Since her marriage, indeed since her engagement, Denise had never given a thought to being married to anyone else besides her husband... until shortly after he died. When he mercifully passed after a sudden and painful illness, far earlier than either of them had expected and far too suddenly in her own selfish view, Denise still hadn’t given a thought to remarriage, until she started to notice other unmarried men, either widowed like her or divorced, her own age. Or perhaps it was that other men her age were noticing her and signaling to her their interest in dating. Denise surprised and in some ways disappointed herself when she discovered that she was taking a return interest in one of them. She still had no idea, though, how to go about deciding whether to remarry.

Deciding

Whether to remarry is a deeply personal decision for the widowed or divorced individual. How, indeed, do surviving spouses, or for that matter those who have recently divorced, go about deciding whether to remarry? Somehow, the thought that one might have had when young of finding the one person on the planet made for you in marriage no longer makes much sense. That person either died or divorced, leaving their presumed perfect companion behind and alone. Does the creator make two such persons, in case of the demise or disappearance of the first of them? The thought doesn’t seem to hold much to it. While a first marriage may seem profoundly intuitive, divine, and romantic, a second marriage, especially one much later in life, can instead have a ring of practicality to it. The scriptures clearly sanction remarriage after death and may sanction remarriage after divorce due to adultery or abandonment. And scripture also gives an air of practicality to the marriage of singles who cannot control their desires. Remarriage after a beloved and irreplaceable spouse’s death may indeed be more a matter of practicalities, like relieving loneliness and ensuring greater care and support, than finding a second love of one’s life somewhere deep in the call of one’s heart. You be the judge, while discerning the heart and desire of your beloved maker.

Advice

Surviving or divorced spouses may of course get sound advice about remarriage from pastors, grief counselors, psychologists, therapists, family members, and friends. Consulting professionals can confirm sound thoughts, bring fresh perspective, and correct misimpressions. Consulting family members and friends can do the same but may also alert, for better or worse, your social network of your potential availability as a marriage or dating partner. Don’t spread the thought of remarriage around your network of acquaintances if remarriage is not your desire. Having others gossip and speculate, and facing dating overtures or even marriage talk and proposals, may cause you substantial emotional turbulence or distress. Keep it to yourself, and deny all interest, if you need to grieve your spouse’s passing without the burden of others speculating about your potential remarriage. One season at a time. 

Policy

For whatever it may be worth to you, law and policy generally favor remarriage after a spouse’s passing or after divorce. Law and policy actually address two issues head on: (1) no two spouses at a time, meaning no bigamy; and (2) you are perfectly free to remarry so far as the law is concerned once you no longer have a spouse, whether by your prior spouse’s demise or divorce. Law and policy favor remarriage not just by authorizing it but also by giving remarried couples the same advantages that first-time-married couples enjoy, including a favored joint-filing tax status, tax deductions, and exemption of marital property from attachment or execution by the creditor of only one of the two spouses. Law and policy favor marriage and remarriage because the family unit, headed by the married couple, is society’s fundamental unit and bedrock. Married couples not only bring children into the world but also raise, educate, and socialize them to bring their own children into the world. Married couples also care for one another throughout marriage and to the end of life, relieving the taxpayer or community from doing so. Law and policy have every reason to recognize and encourage your remarriage.

Timing

Yet in remarriage, as in marriage, timing can be everything. Marry too soon after your spouse’s death, and you may not have grieved sufficiently or had time to reorder your own personal, marital, and financial affairs. People may also talk, if your reputation matters to you. Likewise, marry too soon after your divorce, and your ex-spouse and others may assume that your interest in your new spouse was a factor in your divorce, again, if your reputation on such an issue matters to you. But you also may be on the rebound, as folks say. You may be marrying to compensate for your loss rather than for better or longer-lasting reasons. In other words, if you just wait a little longer before remarrying, you may not feel such a strong urge to do so. Your cooler head may prevail in making a better decision about remarriage or even a better choice of spouses in remarriage. Give yourself time to mourn, grieve, adjust, settle matters, and look around. You need not wait aeons, until it’s too late. But don’t rush into remarriage. If you had children with your deceased or departed spouse, those children may also prefer that more time pass before you remarry, although the decision is yours, not for them.

