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I love my wife. My wife is dead (1946)

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Re: I love my wife. My wife is dead (1946)

#61

Post by tasuki »

throwaway64643 wrote: post #49
strenholme wrote: post #10

My wife died 10 years ago, so I understand that pain. Dealing with death is never easy. The thing I miss most about my wife is the depth of emotional connection; she knew everything about me being very deeply in love with me and everything I did really mattered to her. It has taken me nearly 10 years to build a network of friends who can give me comparable levels of socialization and attention; I have about two dozen…

I always felt a sense of betrayal when someone sought a new partner after their spouse dies. But when I read a passage by Freeman Dyson about Feynman's trip to Santa Fe to meet his new girlfriend, my view has significantly shifted. Dyson (or perhaps someone else; I don't recall exactly) spoke of Feynman as someone who cannot stay out of a romantic relationship for too long. Some men just always want to love and be lo…

> I always felt a sense of betrayal when someone sought a new partner after their spouse dies.

Why?

Re: I love my wife. My wife is dead (1946)

#62

Post by pard68 »

I sometimes think about what my life would be like if my wife passed away. I'm also a father, and sometimes I wonder what life would be like if I lost my entire family. I think I'd have a hard time finding purpose and would either spiral or would become hyper focused in my career.

It is amazing. I had the same "best friend" for 20 years, from age 3 until 23, but almost as soon as I set eyes on my wife she became my best friend and became a much deeper and beloved one. I find that much of my motivation in life is because I want the best for her and our children.

Re: I love my wife. My wife is dead (1946)

#63

Post by em-bee »

patcon wrote: post #51
dang wrote: post #47

Reposts are fine after a year or so but this topic had a major thread within the last year, so the current post counts as a dupe by HN's standard. See https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html . Love after life: Richard Feynman's letter to his departed wife (2017) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37914958 - Oct 2023 (127 comments) Earlier threads, in case of interest: No Other Love: Letters from Richard Feynman…

REPOSTED from deleted top level comment. @dang I'm seeing that it was posted 7 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37914958 I appreciate the rules, but am very disappointed. There are some incredibly moving comments in here. I rarely feel as connected to the hacker news community as when reading these comments. The fact that it was erased off the front page for some rigid application of the rules, that l…

i agree with this. the problem with duplicates is that they often lead to repeating arguments that have already been hashed out in the previous discussions, and nothing new is being learned by repeating the same discussion after a short time.

however, this is only true if the actual content of the article is being discussed, and that is not the case here. we get discussions about loss, depression and other topics in that area every other month or so. and these discussions aren't so much about the articles themselves, but they invite people to share their personal stories that only relate to the article.

if it was the same people each time just repeating their stories, then it would make sense to call it a duplicate, but instead these posts open up a space for different people to share and deal with their grief and their struggles, which i think is worthwhile to allow more frequently than duplication rules would permit.

Re: I love my wife. My wife is dead (1946)

#64

Post by scioto »

This reminds me of John Scalzi's early SF book, Old Man's War. One of the MC's motivations throughout the book was the love of his wife. Apart from the pew-pew aspects, it's one of those stories that can hit you in the feels in the appropriate places. Won't say any more since it'd give away too much.

Re: I love my wife. My wife is dead (1946)

#65

Post by lisper »

strenholme wrote: post #10

My wife died 10 years ago, so I understand that pain. Dealing with death is never easy. The thing I miss most about my wife is the depth of emotional connection; she knew everything about me being very deeply in love with me and everything I did really mattered to her. It has taken me nearly 10 years to build a network of friends who can give me comparable levels of socialization and attention; I have about two dozen…

IMHO, it's not promiscuity that is morally questionable, its promiscuity without the informed consent of all parties involved. Feynman had affairs with married women (presumably without their husbands' knowledge or consent) and students, over whom he held power and whose consent (assuming they did consent) cannot have been free from coercion. (He also flat-out lied to women to get them to sleep with him, which is also not OK.)

I think it's important to distinguish these situations because I think there are a lot of people going through a lot of emotional pain because they believe that any sex outside of a long-term monogamous relationship is morally questionable, and it's not. The challenge is that insuring that all parties have given informed consent is hard, but the emotional toll of throwing in the towel on this can be pretty high, so I think it can be an effort worth making. Certainly it's worthwhile telling people that it's OK to try.

Re: I love my wife. My wife is dead (1946)

#66

Post by jhbadger »

tasuki wrote: post #61
throwaway64643 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always felt a sense of betrayal when someone sought a new partner after their spouse dies. But when I read a passage by Freeman Dyson about Feynman's trip to Santa Fe to meet his new girlfriend, my view has significantly shifted. Dyson (or perhaps someone else; I don't recall exactly) spoke of Feynman as someone who cannot stay out of a romantic relationship for too long. Some men just always want to love and be lo…

> I always felt a sense of betrayal when someone sought a new partner after their spouse dies. Why?

right? I mean even the traditional marriage vows (which given the possibility of divorce aren't really to be taken literally) include the phrase "until death do us part", implying that you are free to find somebody else once your partner has died.

Re: I love my wife. My wife is dead (1946)

#67

Post by _yb2s »

dang wrote: post #54
patcon wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

REPOSTED from deleted top level comment. @dang I'm seeing that it was posted 7 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37914958 I appreciate the rules, but am very disappointed. There are some incredibly moving comments in here. I rarely feel as connected to the hacker news community as when reading these comments. The fact that it was erased off the front page for some rigid application of the rules, that l…

Ok, I've turned off the dupe marker on this one.

Thank you Dang. I feel this is the right time to bring this discussion back, as HN has recently been having a lot of discussions about love, death, and loss. This discussion really isn’t only about the linked letter.

Re: I love my wife. My wife is dead (1946)

#68

Post by medstrom »

coldtea wrote: post #35
medstrom wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an almost universal feeling, "I can't imagine who I'd use as emotional support", but if you end things I promise that you will find someone again. Not a replacement, but not a knockoff either, just different.

Some people don't find someone as good again though. Good spouses/friends/etc are not that replaceable. Or rather, they're replacable practically, but the new persons are not necessarily offering the same level of connection.

You used an interesting view of "practical" :) Deep connection is not just some bonus, I think, but in fact the main practical thing about a relationship.

So I share your concern, but even so I'm not that worried. The deeper a connection you've been able to forge in the past, the better your chances of forging another deep connection.

Re: I love my wife. My wife is dead (1946)

#69

Post by _yb2s »

sampo wrote: post #3

Somewhat related: http://www.rosenfels.org/Feynman After the war, Feynman got a "D" from an army psychological evaluation because he, among other things, told the psychiatrist that he occasionally talks to his late wife. "Thinks people talk about him. Thinks people stare at him. Auditory hypnogogic hallucinations. Talks to self. Talks to deceased wife."

It’s incredible that they are so out of touch they see healthy introspection, and love as mental illness. This reminds me of when I had an actual bacterial infection, couldn’t get my Dr to prescribe antibiotics for it, so I got some on my own and they worked. When I pulled my medical records I saw in my chart something like “inappropriate off label use of prescription medications.”

Re: I love my wife. My wife is dead (1946)

#70

Post by dano »

throw0101c wrote: post #9

A little longer (76 pages), but A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis is also worth checking out: * http://www.samizdat.qc.ca/arts/lit/PDFs/GriefObserved_CSL.pd... (Canada public domain) * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Grief_Observed * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26077627-a-grief-observe...

This is a worthwhile read. Grief is really not as cut and dried as it's sometimes made out to be. As Lewis came around to understanding, and perhaps Feynman too, we had something special, something grand, and to remember is comforting.
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