Woman Says She Thinks It’s ‘Disrespectful’ for Her Elderly Father to Remarry 5 Years After Her Mom Died

A woman says her widowed father now wants to remarry — and she’s struggling with how she feels about it.

Sharing her story on the “Am I Being Unreasonable?” forum on the U.K. site Mumsnet.com, she explained that her mother died suddenly five years ago after a brief illness.

“My dad was devastated, they’d been together 50+ years,” she wrote.

Later that same year, her father met a widowed woman around his age, and the two have been a couple ever since. They don’t officially live together, but they live close to one another and “pretty much do everything as a couple,” she said.

She and her sibling initially had no issue with their dad finding love again. He seemed happy, and he had always been clear that he would not move in with his new partner and had “no intention of marrying again.”

Recently, though, things changed. Her father asked if she would have any objection to him marrying his partner.

“I said I did,” she admitted. “That it was something he said wouldn’t happen, and that if I gave them my blessing it would feel disrespectful to my mother’s memory.”

Now she’s wondering whether she handled it badly. On top of her emotional reaction, she’s also worried about the financial impact of a new marriage — especially that the house, savings and other assets built up by her parents over 50 years might no longer pass solely to their two children, but instead go to a new spouse he has known for a much shorter time.

Many commenters felt her reaction was misplaced.

“I’m sorry you lost your mom, OP, [but] yes, I think you’re being unreasonable,” one person wrote, arguing that five years is a significant amount of time and that her concerns seem “to be about your inheritance, not your father’s happiness.”

Another commenter pointed out that her father has been with his partner for five years and may simply want to share his later life with someone he loves. “If he is capable of marriage, he is perfectly capable of making a will that will consider everyone’s needs,” they added. “I understand that it may be upsetting but I think you need to let him live his life.”

Others, however, felt the daughter’s worries were understandable.

“Yanbu [you are not being unreasonable],” one commenter said. “I wouldn’t remarry in those circumstances, and on that basis I wouldn’t expect my parent to remarry. So I would be very open that I have massive concerns re: my mother’s estate not going to her children/grandchildren.”

The same commenter added that many of their own relatives in long-term second relationships have chosen not to legally remarry because they have children from previous relationships, calling remarriage in such situations “poor decision making, to be frank.”