Process

In time, if you’re still interested in remarriage and are sure that you’re not still on the rebound, consider following a sound process of dating, courting, and engagement moving toward remarriage. The process of remarriage need not look exactly like the process leading up to a first marriage. Indeed, the process of remarriage should probably not look the same, almost surely not be so expensive and elaborate, for instance. But as you’ve seen in a prior chapter, that process can achieve or promote important things for the marriage or remarriage including confirming compatibility, reliability, integrity, practicality, and genuine intent. The process can also gently rather than rudely habituate and unite the new couple in their practices, souls, and disciplines. Don’t shortcut or shortchange the process, even if you curtail some of the fanfare and eliminate some of the trappings. 

Reasons

You may have good reason to remarry after the passing of your spouse or after divorce. Your need for or interest in companionship, care, and support may be among the leading reasons. An empty home can be disconcerting, lonely, and even unsafe, insecure, and frightening. Having to do everything for oneself that one used to share with one’s spouse can be wearying and burdensome. Not having your spouse in the home for whom to care can leave one aimless and purposeless. Social engagements may be fewer and more awkward without a spouse to accompany you or invite you. Healthcare decisions may be poorer and harder. Exercise may be less frequent, and eating less regular and nutritious. Drinking, smoking, gambling, antidepressant drugs, compulsive shopping, and other unhealthy, endangering, impoverishing, or corrupting activities may be more tempting and harder to resist without a spouse’s balances, monitoring, and checks. Don’t underestimate the number and weight of the reasons you may have for remarrying. 

Dissuasions

You may also find multiple reasons not to remarry, if you take a good, hard look. You may learn to like life in your home alone. Remarriage might bring a person into your life to whose personality and habits you find it hard to adjust. Remarriage may require you to resume household chores that the passing or divorce of your prior husband permitted you to gladly abandon. You may find that your household expenses increase without a concomitant increase in your household financial support. Your new spouse may spend more of the funds that you had intended to secure your own retirement. Your new spouse may have health issues and needs for home care that soon burden you, just after your prior husband’s passing or divorce unburdened you of greater or lesser burdens. Remarriage could interfere with your old friendships, taking you out of your own community and depriving you of the support of your old network. Consider making a list of advantages and disadvantages to remarrying, and assigning weight and priority to the reasons in each list. Talk with the professionals or others listed above whom you might find to be helpful advisors, and listen to the thoughts of adult children and trusted friends who know you best.

Effects

Remarriage after the passing of your spouse or after divorce may affect your legal rights and interests. Remarriage may affect your Social Security surviving spouse or divorced surviving spouse benefits, depending on your age and other circumstances, or may qualify you for a new Social Security spousal benefit through your new spouse, with adjustments. Investigate those questions with the Social Security Administration or a qualified attorney or financial advisor, before remarriage if their outcome matters to you. Remarriage after divorce could affect spousal support under the judgment of divorce or may trigger other events and obligations under the same judgment, such as to have to sell the occupied former marital home. Review the judgment of divorce, and consult your divorce attorney. Examine anything else unusual to your situation, including business or property interests you hold, liabilities you owe or others owe you, foundations you control, trusts from which you benefit, and beneficiaries to insurance on your life, to determine how remarriage might affect related rights and interests.

Children

Remarriage after the passing of your spouse or after a divorce may affect your children and grandchildren, too, either positively or negatively. Your children and grandchildren may welcome your remarriage and like and respect your new spouse. But your children and grandchildren could instead take offense that you would allow anyone to presume to replace your dear departed spouse, their beloved parent or grandparent. Your children might feel that you remarried too soon or unwisely. They may curtail visits that include your new spouse, interfering with your relationship not only with your children but also with your grandchildren. Consider asking your children how your remarriage would affect them before you decide to remarry. Your children do not hold a veto power over your remarriage, but your remarriage’s impact on your children might influence your decision to remarry, once you learn, when the only reliable way to learn may be to ask them. If you do, they may well ask whom you intend to marry, so be ready in advance, such as with your remarriage candidate’s permission, to make that disclosure if you wish to do so.

