How long is long enough to grieve the death of a spouse? For some, the grieving never ends. For others, they may start dating and fall in love again almost right away. Is moving on so quickly disrespectful to the deceased spouse?

In this story, one woman is grabbling with these questions. Her mom just died three months ago, and she’s still grieving. However, her dad has moved on and has started dating. He even claims that her mom would’ve wanted him to start dating again this quickly.

She’s really upset and and is having trouble coping with her dad’s new relationship. However, she’s wondering if this is her issue or if her dad really is moving on too quickly.

Let’s read the whole story to decide.

AIO Today is the 3 month anniversary of my mom’s death and my dad is in a hotel with another woman

Last December, my amazing mom (60F) became suddenly ill and passed on January 25th.

My heart still aches daily for her, but has been completely exacerbated by my dad (55M) starting to see someone new very quickly, which has been really difficult for me to process.

Her parents seemed truly in love.

My parents went on their first date and were engaged less than 60 days later.

They raised my two siblings and me with a lot of love and were absolutely dedicated to one another.

Their love story felt so beautiful, and while she was sick, my father told me how he couldn’t imagine a world without her.

The night after she passed, he said to me how he couldn’t imagine being with anyone else, but maybe he’d be open to coffee with someone far into the future.

It wasn’t that far in the future.

Within the month, he had a discussion with us about how adult children can get defensive of the dead spouse when the other starts dating again.

He’s always been a planner, so I figured he was just talking about the future.

Turns out, he was already on dating apps looking for “friends”.

Within a month and a half, he went out for coffee with a woman. He then quickly began spending all of his free time with her.

He claims her mom would’ve wanted him to move on.

Today, three months after my mom died, he is in a hotel with her to see one of her grandchildren play volleyball.

I am having an impossible time seeing this as anything other than disrespectful to my mom.

I’ve talked to him about it, and he says that “this is what mom wants” and “she asks about your mom all the time”.

It’s very hard for me to believe that my mom would be thrilled about him looking for someone new within a month of her sudden death.

He might be lonely.

Neither of my parents had any real friends, something I always worried about should something happen to them.

Due to this, it seems he has put a lot of his grieving process onto this new woman, as he barely talks to his children about our mom or his feelings.

Some additional details are that he is currently on short-term disability and frequently talks about the struggle to keep extending it, while he can travel with a new woman.

That disconnect has been hard for me to understand.

She wonders if her dad really is being disrespectful of her mom of if she’s overreacting.

When my sister talked to him about how upset this made her feel.

He got very defensive and then told her that my mom wished she had called more.

I know that moving on is inevitable and can exist alongside his love and grief for my mom. If it had been a year, I would be okay with this. But a month with the history he had with my mom and how her death was so sudden really feels like a slap in the face to what made their love special.

So Reddit, am I right to think he is being disrespectful? How do I maintain a relationship with him when he is spending all his time with this new woman?

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It really would be hard to see a parent move on so quickly; however, it’s possible the relationship won’t last. If the dad doesn’t really have any friends, he’s probably really lonely without his wife. However, it is possible that the relationship will last. It sounds like OP’s parents met and married pretty quickly, yet it all worked out.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a teen who is being called ungrateful because he’s not overjoyed his parents bought him a gift they did not discuss.

Let’s see what Reddit thinks of this situation.

It’s in the statistics.

One woman thinks her husband would do the same thing.

She has two options.

This person would’ve been upset too.

Losing a parent is hard enough without your surviving parent bringing a new person into their life almost immediately. I can totally understand why she feels that her dad is being disrespectful.

Honestly, his wife is gone. He’s lonely. He’s possibly even hiding from his grieve with the distraction of a new relationship.

But, is he happy? Maybe she can’t exactly bring herself to feel happy for him, but she could try to let him make his own decisions without judging him too harshly for them.

Everyone grieves in their own way.