My story of widowhood...

My story in a nutshell: (NOTE: I wrote this in response to an email I received from another widow who also lost her husband suddenly and had reached out to me and shared her feelings with me.) I was divorced, a single mother of a daughter, age 13 when I met my late husband. He had 4 duaghters from his previous marriage. I spent four years searching for a husband, using all resources available to me – print personals, shadchanim, singles Shabbatonim, singles events, introductions, and the internet. I met him via the internet. He had been recently divorced. His ex-wife initiated the divorce. He had spent 2 years trying to save his marriage to her – to no avail. She simply no longer wanted to be married to him.   He and I got married less than a year after meeting one another. We were married in Aug of 2000.  This coming August would have been our ninth anniversary. We had a wonderful marriage, a great relationship – we were truly bashert. Of course, we had disagreements, what couple doesn’t? It was not easy though. He was a loving father but an ineffective parent. His fear of losing his children paralyzed him. It had been, in no small part, the disparity in parenting styles between him and his ex wife that led to the demise of their relationship. She was a very lassez faire parent.( I acutally call this “parenting by default”. )  Very few rules existed for the children. She believed that children have to make their own mistakes to learn from them. But she left out the other half of that equation: it is the parents’ responsibility to give the children GUIDANCE and to provide them with some foreknowledge of consequences so that the children can make educated choices. Young children need to be given limited choices, which are expanded as they grow older. Both he and I had the same parenting style – but his fear made it very difficult for us to implement it. This put me in a very difficult position of having four teenage girls in my home half the time who did not respect me as a parent.    For the most part, we all got along, we merged our families mostly successfully. All the girls got along like sisters, including my daughter with his. I got along well with his sisters and his parents. Every summer we went upstate to the bungalow colony for Shabbatot, where his parents owned a bungalow and where we rented a “kuchelaine”. The kids all loved it up there as we did. It was always so relaxing to go up there.    While we were married my husband decided he wanted to learn and to get smicha. I encouraged him to do so. We were also both founding members of our shul and both very active in the shul. We were the first couple the shul honored at the annual dinner several years ago. We both worked full time. He was a senior level project manager and I have worked for the past 10 years for Jewish/Israeli non profit organizations.    We had a good life. The girls all grew up and each one in turn went to Israel for her “Shana B’Aretz”. The two older ones (including my daughter) made aliyah almost immediately thereafter. Both are married and each has one child. The oldest just informed me that she is pregnant. The next two are both now attending universities here in the States. Both are attending top tier (and expensive) universities.  My husband had taken out school loans to pay for this. I never agreed with this and refused to co sign those loans. We were not wealthy people and doing this meant that we would be giving up our dream of aliyah and even of retirement – and by principle I did not agree with this. He basically agreed with me but felt pressured to do this by two things:  1) his paralyzing fear of his kids rejecting him and 2) there was an agreement in the divorce decree that basically stated that he had to do this (He was unaware at that time that had he chosen not to honor it, that no court in this country would have upheld it – no court will state that a parent is obligated to pay for adult children’s college education, especially at top tier universities!).  I felt then, as I do now, that if the kids insisted on attending these schools they should have earned scholarships and/or taken the loans out in their own names.    Upon his death the school loans were entirely forgiven, by matter of policy. (Had I co signed, I would have been responsible for them). My husband died intestate (without a will) and he had neglected to take care of his life insurance. We had all been under the impression that he had 500k in life insurance and that the combination of that plus the life insurance provided by his place of employment would take care of his dependent daughters and of me. However, the only life insurance provided was that by his place of employment and it was equal only to one year of his salary. I was the sole benficiary. It is less than half of what is owed on our house. His income was twice mine – and I lost that.    I am at this point continuing to manage the house, pay the mortgage, the taxes, the utilities, the maintenance, etc out of my puny salary and out of the proceeds of the life insurance. There are some savings accounts (401ks, IRA’s pension) but all are supposed to divided according to the terms of the divorce decree. My lawyer is working on that for me. The estate has very little money in it and there are some claims against the estate.    The house is the marital residence and thus not a part of the estate. However, my in laws (parents and sistes in law), and his daughters’ mother all believe the house is part of the estate and thus the kids are entitled to a portion of it. Not so. They (not his ex wife, though) are pushing me to give half of the life insurance to his daughters. I did give each girl a gift of $1800.  That life insurance is my buffer against losing the house. I need that money. My MIL called me up a month ago. She called me unethical and immoral for not giving them that money. She then told me that she changed her mind about the car. (We had borrowed money from them for our car and were paying it back $200 a month. I had continued to pay that after my husband died. They had told me to stop paying it, to keep the car and not worry about it. I agreed only after they reassured me that it was fine.).   Now, she told me she wants me to pay the full amount immediately (14.5k).   She also ended the conversation saying “BTW, everyone is coming to us (they live in Florida) for Shavuot. I know you just started a new job and will not be able to come.”  She said that to hurt me, and hurt me she did. I spent that night crying my heart out at my Rabbi’s home!    I realized the car was in my late husbands name and so I consulted with my lawyer about what to do. He told me to sell the car, put the proceeds into the estate account and to get a car using my own money. I did that. This past Shabbat, I had all the girls by me (those that are here in the States) along with some of their friends. We went to my SIL for Shabbat lunch. Before lunch, I was in the kitchen with my SIL and her husband and they started asking me about the car. I was honest and told them the truth. But then they began pushing me more on it and about the house at which point I stated that I was not comfortable discussing this with them. They asked me if my lawyer told me not to discuss it and since he did tell me that I told them yes. My SIL then said to me “Well, that’s convenient!”. I realized this was becoming hostile, so I left. I came home, ate alone, read, napped, sat outside and enjoyed a nice glass of wine. Not my ideal Shabbat, but I was actually fine with it.  Later, one of the girls came to me and asked me about this and I told her the same things I told my SIL.  I think she sort of gets it but not really. They are so young.    So, I am realizing more and more now, that I not only lost my dear husband, but his entire family. It is so sad, because I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that he loved me, that he would have told everyone to butt out, that I made him happy. And they all know that last part too. It has been said that money changes everything. All the issues that I have had since his death with his family revolve around money. I never believed it would come to this in my family (his family) but it has. I thank G-d for having blessed my life with my late husband, because he gave me so much and he taught me so much. He was a tzaddik, a wonderful person. I thank G-d for having blessed my life, too, with my kehilla. I am part of an amazing kehilla who have been so loving and so supportive of me.    I do understand your feelings of wanting to do things you have never done, of being more daring. I understand, totally, the notion that life is short, it takes unexpected turns, and planning for the future seems futile. I feel the same way. And so, I am daring life by going out there now, dating and meeting men. Even if it does not lead to marriage,  I will, at the very least, have the enjoyment of meeting new people and having new experiences. And one day, I hope, I will find someone with whom I will want to share my life.