Wife's assessment when the Wife dies before the Husband

[SC Maintenance]

My wife is pretty ticked at me, all because of something I said.

It started as a casual conversation about who might die first. She asked me if I would date again, after she is gone. I said "of course I would, you wouldn't want me to have to go to your funeral alone, would you?"

Apparently that was not the right response.

Out of the blue a few years ago my wife asked me "if I died, would you get married again", or something to that affect.

My immediate response without thinking was "No way, I would buy a bigger boat and fish much more".

This also is apparently the wrong answer. I thought it would make her happy?

 

[4wheeldog]

I love my wife, and will love her til my last day. That said, I am self sufficient in most things domestically and would make it OK on my own. I am a weirdo who doesn't mind being alone.

Agreed. I do most of the cooking and share the shopping. I would hire a house cleaner (I am a lousy housekeeper but so is my wife).
I also have no issue with not having people around but I would have to have a dog or dogs.

 

[levi]

We've been married 50 years. Approaching 51.

Before we were married, I worked with a man who was then in his late 50's. Great guy. A teacher. He worked part time where we were employed. He spoke glowingly of his family and the kids he taught in school. His name was Ted. Just a tremendous guy. Seriously.

We were talking about life one day and he solemnly said, "You know, I wouldn't take a million dollars for my wife. But I wouldn't give a plug nickel for another one just like her." There was absolutely no bitterness there.

I didn't know what to say then. Still don't.

Both my wife and myself love each other dearly. I give her all the credit for the success of our marriage. And we each agree, neither one of us would want to remarry if the other passes first. No desire to start the process all over again.

Ted had wisdom beyond his years, and mine, I think.

 

[doitmyself]

I think my Wife is likely referring to men of social security eligibility age.

and

Her theory is a man relies and is much more dependent on the spouse than a woman is on the husband; it is a genetic makeup.

At 48 years marriage and approaching age 70, I think your wife's idea is maybe/probably one part of numerous factors (Google the subject - men die earlier.). Of course we cannot paint with a broad paint brush and we all have our own single data point of opinion.

In my parents generation the mother ran the household and did the brunt of child rearing, especially the the details of dealing with children's illness, school problems, getting them places, food & clothing..............everything. That started to change in my generation and in my eyes, today's married couples share all duties much more equally, both work and home management. So I don't think your wife's hypothesis holds as much weight with today's generation. But man, look how fickle we men are about silly things like oil filters, lol.

Now, back to my and (especially) my dad's generation: I always contended that men are generally flawed and weak mentally and develop what I call the "John Wayne syndrome". We were raised not to show weakness. We stigmatize mental health care. We go through life putting on a front of strength, when in reality many men are messed up in the head. Sorry fellas, the truth hurts. Aren't most wars due to men and their "pissin' matches?

So, looking at all the reason's that men die earlier in my Google search and my mental health assertion above, I could see that Gon's wife's hypothesis could be one contributing factor or piece of the puzzle, especially in previous generations.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[dishdude]

I think men take the loss of a spouse harder than women do.

 

[2dogs]

Did the marriage thing. Never again. I'm fine on my own.

 

[Boomer]

My wife asked me if she dies, would I get remarried.

I said, "Probably."

She asked why.

I said, "Well, I wouldn't want to live in this big house all by myself!"

She said, "You'd let her live in my house? What about my new Mercedes?"

I said, "Well, its brand new. I'd take a financial beating if I sold it."

She said, "What about my jewelry? Would you let her wear it?"

I said, "Sure. Why not? its here and I certainly wouldn't wear it."

"And my new custom golf clubs?", she asked.

I said, "No."

She said, "Wait a minute she could live in my house, drive my car, wear my jewelry but not use my golf clubs?"

"She's left handed," I said.

 

[wander2039]

I agree that it applies to the older generations such as my grandparents, but don’t think it does today. One grandma lasted 15 years, another grandma is still going 7 years later. Neither gpa knew very much about housework so doubt if it was reversed would of been the same. But when it comes to me and dad we split the housework so we’ll be better off. Unless we die from boredom with no old lady to drive use crazy everyday.

 

[Cujet]

OK, so if you are closer to dying, then you're more likely dependent on your partner than they are, on you.

This may be a factor. Along with the stress of losing a spouse.

I'm 61, a capable man and there is no task below me or too lofty to accomplish. That is, until health issues (autoimmune MCTD and more) hit so hard I could not even walk. My wife is functionally disabled due to a nasty crash a year ago. She's been wonderful this past month during disease 'flare up'. I'm on the mend and hope to be capably back on my feet in short order.

TLDR, you are likely correct, old men rely on their more healthy spouse.