Inheritance

Your children may also be concerned about the effect of your remarriage on their inheritance or other gift or property rights related to you and the passing of their other parent. They may justly fear that their anticipated inheritance from their deceased parent and you will instead pass to your new spouse and your new spouse’s children. You may be able to address, and likely should give careful thought and deliberate attention to, the impact of your remarriage on the inheritance interests of your children and grandchildren. If you have no will, trust, or other estate plan, and you have property of any kind and significant value, then consult a qualified estate planning attorney to learn how your remarriage may affect the interests of your children and grandchildren, and how your new spouse may also benefit. If you do have a will, trust, or other estate plan, consult the attorney who helped you prepare those documents or another qualified estate planner, to learn how your remarriage may affect the plan those documents intended to reflect. You may need to amend your will or trust to preserve your prior plan and intent, or to form a new plan in consideration of your new spouse. 

Support

When planning to remarry, you may also wish to discuss with your candidate new spouse your anticipated marital finances including your relative obligations or expectations of earned or contributed income and household services and support. Don’t leave to assumptions who will or won’t work for earned income, who will or won’t pay the mortgage, rent, or food or light bill, or how the two of you will divide, assign, or share household financial and service obligations. Do the same with respect to rights of survivorship and inheritance, including such things as whether either of you will name the other as a beneficiary of life insurance, include or exclude one another in wills and trusts, or share control or management of business, charitable, or other interests. Discussions of this type may take some of the excitement and mystery out of the dating and courting process toward remarriage, but a remarriage can differ markedly from an early first marriage in the property and other interests that you can accumulate in the meantime. Avoid surprises, or you may have a very short and contentious remarriage, when you would have found it far better not to remarry at all.

Residence

When planning to remarry, you and your candidate new spouse will obviously discuss your intended marital residence together. Remarriage can bring more issues in that regard than an early first marriage, where neither spouse might have a substantial equity interest in a home. In the case of remarriage, you and your candidate new spouse may each own homes, either free and clear or with a mortgage, multiple mortgages, or a joint tenant such as a prior spouse awaiting the home’s sale. The homes may also have substantially different values, maintenance costs, and amenities, not to mention locations. Be sure that you understand those varying and sometimes hidden financial, legal, and practical parameters. Don’t fall into a situation where you thought that something special would happen related to housing upon your remarriage, when that special thing you anticipated curiously instead evaporates because it never existed in the way that you assumed. Agree on where the two of you will live, and understand the financial and legal implications of that agreement, so that things can go well and as you believed, planned, expected, and assumed.

Reflection

With whom should you consult before seriously considering your remarriage? When is the right time for you to remarry? What must you grieve, mourn, resolve, address, rearrange, or accomplish before remarrying? What would be your best plan for dating, courtship, and engagement before remarrying? List and assign priority and weight to your reasons for and against remarrying. Do you have someone especially wise and close to you with whom you can share and discuss your list? How will remarriage affect your Social Security surviving spouse benefits or other rights? Will your remarriage trigger any terms of your divorce judgment? Have you discussed your remarriage with your children, or do you plan to do so? How do you predict your remarriage will affect them? Have you confirmed your estate plan to ensure that your remarriage will not defeat your intentions for leaving inheritances to your children or grandchildren? Have you confirmed with your candidate new spouse your relative financial contributions and your marital residence?

Key Points

• Get sound advice from trusted acquaintances on remarriage.

• The law generally favors remarriage for its benefit on households.

• The timing of your remarriage may matter as much as your decision.

• Follow a sound remarriage process of dating, courting, and counseling.

• Reasons for remarriage can include companionship, care, and support.

• Reasons against remarriage can include new burdens and adjustments.

• Remarriage can affect Social Security benefits and other interests.

• Remarriage can trigger a divorce judgment’s terms and conditions.

• Children can react unpredictably and negatively to your remarriage.

• Remarriage can threaten children’s inheritance interests.

• Agree on financial contributions and residence before remarriage.