8 ms·

Widows on the Pain of Dining Alone

69 points by NaOH 7y ago

wiradikusuma 7y ago
These days, many couples don't dine in the same table due to work (overtime, odd working hours in gig economy, night shift), and when they do, they're busy with their phone. I'm pretty sure it's not a good thing, but hey at least they won't feel the pain of dining alone /sarcasm.
mlacks 7y ago
The idea of leaving my SO alone like this is terrifying, but all the preparation in the world can't stop chance - I can only control so much. Life can be cruel sometimes
- IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago
  One possibly effective strategy would be to invest the work into maintaining and building new friendships outside your relationship. People often stop socialising when they are in a relationship, or they leave all of the work that goes into it to their partner. So do a bit of that and, if necessary, encourage your your partner. It might also be possible to encourage friendships you brought into the relationship to grow to the point where they would work independent of you. Sometimes this obviously is an effect of having children and therefore not enough time. But, even then, giving it a higher priority should make it possible at least to maintain existing relationships over the decade or so children take the most time. I also know plenty of couples with children that value relationships and have found any number of ways to accommodate them, from changing jobs to cut down on commutes to getting multiple families together for activities they would usually just do with their children, etc. For the really adventurous, the it-takes-a-village approach to raising a child also seems to be making a comeback. Speaking of free love: It seems (if Hollywood is to be believed) that in the US, people sometimes frown upon their partner having any friends of the opposite gender. While it's possibly too much to ask for people to completely free themselves of jealousy, one should at the least not consider such a policy to be a small ask to make. That's especially true for friendships that started before the couple even knew each other.
  - SyneRyder 7y ago
    >It seems (if Hollywood is to be believed) that in the US, people sometimes frown upon their partner having any friends of the opposite gender. I can't say I've got that impression from US movies, but watching the Chinese dating TV show "If You Are The One" (airs in primetime with subtitles in Australia), the women often ask the male candidates to give up all their female friendships as a condition of dating. (Occasionally the male contestants will make the same request.) Sometimes the women will allow female friendships if the male contestant agrees to regularly let them read/approve the phone messages they send to others. It's been an interesting show to watch from a cultural perspective.
  - cafard 7y ago
    Some must frown upon it. I am on good terms with quite a few women--some from work, some from the neighborhood, some from other circles, and it doesn't appear to bother my wife. She has male college friends in the area, not that she sees them much, and that certainly doesn't bother me. But it strikes me that being in a committed relationship, married or not, removes a portion of one's life from conversation. It strikes me as awkward to speak in a much more than neutral tone about one's spouse. This really goes for conversations with the same sex as much as for conversations with the opposite sex.
newshorts 7y ago
My mind immediately goes to local dive bars. I’m sure there’s more than a few folks looking for some distraction from a reality such as this...
- stevoski 7y ago
  I found the underground poker scene to be a nice distraction from the reality. I got to be around people, and yet they wouldn't ask me bothersome questions. Additionally, the poker kept my mind focused for a few hours at a time on something other than the loss.
aaron695 7y ago
> widows (a gender-neutral term that bereavement counselors now use) The proudness of scientific based medicine in becoming less precise is concerning. I guess bereavement counselors is not actually that evidence based, but there's no reason it shouldn't be. But a good article in general.
stevoski 7y ago
This article is spot on. Being triggered with memories of your loss every time you go to the supermarket, not eating properly to the point of experiencing easily avoided physical problems... It is probably hard for many to understand until you've been there.
m0zg 7y ago
As someone 20 years into my marriage, I can totally imagine the loss like this being something I wouldn't ever be able to overcome, and I'm a (presumably less sensitive) male. Things aren't always great, but then you think of all those years and shared moments lived together, and realize that it's not really feasible, or even desirable to live apart anymore. The whole is truly greater than the sum of its parts.
- DoreenMichele 7y ago
  and I'm a (presumably less sensitive) male. Men typically end up more emotionally dependent on their wife. When a marriage ends, women are usually financially devastated. Men are emotionally devastated and don't know how to recover.
  - PedroBatista 7y ago
    I wish someone actually studied this. Is it social circle? They never have been taught to deal with emotions as good as women? It’s in women’s DNA? It’s differences in attachment like men profoundly think they are a team? It’s the reality ( somewhat distorted) that women can easily find a partner, but the contrary is not true, ie. females do the selection?
    - DoreenMichele 7y ago
      Older women cannot easily find a partner. Women live longer than men, so women outnumber men in old age, and men tend to choose younger partners. Women tend to be more emotionally savvy than men and tend to have better social support systems. Men tend to be heavily dependent on their wives for emotional support.
    - jacobush 7y ago
      There are many studies of all these things.
Merrill 7y ago
I wonder whether widows of couples who spend more time apart are similarly affected? There are many occupations where the husband spends days to weeks away - truckers, pilots, seamen, oil rig workers, construction workers, soldiers, etc.
- orev 7y ago
  At least you would know they are still there and you’ll see them again eventually.
  - Merrill 7y ago
    In some cases, such as the wives of Bedford whalers, the voyages may have been 3 years or more and a significant percentage did not return. Before the last few decades it would have been uncommon to receive daily phone calls.
m_fayer 7y ago
I don't want to denigrate the contents of this article. But has anyone else noticed that over the last few years the NYT has slowly become more and more of a "lifestyle blog" or "thinkpiece farm"? This sort of writing has value, but I used to rely on the NYT for journalism - of the sort that has reporters at all corners of the globe, talking to people, uncovering paper trails, doing research. It seems to publish less and less of that these days.
- krastanov 7y ago
  It is certainly frustrating for me that they do little to distinguish "NYT newspaper" from "NYT magazine". The newspaper is still what you remember, in the same quantity and quality. It is just that the magazine has grown a lot and is occasionally more visible. To be clear, the magazine is high quality, but it is not what I am interested in.
  - m_fayer 7y ago
    I take pains to "configure" my consumption of their content, and best I can tell, the quantity of the high-quality stuff has declined. A meaty well-researched article hits the world/business/tech/science sections only a few times a week.
- spodek 7y ago
  In the case of this piece, the "story" of dealing with death or separation is older than humans. If there is any news to it, it's our society's continued isolation. We didn't evolve in such lonely existences, far from family, friends, and community. Our ancestors who outlived partners depended on them, and prepared for such outcomes by seeing it happen to their elders. Identifying the problem this way might lead us to reduce our isolation. But this piece didn't touch on that angle.
- zappo2938 7y ago
  NYTimes had been losing money for years. You're probably correct, however, they are doing what they need to to survive.
nc43qthfzk 7y ago
Sad. On the plus side they had "46 years of total bliss". For perspective, some people have to dine alone their entire lives.