 

[Leo99]

I love my wife, and will love her til my last day. That said, I am self sufficient in most things domestically and would make it OK on my own. I am a weirdo who doesn't mind being alone.

My wife says the same thing about me. That, ideally, she'd die first as she's more dependent on me than vice versa. I can cook and clean and do laundry and pay bills. And all the other "manly" duties like change the oil and fix things around the house.

 

[Cujet]

Recently men have been closing the gap on life expectancy with women. I've read that the YY chromosome vs XY ( I think) for guys allows some redundancy so to speak with illness. Sounds like more guys are quitting not getting into the smoking habit vs more women picking it up.

Female XX Chromosomes do provide more ability to recover from certain diseases. Having two X chromosomes means females have a backup copy of X-linked genes, which can help mitigate the effects of harmful mutations or infections. For example, this genetic redundancy may contribute to better immune responses in females for some conditions, like certain infections or autoimmune diseases, though it’s not universal and depends on the disease.

 

[NormanBuntz]

On the contrary, my father outlived my mother by 24 years. I may be on pace to do something similar compared to my spouse.

 

[PandaBear]

This is purely based on personal opinion without test data to back up. I would imagine if this is that obvious someone would have done a study and publish a peer reviewed paper about this by now.

I too have my own theory but that's just a theory, from observation of my family and friend's family, on why men who lose spouses live shorter lives than women who lose spouses:

1) Men tend to get into addiction much easier than women and if there are no wives to stop you you end up with bad habits much easier (drinking, drugs, gambling, prostitutions, smoking, etc).

2) Men tend to have much higher metabolism and testostones level so they grow taller bigger than women, this come at a cost of life expectancy (everything is a trade off in evolution). By the time people die the other have a higher statistics of dying already as well. You are comparing someone who already had lower life expectancy in their genetic lifespan by the time they lose their spouses, so the chances of them not lasting longer is obviously higher.

3) Men likely won't get involved with their adult children and grand children as much as women in their old ages so the quality of family connections they have is weaker once they become widowers than women become widows. There is a theory (not sure if proven) that having better family relation with adult children tend to improve life expectancy.

4) Today's data likely come from prior generations of adults so things can easily change in the future. Who knows, men use to marry much younger women back then than today, so we'll see how things go in the future.

 

[Jetronic]

The wife dieing first is an anomaly. The man is already years closer to his grave in any relationship of the same age.

for example. If a woman dies at 70, and her husband is the same age, he has on average 5 years left. If the man dies at 70, the wife has 10 or so years left.

But I do believe married couples tend to live a bit longer....

 

[GON]

To

The wife dieing first is an anomaly. The man is already years closer to his grave in any relationship of the same age.

for example. If a woman dies at 70, and her husband is the same age, he has on average 5 years left. If the man dies at 70, the wife has 10 or so years left.

But I do believe married couples tend to live a bit longer....

Your reply makes perfect sense.

My Wife would point to a different view. She would say if a wife dies an accidental death at let's say age 65, her surviving husband would die earlier than he would have if his wife didn't die and accidental death.

Not sure I am able to articulate what she spoke to me on the subject, but a man death is accelerated after his wife passes away. She would go father and say a man starts to go into a tailspin when he is away from his wife for very extensive amounts of time.

 

[Starving Electrician]

Men on average live shorter lives than women.

Men tend to be older than their wives.

Men thereby would obviously tend to not out live their wives by much if any. (As most men die before their wives) It isn't a wonder at all but a product of statistics.

In other earth shattering news 2+2=4. If you find this question hard to answer this news might be interesting to you.

 

[Pablo]

Men on average live shorter lives than women.

Men tend to be older than their wives.

Men thereby would obviously tend to not out live their wives by much if any. (As most men die before their wives) It isn't a wonder at all but a product of statistics.

In other earth shattering news 2+2=4. If you find this question hard to answer this news might be interesting to you.

This plus, GON's wife has to be smart enough to know her thoughts are not universal truths.

 

[Starving Electrician]

This plus, the wife has to be smart enough to know such thoughts are not universal truths.

Weird it's almost like I used terms like on average and tends because yeah obviously it's not universally true. It is however reliable enough to make the fact that men don't out live their wives by much on average not a question to ponder but the logical extension of the data.

There are men that outlive their wives by decades but those cases are the exception not the rule.

 

[johnmyster]

Your wife may be an expert psycotherapist, but a mathmetician she is not.

The average lifespan for women is higher than for men. Ergo, for men that outlive their wives, they will outlive them, on average, by less than women that outlive their husbands.

She's drawing a false conclusion from the overlap of two bell curves.

 

[Snagglefoot]

Why do men live shorter lives? Hold my beer and watch this.