Dear LPG Readers,  

I read with interest what Rudy had to say about estranged Grandchildren and the emphasis he placed on reminding young brides and grooms about remembering that there often can be more than just the bride and groom to be considered in a marriage.  

Once we get to retirement age the likelihood of losing your spouse is statistically more real. It has always been that the people in some partnerships just decide to go their separate ways, while the probability of illness and death also becomes more of a reality. 

I suffered from the latter circumstance which was devastating at the time. I lost my best friend at a time when I didn’t even have the distraction of a job to take my mind off the pain involved. The loneliness of loss took its toll but they say time heals.  

One could say that I was in the right place at the right time for a chance meeting with a lady who I knew when at school. She had also lost her spouse and while neither of us will ever forget our original other halves, we decided that getting married would lower the national loneliness statistics by two and we tied a second knot. 

We decided that we should share her home and sell mine although I kept and rented out a flat that I also had and all was well for the first ten years. I have a son and she has two daughters who met occasionally and got on reasonably well, but when we got to our mid-eighties we decided that it was time to put a will in place and as soon as we did, those children started dropping little comments into the mix about legacy.  

I began to hear ripples because the house was originally hers and her children felt that even though they were happy to see their mother happy again, my son should have no right to any inheritance. This all started the minute we mentioned that we were putting such things in place and eventually, all that family pressure left my wife really unhappy and me feeling a lot of unease which eventually had a serious effect on our happiness to say the least. 

We felt that we had been fair when making our joint will, and legally everything was in order, but the bad feeling was brewing and finally reached a stage where I decided to move back to the flat that providence allowed me to keep.  

So now in my late eighties, my wife and I find ourselves as alone as we were when we first met in a bid to keep the peace between our children. Having been widowed once already, one learns to understand that having someone to be with in your old age is always going to be a bit of a gamble but, in spite of having no quarrel with my other half, I still find myself alone.  

So, while Rudy warns of the importance of being aware of your prospective spouse’s family when young, I would like to remind readers that it is not only the young that need to be aware. 

GL, Brockley