69 points by NaOH 7y ago

These days, many couples don't dine in the same table due to work (overtime, odd working hours in gig economy, night shift), and when they do, they're busy with their phone. I'm pretty sure it's not a good thing, but hey at least they won't feel the pain of dining alone /sarcasm.

mlacks 7y ago

The idea of leaving my SO alone like this is terrifying, but all the preparation in the world can't stop chance - I can only control so much. Life can be cruel sometimes

IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago
One possibly effective strategy would be to invest the work into maintaining and building new friendships outside your relationship. People often stop socialising when they are in a relationship, or they leave all of the work that goes into it to their partner. So do a bit of that and, if necessary, encourage your your partner. It might also be possible to encourage friendships you brought into the relationship to grow to the point where they would work independent of you. Sometimes this obviously is an effect of having children and therefore not enough time. But, even then, giving it a higher priority should make it possible at least to maintain existing relationships over the decade or so children take the most time. I also know plenty of couples with children that value relationships and have found any number of ways to accommodate them, from changing jobs to cut down on commutes to getting multiple families together for activities they would usually just do with their children, etc. For the really adventurous, the it-takes-a-village approach to raising a child also seems to be making a comeback. Speaking of free love: It seems (if Hollywood is to be believed) that in the US, people sometimes frown upon their partner having any friends of the opposite gender. While it's possibly too much to ask for people to completely free themselves of jealousy, one should at the least not consider such a policy to be a small ask to make. That's especially true for friendships that started before the couple even knew each other.
- SyneRyder 7y ago
  >It seems (if Hollywood is to be believed) that in the US, people sometimes frown upon their partner having any friends of the opposite gender. I can't say I've got that impression from US movies, but watching the Chinese dating TV show "If You Are The One" (airs in primetime with subtitles in Australia), the women often ask the male candidates to give up all their female friendships as a condition of dating. (Occasionally the male contestants will make the same request.) Sometimes the women will allow female friendships if the male contestant agrees to regularly let them read/approve the phone messages they send to others. It's been an interesting show to watch from a cultural perspective.
- cafard 7y ago
  Some must frown upon it. I am on good terms with quite a few women--some from work, some from the neighborhood, some from other circles, and it doesn't appear to bother my wife. She has male college friends in the area, not that she sees them much, and that certainly doesn't bother me. But it strikes me that being in a committed relationship, married or not, removes a portion of one's life from conversation. It strikes me as awkward to speak in a much more than neutral tone about one's spouse. This really goes for conversations with the same sex as much as for conversations with the opposite sex.

