Re-engaging: New partnerships in late-life widowhood

Abstract

This article examines gender and age differences in the desire for a new partner following widowhood in later life. It also explores variations in actual partnerships that have developed within three to five years of widowhood. Findings are reported from a large representative Dutch survey of persons forty to eighty-five that included 130 widowed people; and a study of eighty-one widows and widowers between ages sixty and seventy-five that combines qualitative and quantitative methods. Desire for a new partner relationship is more often characteristic of those under age seventy. Although more widowers than widows expressed the desire for a new partner in the survey (16 percent vs. 9 percent), this difference is not significant. Three different types of partnerships developed in widowhood are described: consummate partnerships, steady companions, and service providers. There is evidence of continuing loyalty to the deceased partner in almost all the partnerships, suggesting that widowed people do not simply replace their former partners. Re-engagement in consummate partnerships and steady companionship appears to be effective in meeting fundamental relational needs, reducing loneliness, and providing meaning in later life.