My father has been widowed for 5 years. He waited 1 year and started dating. One lady after another. I do find it disgusting that he thinks this is appropriate behavior. Seeing 1 person at time is acceptable, but he now has 5 ladies he sees. I think this is horrible and a mockery to the beautiful marriage my Mom and he shared. Am I wrong? My daughter says I am being disrespectful.
What does your father have to say about this situation? He thinks this is appropriate behavior? His cognitive abilities may be in decline. I would really have a serious conversation with him. Keep an open mind. He indeed may be lonely and finds these ladies' attention fun. Have you actually MET any of them? What is his reaction to your meeting them? If he's secretive about it, it's a red flag. Elderly abusers don't want to be known to families.
Lastly, your Dad is 90. Sadly, the majority of 90-year olds are losing cognitive function and he probably wouldn't recognize financial abuse or accept if he was a victim of it. If you feel he's not being financially abused but just "having fun", then there's not much you can do.
After a spouse of many years dies, the remaining spouse goes through many emotions differently than a remaining child. He apparently mourned for a year and may be lonely and wanting some companionship. It has nothing to do with his loyalty to your Mom. Ask him, don't accuse. He may have a reasonable explanation.
I'd have felt odd as well if my parents started dating again, had they done that. They didn't live long enough, a part from each other, but it would've been a learning experience for me. And maybe the lesson would've been permission or not having the right to give permission.
For sure I'd give my husband a green light.
Be happy and feel lucky he's got friends.
In my lifetime I learned a natural division between friends as they did the same. I've had my movie friends, who sometimes overlapped my concert friends. I've had dinning/cooking friends. I have my phone, book swapping and lecture friends, etc. Some have died, moved, too sick or are busy caregiving. New good people are always welcome.
Your dad's true-blue time was with your mom.
Does your father bathe, shave and continues to be, within fair parameters, responsible? Or is he showing signs of going into a second adolescence?
Are his friends about his age, fun and lady-like? I'd only worry if they are the Lady in Distress type. Can you prove in a court of law that he is incompetent?
Your dad is alive. He's healthy. HE'S NINETY, Hello?
A healthy mind does not want an old dad or mom to live miserably, obsessing about a loved one's death, or about their own impending death. This is not what we want for each other.
He maybe saving himself and five others.
great insight
When we reach ninety, we've earned the right to live to the fullest. And whatever relationships he has now have nothing to do with his marriage to your mom. If anything, that marriage must have been so good that it gave him this lust for life.
Celebrate with him.
Is this completely opposite to his previous personality and moral code? That could cause the OP to feel their father has been replaced with a stranger they can't understand or relate to.
Is he bringing his lady friends to family functions and insisting they be regarded as a pseudo family member?
Is he treating these ladies in a way that is disrespectful to women and most of us would find repulsive in a younger man?
But - I'm not suggesting that any of that gives the OP permission to treat her father like a naughty teenager.
Now he's making up for missed youth..
If Dad was dating one lady, I would think that should concern you more. Dad's just enjoying life. Be happy for him!
At 90 yrs old, he should do what he wants as who knows when it'll be his last.
He may just enjoy different ladies for their Company and nice that he has several friends.
Don't take it so personally, just because he has a few lady friends, doesn't mean he didn't love your mom. You might try looking at it that even all these women can't take the place of his wife.
Everyone deals with their loss in different ways.
You should be happy that he is trying to live and not be depressed and or want to die.
BUT this is his life and his body. He can do what he wants. He probably had an agreement with your mom that whoever outlived the spouse should wait for a year and then live life to its fullest. (I had this discussion with my husband and we agreed to the one year embargo. After that, free agent.). He’s 90. How much time left does he have? If he is not abusing the ladies and they are not abusing him, let him enjoy the last few years of his long life.
I say bravo to his first wife for treating him and leaving him with so many positive memories that he wants to start all over again!
