The ex-partner is not liked, they’re not a threat to the new love interest, not a problem
Maggie Owens*, a Sydney high-school principal, also remembers the feeling of coming in as “the new wife” when there has been a long, happy marriage beforehand. Now 67, she was 58 when she met her current husband. She had been divorced and a single mother for many years but he had only been widowed six months or so.
“In those early days, I often had a strong sense that in his mind I was a replacement,” Owens says. “There’s a real difference between getting together later in life when you’re divorced and getting together when one of the partners has died.