space in my husband’s heart as his late wife had, nor could I ever be better than she was. The song, “Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better” kept playing in my head. I welcomed the chance to compete with a ghost for the prize of first place in my husband’s heart. Society almost made me believe that I must, in order to survive my marriage. I spent a great deal of wasted time early in my marriage trying to out-do the late wife in order to feel worthy of my husband’s love and other people’s approval..
I wanted humankind’s blessing, not its scorn. I needed to know that I was acceptable - not just good enough for my husband, but better than his dearly departed loved one. I wanted to purge the “replacement” label and be stamped with “best of show”. Yet I wanted this approval wrapped in my own autonomy without any comparisons to the late, great wife. What I discovered, however, is that these were impossible requests to make of a society that needs to better understand the role of a second spouse to a previously widowed man - and the reasons behind a widower’s choice to remarry - before it can give me and others like me the chance we deserve.
People have always considered death or death-related issues to be “taboo” subjects, and being the wife of a widower somehow indirectly fits that scary subject matter. But relegating a controversial topic into the proverbial closet does nothing to correct its errors in logical thinking. Keeping such subjects sanctimoniously sacred and cloaked in dark secrecy only serves to cement their biases into statues of stupidity. It’s time we ease up on our ridicule of the remarriages of widowers and unlock this Pandora’s box of ignorance so that second wives of widowers can get on with the business of being spouses instead of battling overblown and outdated misconceptions and judgments.
To better educate society, I decided to write a book about the experience of being a “WOW” (wife of a widower), entitled, “PAST: Perfect! PRESENT: Tense! Insights From One Woman’s Journey As The Wife Of A Widower”. I researched grief information, talked to hundreds of other WOWs and their husbands about their issues and experiences, and discussed my own personal journey. While I was thrilled to know that I wasn’t alone, my anger at what society’s pettiness can do to jar the self-worth and security of an innocent second wife of a widower only motivated me towards my goal - that of shining a light into the subject of widower remarriages and closing the book on this “taboo” silliness once and for all.
To that end, I would hope that society would come to understand this: Our previously widowed husbands did not marry us because they wanted a replacement or a clone of their late wives, nor to ease their loneliness or to whet their sexual appetites after a time of abstinence beyond their control. WOWs are not carbon copies of the late wives, nor do we aspire to be, so we do not appreciate the comparisons. We have not entered our 'husbands’ lives to take the place of the late wives, nor step into the late wives’ shoes right where they left off. We try very hard to honour the late wife’s memory out of our
love for our men, and we respect the grief we must occasionally deal with. We do not demand from our men that they forget their beloved late spouses, only that they live in the present while coming to grips with the past.
Simply put, our husbands married us because they loved us! They appreciate our unique individualities and personalities. They have not betrayed their late wives’ memories by opening their hearts again. In fact, their remarriages honour the notion that love never dies, but grows more beautifully as it is shared.
The new Mrs. Paul McCartney has many hurdles to overcome before she is accepted for the special human being she is, without any references or comparisons to Linda McCartney. I wish her well, but I know firsthand just what she will be up against, whether it is self-imposed or societal. The road to WOWdom is sometimes a rocky one, but the view from my husband’s heart is fabulous. I hope Heather Mills McCartney will come to understand that that’s really all that matters.
By Julie Donner Andersen, author of “PAST: Perfect! PRESENT: Tense! Insights From One Woman’s Journey As The Wife Of A Widower”. (Copyright 2002 / Julie Donner Andersen). Published by Weyant Press, Inc. All rights reserved.
This article may not be reprinted without express permission of the author