Is dad going to meals with different people? Is he seeing a man if he has dinner with him or plays a round of golf with him? Or goes to a community function with the woman on the second floor? Is he dating a woman if he helps her in any way?
Is he living at home? In a facility? Are these dates church functions? If dad has a meal with a woman is that a date?
Or is dating having sex? What is seeing?
It was really, REALLY hard to watch this happen, because Mom didn't ever not know her children until almost the end, but she seemed to forget Dad in a heartbeat. She HAD to, because her heart was broken, and it took me a while to understand that. From that point on, I accepted Mom's invisible husband as a part of the family. He even warranted a mention at Mom's memorial service, and her caregivers told me that Mom weathered the Covid lockdown much better than most of the residents because Dan never left her side.
Please understand that your dad needs companionship. Losing a spouse of so many years isn't merely heartbreaking, it's like losing a limb. He's not trying to replace your mother, but he is trying to feel whole and loved again and that's not something to get angry about.
My grandmother died 1966, and my grandfather held out for four years before remarrying. He was so certain his daughters would be upset that he didn't even tell them when he did get married. My mother was indeed livid (my aunt was not), and she had a cool relationship with her father's wife for the rest of their lives. Ruth (the new wife) was only five years older than my mother, so Mom was pretty bent about her father being a "dirty old man," but Ruth was nearly 50, had never been married, had worked for my grandfather in the 1940s, and they were very happy for 13 years until he died. It was really unfortunate that my mother never could quite forgive her father for wanting to feel whole again, because Ruth was part of our family until she herself died in 2018 and was the only grandmother I knew. (I was too young to remember my grandmother.)
Don't confuse your heartbreak at the loss of your parents as a unit with your father's loss of half of who he was. He's not required to martyr himself to your mother's memory by being alone for the rest of his life. Please be supportive and make sure his finances are well-secured just in case one of the lady friends isn't quite as ladylike as one would hope.
You have not said, but are you worried that your father may have a disinhibition disorder, dementia causing hypersexuality, or behavioral issues?
One of the signs of this behavior is that it is upsetting to family and caregivers.
(1) excessive time consumed by the sexual symptoms; (2) hypersexuality in response to dysphoric mood states; (3) hypersexuality in response to stressful life events; (4) repetitive but unsuccessful efforts to reduce or control the sexual symptoms; and (5) repetitive engagement in sexual behavior despite the risk for harming themselves or others.
Has anyone mentioned your father's behavior to you?
As much as adult children and younger generations of extended family are loving and attentive, being able to be with someone who remembers living through the times that you lived through (the music, the styles, the events) is a way to reconnect with your own lifespan. that loneliness when 'everyone I knew is in the cemetery now' is so painful.
I would guess he doesn't not see himself as 'dating', He has lady friends that he spends time with, and they enjoy the time together.
A man who can drive and is able to care for himself and carry on conversation at age 90 is a rare commodity, so he will never lack from attention from the ladies of his age group.
My elderly parent at 90 expects that her adult daughters attend to all of her needs, including socialization and entertainment. If she had a 'gentleman friend' who visited once a week for conversation, it would be huge gift for her...and her daughters.
Just a different perspective. Hope that this issue does not drive a wedge between you and your father.
Soon enough he will decline and need you much more than he does right now.
Take care.
As his daughter you can disapprove, but you cant stop him from doing this. I sympathize with you about how it seems like a mockery to his marriage - I dont think anyone would seriously want their life-long partner to go ape-wild a year after they died and if they say they dont mind, I'd highly doubt it. You dont spend an entire lifetime with someone and then the minute you croak say Ok honey have fun! At least not in that way. I dont even think I sound old fashioned, I think people have just become callous and the attachment styles today are less about the true connection and more about what people can get out of it for themselves.
Anyway, you're not wrong in feeling this way. But you cant stop him. And yes, STDs are a real thing in nursing homes, but if he catches one then maybe he'll learn to slow down.