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Four months after her husband of 30 years died in 2012, Kathryn Shephard Cowan went on a date to the symphony with a man who seemed perfectly nice.
In hindsight, Ms. Shephard Cowan, who is 81 and lives in Santa Cruz, Calif., isn’t entirely sure why she thought she was ready to try dating, why she felt so compelled to move on. “You can do it,” she had told herself before the outing. “You can do it.”
What she didn’t anticipate was that hearing Beethoven — her husband’s favorite composer — would cause her to completely shut down, making a connection with her date virtually impossible.
“I was just torn apart emotionally,” Ms. Shephard Cowan said.
There are more than 11 million widows and 3 million widowers in the United States; like Ms. Shephard Cowan, most are 65 or older. And many are grieving a longtime partner while attempting to navigate the dating scene for the first time in decades. They may also be struggling to determine how soon to move on — by their own standards, and by society’s.
It is a tricky dance, said Sherry Cormier, a psychologist and trauma bereavement specialist, whose husband died when she was 61.
“Even when we do date or re-partner,” Dr. Cormier said, “and even when we’ve done a lot of work in processing our grief, it does not mean our grief is ‘over.’”
A longing for intimacy
The dating lives of older widows and widowers are having a bit of a moment thanks to the inaugural season of “The Golden Bachelorette,” which features several cast members who have lost longtime partners, including Joan Vassos, the 61-year-old bachelorette herself.
In most ways, the guilty-pleasure reality show does not reflect the realities of what it is like to be over 60 and looking for love. But the grief and longing the widowed contestants spoke of in the premiere episode felt undeniably real.
“No one’s going to replace John,” Ms. Vassos said of her late husband. “He lives in a place in my heart and in my mind that is just his. But I have a big heart. And there is room for somebody else.”
In Dr. Cormier’s experience, older widows and widowers tend to seek two things when they start dating again: emotional support and sexual intimacy. Priorities may be different for younger widowed daters, who tend to focus on finding someone to raise a family with, she said, or a true love match that will last for decades. (She acknowledged, however, that these are generalizations and that research in this area is scant.)
But Dr. Cormier’s observation rings true for Stan Brothers, a 69-year-old widower from Glendale, Calif., who was married for 20 years. After his wife’s death from cancer in 2009, he has been looking for a long-term relationship, but not someone who can replace what the couple had.
Marriage is irrelevant to Mr. Brothers at this stage, he said, but intimacy is still important. He is looking for a woman who truly wants to be with him, someone who wants to be touched and who is open to receiving pleasure. “Wrinkles, a few extra pounds, scars — none of that matters,” he added.
It took Joan Price, 80, a sex educator who focuses on senior sexuality and the author of “Sex After Grief,” several years after her husband’s death in 2008 to start dating again. At first, she dipped her toes into the dating pool largely because she wanted to feel a partner’s touch again.
“I went through all sorts of different things to try to bring sex back into my life,” Ms. Price said. She saw former lovers. She tried online dating and had many first dates, but nothing more.
“I didn’t want a commitment,” Ms. Price said. “I was still in love with my dead husband.”
Finding the ‘right time’
When Ms. Shephard Cowan went on that first ill-fated date to the symphony, she didn’t tell any of her friends or family. “It was hard to know with whom I could spill my grief,” she said. Many people in her life simply did not understand the pain of losing a spouse, and she was surprised several friends expected her to “just get over it.”
There is no “right time” to start dating again after the death of a partner, Dr. Cormier said, though friends and loved ones may offer opinions. Many grieving partners either feel pressured to get back out there before they feel ready, she said, or tsk-tsked for trying too soon. A recently widowed neighbor of hers brought a new girlfriend to a neighborhood barbecue last summer, and Dr. Cormier said she could practically hear the gasps.
Still, there are some guideposts that can help determine when you’re ready. It is essential to first make a meaningful effort to address your grief, Dr. Cormier said. Peer support groups and therapy are useful tools, and she also encourages clients to find social support in other ways: Spend time with family, volunteer, join a club or a religious organization, if you are so inclined.
When widows and widowers do seek romantic connection again, Ms. Price said it can help to have a handy retort or two at the ready for those who offer their opinions. She suggested something like: “My timeline is my own. I know when I’m ready.”
Mr. Brothers began dating a few months after his wife’s death, which probably raised some eyebrows, he said. But it was what she had wanted. “She picked out a wife for me before she died,” Mr. Brothers said.
Though that relationship never came to be, Mr. Brothers has been enjoying his search for long-term companionship — noting with a bit of surprise that he seemed to be something of a catch at this stage in his life.
On the other hand, it took Dr. Cormier six years before she felt ready to go on a date. And even then, the guilt was almost overwhelming.
After sitting down for lunch with a date and introducing herself, “I just really wanted to get up and run away,” she recalled.
With time, her hangups around dating have faded, Dr. Cormier said, but the grief stays with her, 16 years after her husband died.
“I don’t go around crying every day,” she said. But significant events, such as her granddaughter’s high school graduation, still trigger a surge of longing for her longtime partner.
“I felt like, damn it, why aren’t you here?” she said.
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