My Husband & I Got Engaged 3 Months After His Wife Died — & Neither of Us Are ‘Monsters’

We first exchanged a flurry of messages as I waited to board a cross-country flight after a visit with my sister, and within a couple of hours we found ourselves sharing incredibly intimate details about ourselves and our past marriages. I was five years out of a marriage that had spiraled into affectionless dysfunction before ending in an amicable divorce and shared custody of two children; he and his wife had similar struggles over the years, but his steadfast loyalty meant he committed to sticking things out regardless — and he stayed true to his vows until her death at age 39. Suddenly, he found himself alone with two cats and a lot of time on his hands to grieve and reflect on the good and bad of their marriage. I was fresh from a breakup with a long-term (post-divorce) boyfriend and was back on the online dating scene as a distraction, just like he was.

This was it. After a week, I introduced him to my parents, who were just as smitten as I was. After two weeks, he met my kids, and my older son declared that my now husband is “who I DREAMED you would find, Mom.” By week six, he had asked my parents for their blessing, and even my two boys were asking us when we were getting hitched.

One year later, we made it official and my dad married us in an intimate ceremony, the kids at our sides. And maybe this sounds crazy, but I kind of think that in some cosmic way, his wife “helped” bring us together from whatever lurks beyond this life. So many things had to happen justright for us to connect that it just felt like the strings were being pulled to make it happen.