Now That Hes Gone

the seven items listed above, and men are just as capable of meeting those criteria as women are. At the same time however, I've found in my practice that I can explain things to women using language I know they understand. Sometimes a woman will say to me, “My husband was telling me about that for years, but I never quite got what he was saying. Now I see it.”
Some Final Things to Think About
    That about covers what I have to say. If you thought this book would have a lot more information and are disappointed, I apologize. But I've found that women in your situation seem to need a lot more hope and inspiration than they do information. Besides, information is changing constantly, and with the help of the Internet you can find out the latest word on just about any subject that concerns you.
    Before I finish, I want to answer three questions that come up often in my discussions with newly-single women.
How many changes should I make in my life?
    Professional grief counselors will tell you that the loss of your primary relationship is a huge emotional trauma. Even if you parted company with your man willingly, the changes this produces in your life can be daunting. These professionals often counsel women like yourself to not make many changes—and certainly not many big changes—at least not at first. I agree. Let the fact of your new life settle in. Changing jobs, relocating your household, starting a new relationship—these are all stress-producing moves. When you add such a move to the stress you're already feeling, you can soon become overwhelmed. So listen to you inner voice. If it says, “Take it easy. Don't make this move right now,” then don't do it. In the end, you have to be your own best guide.
What about getting married again?
    In discussing how to build your support team, sooner or later we have to address the issue of getting the kind of support you just lost: a man. In working with women like yourself, I've noticed that finding another man is usually the last thing on their minds. There's so much more to deal with, this issue often doesn't come up for a long time, if ever.
    The statistics on women who marry too soon after a death or break-up are dismal. The divorce rates are high, and even among those who stay married, unhappiness and regret are all too common.
    A hard truth that women must face is this: the chances that a woman in her middle to later years will marry again are quite slim. One reason for this is pure mathematics. Because men on average die younger, there simply are many more older single women than available men. Another reason is men's preference for women who are much younger than they. It doesn't matter if older women make better wives. The seemingly built-in male bias toward younger women gives you a distinct disadvantage. But this might not be a bad thing.

    A number of my single women friends say they don't want to get married because they fear becoming “a nurse or a purse.” If a man is much older than you, sooner or later he's going to need medical care. If you're married to him, you become his “nurse.” A man who's your age, but not financially set, might be willing to get married, especially if you have substantial financial assets. Then you become his “purse.” Neither unpaid nurse nor bill-paying purse is a particularly appealing role.
    So my advice is to let the marriage issue rest for a while—maybe a long while. There is plenty of life out there for you to lead, plenty of experiences to be had— including every kind of male companionship—without getting married. Even if you do want to “get out there” again and start developing a new relationship, you need to make yourself whole again. You need to make it on your own. That's what this book was designed to help you to do.
What if nothing seems to work?
    In this book, I've made dozens of suggestions on what you can do to build your new life. No doubt you will hear and read dozens more. They might all sound great, but it's possible that none of them will work for you. If that happens, all I can tell you is don't give up. As I said in the first chapter, you are going to be OK. How and when you finally get to feeling that way, only you can determine. But if you make a solid effort, if you reach out to others for advice and support, you'll do just fine. As the old Beatles song says, you'll get by with a little help from your friends. The best part is, whether you know them all right now or not, you have