I'm Nora McEnernie. This is thanks for asking a call-in-show about what matters to you

and what could matter to us more than love, more than the

search for, the finding of love, the possibility of sharing our lives with another person.

Now, we like to take your calls, your tax messages, and sometimes your emails, emails are easier for people

who honestly may not want to gab on the phone and also for people who don't want their voice

out there and also for people who might be sharing something that they are, you know, kind of

embarrassed to share. I wouldn't call this an advice podcast. Some people do reach out to me for

advice and I have kind of a niche when it comes to

that advice. And I think when I read today's email, you'll see pretty immediately why they

emailed me, of all people. So I'm going to get into it. This is a person who is asking for advice, and I think that it's

quite a long email. I think then said just reading the email and then replying. I think I'm

going to reply as we read the email so you can see how I felt when I was first reading it.

Now, this arrived when we were on our summer break. So I didn't

see it until I got back. And by the time I got to it, it had been, you know, four or five weeks.

I thought, oh, God, like, what is happening with this situation? So we're going to go through

it pretty much chronologically. You are going to feel the feelings that I felt alongside me, and that's how we're doing it. So let's go. The subject was dating a fearful avoidant widower.

Hi, Nora. Well, I've never lost a spouse, I followed your content pretty much since Aaron's

obituary went viral. You've taught me so much about grief in all of its messy forms, and in the last

few years, I've been grieving the loss of my marriage. We were together over 20 years. We have two

kids who are tweens. We are all healing. The divorce process has been amicable,

and I feel hopeful for the first time in a long time,

which brings me to dating.

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