newshorts 7y ago

My mind immediately goes to local dive bars. I’m sure there’s more than a few folks looking for some distraction from a reality such as this...

stevoski 7y ago
I found the underground poker scene to be a nice distraction from the reality. I got to be around people, and yet they wouldn't ask me bothersome questions. Additionally, the poker kept my mind focused for a few hours at a time on something other than the loss.

aaron695 7y ago

> widows (a gender-neutral term that bereavement counselors now use) The proudness of scientific based medicine in becoming less precise is concerning. I guess bereavement counselors is not actually that evidence based, but there's no reason it shouldn't be. But a good article in general.

stevoski 7y ago

This article is spot on. Being triggered with memories of your loss every time you go to the supermarket, not eating properly to the point of experiencing easily avoided physical problems... It is probably hard for many to understand until you've been there.

m0zg 7y ago

As someone 20 years into my marriage, I can totally imagine the loss like this being something I wouldn't ever be able to overcome, and I'm a (presumably less sensitive) male. Things aren't always great, but then you think of all those years and shared moments lived together, and realize that it's not really feasible, or even desirable to live apart anymore. The whole is truly greater than the sum of its parts.

DoreenMichele 7y ago
and I'm a (presumably less sensitive) male. Men typically end up more emotionally dependent on their wife. When a marriage ends, women are usually financially devastated. Men are emotionally devastated and don't know how to recover.
- PedroBatista 7y ago
  I wish someone actually studied this. Is it social circle? They never have been taught to deal with emotions as good as women? It’s in women’s DNA? It’s differences in attachment like men profoundly think they are a team? It’s the reality ( somewhat distorted) that women can easily find a partner, but the contrary is not true, ie. females do the selection?
  - DoreenMichele 7y ago
    Older women cannot easily find a partner. Women live longer than men, so women outnumber men in old age, and men tend to choose younger partners. Women tend to be more emotionally savvy than men and tend to have better social support systems. Men tend to be heavily dependent on their wives for emotional support.
  - jacobush 7y ago
    There are many studies of all these things.

Merrill 7y ago

I wonder whether widows of couples who spend more time apart are similarly affected? There are many occupations where the husband spends days to weeks away - truckers, pilots, seamen, oil rig workers, construction workers, soldiers, etc.

orev 7y ago
At least you would know they are still there and you’ll see them again eventually.
- Merrill 7y ago
  In some cases, such as the wives of Bedford whalers, the voyages may have been 3 years or more and a significant percentage did not return. Before the last few decades it would have been uncommon to receive daily phone calls.

m_fayer 7y ago

I don't want to denigrate the contents of this article. But has anyone else noticed that over the last few years the NYT has slowly become more and more of a "lifestyle blog" or "thinkpiece farm"? This sort of writing has value, but I used to rely on the NYT for journalism - of the sort that has reporters at all corners of the globe, talking to people, uncovering paper trails, doing research. It seems to publish less and less of that these days.

krastanov 7y ago
It is certainly frustrating for me that they do little to distinguish "NYT newspaper" from "NYT magazine". The newspaper is still what you remember, in the same quantity and quality. It is just that the magazine has grown a lot and is occasionally more visible. To be clear, the magazine is high quality, but it is not what I am interested in.
- m_fayer 7y ago
  I take pains to "configure" my consumption of their content, and best I can tell, the quantity of the high-quality stuff has declined. A meaty well-researched article hits the world/business/tech/science sections only a few times a week.
spodek 7y ago
In the case of this piece, the "story" of dealing with death or separation is older than humans. If there is any news to it, it's our society's continued isolation. We didn't evolve in such lonely existences, far from family, friends, and community. Our ancestors who outlived partners depended on them, and prepared for such outcomes by seeing it happen to their elders. Identifying the problem this way might lead us to reduce our isolation. But this piece didn't touch on that angle.
zappo2938 7y ago
NYTimes had been losing money for years. You're probably correct, however, they are doing what they need to to survive.

nc43qthfzk 7y ago

Sad. On the plus side they had "46 years of total bliss". For perspective, some people have to dine alone their entire lives.