Should your partner remarry when you are no more? Have you ever given this a thought? Have you had this conversation with your spouse?
If your answer is ‘yes’, how long is good enough mourning period before he/she remarries or would you rather they remain single in memory of you even against their wish?
Sometime last year, the internet went agog when the former Taraba state governor (late) Danbaba Suntai’s wife remarried. People were raving and cursing her for remarrying after losing her husband. Was it that they actually expected her to mourn him forever?
This woman stood by her husband who was involved in a plane crash, bedridden and vegetative for several years before he died. She suffered while he hovered between life and death. Nursing a person in vegetative state is no joke.
She stayed two years after his demise before remarrying. Yet, these people curse her out for refusing to remain miserable for life. Our mentality in this clime needs cleansing.
This woman deserves all the happiness she can get and if it’s with a new man, so be it. There’s no better loyalty than standing by her then husband till he gave up. She deserves happiness and a good life going forward.
Women in our society are almost expected to mourn their late husbands for life. Even if she decides to remarry, she is expected to wait a longer time before she does. But If it were to be the other way around, hardly would any one blame a man for remarrying after his wife’s death.
Misogynists and some patriarchy princesses will tell you that an ideal wife stays loyal even after the death of her husband as anything short of a life of celibacy is betrayal of love and loyalty, disrespect to the spirit of the late husband and his relatives or even a confirmation of her years of infidelity should she decide to remarry.
Listen! A dead spouse is a dead person, and no amount of mourning will bring them back. The living don’t have to put their own lives on hold if they don’t want. Mourning someone’s spouse is a thing of the heart and personal. It’s till death do them part. And death has parted them, so, mind your business.
Many relations after the demise of their brother/sister don’t even care to check on their late brother’s/sister’s spouse and their children. They rarely visit to show love or know how they are coping all by themselves. But will only be monitoring if they are seeing another man/woman.
Families are more worried about their late brother’s/sister’s properties once he/she chooses to remarry. That’s what happens when all you want in life is to inherit another man’s properties instead of working to make something meaningful out of your own lives. The properties your brother/sister owns belongs to their spouse and their children upon their demise. They were married, you cannot inherit them. Go and face your own lives
Dear couples, the decision to remarry or not rests squarely with your spouse and not you. It is your partner’s decision as the situation presents itself to them. It’s a matter of personal decision and you should not decide on their behalf.
Death is the evidence that the marriage is over. Do not subject your spouse to a life of loneliness by insisting they stay single when you are no more. Life is for the living and the clause simply said “till death do us part”. You are no more and the living cannot enter the grave with you.
If you feel that remarrying makes people move on and the memory of the dead forgotten, it means you are unaware the dead is conscious of nothing. Even children are not left out of this blackmail. They would rather choose that their living parent remain single after their other parent’s demise. They care less how lonely the parent may be.
If you decide to immortalise your spouse by not remarrying, it is your own personal decision and does not in any way mean those who decide to remarry are evil, insensitive or disrespectful to the memory of their late spouse.
The society most times try to rationalize why a spouse shouldn’t move on after their better half’s demise. Some people try to peg the appropriate time one should remarry even though I always advise people to remarry as soon as they are ready.
There is no time frame to remarry, but while at it, be truthful to yourself. In as much as you can do whatever you want, the truth of the matter is that remarrying quickly after the death of one’s spouse can be considered too soon, in some instances.
Common sense should come to play here. A person, who lost their spouse and remarries barely three or six months later, should not expect tongues not to wag, wisdom is profitable to direct.
Life is for the living. When your spouse dies, he or she is gone and has no business with the living. So, if you like remarry after six months, mourn them for years or remain single in memory of them, it’s your decision to make and not anyone’s.
