On that front, there was no shortage of prospects: shidduchim had been redt to me practically from the day after shivah. While I had refused to listen to any of these dirt-fresh-on-the-grave suggestions, as the months passed it became clear that I had to remarry, both for the children’s sake and for mine.

Some people thought I was crazy to be considering remarriage less than a year after my wife’s passing. But when I discussed the matter with my brother, who’s a prominent psychologist in the frum community, he agreed that I was ready to remarry.

“As a rule,” he told me, “someone who had a happy marriage is eager to duplicate the experience. Someone who had a bad marriage isn’t so excited to try again.”

When I decided I was ready to remarry, I resolved to make the process inclusionary rather than exclusionary. The first thing I did, therefore, was speak to my mother-in-law, who, I figured, would be most pained by this move — especially since my wife had been her only daughter. I asked for her go-ahead, explaining that my children need a mother.

“And you need a wife,” she responded, much to my surprise.

Next, I called all my children together.

“I feel that I need someone to help take care of you,” I said. “What do you think? Should I look for a new wife?”

What followed was a lively discussion, with emotions and concerns freely expressed.

“Where does that leave Ima?” the kids wondered. “Will she mind? What will our family be like with a new wife and mother? And what about this lady’s own children? How will she take care of two families?”

I did my best to validate these concerns and allay the children’s fears by assuring them that we’d do our best to make it a happy family. By the end of the conversation, it was decided that “we” should proceed.

Once my family was fully on board, I entered the world of shidduchim. Before saying yes to any shidduch, I asked my kids what they thought. One woman who was suggested to me had the same name as my first wife.

“Abba, I’m not comfortable with that,” my teenage son told me.

Out of deference to his discomfort, I turned down the shidduch.

My 20-year-old son decided that I needed a new wardrobe and offered to take me shopping. I was perfectly capable of shopping for myself, but I wanted him to be part of the process, so I accepted his offer.

Before each date, the children at home inspected me, sent me off, and wished me well. When I returned, they would debrief me. At one point, they jokingly suggested giving me a curfew, just as I had done to my older children when they were dating.

My children weren’t the only ones giving me their opinions. Many people, including some of my closest friends, urged me to look only for a wife who would be a good mother to my children.

“You’re 50 years old,” they told me. “Forget about a close relationship — you just need a good person who’s going to be willing to take care of your kids.”

I was having none of that. Having enjoyed a close, loving marriage the first time around, I was fiercely determined not to settle for anything less the second time. People thought I was unrealistic, even crazy, but I stood my ground.

“I will not propose to anyone I don’t have feelings for,” I insisted.

In this regard, I received tremendous chizuk from a famed lecturer and kallah teacher who was close to my family. When she heard about the advice I was getting, she told me, “Good for you, you’re looking for the right thing. Don’t listen to a word these people are saying.”

Yet I was concerned that a woman I’d meet would be so desperate to get married that she’d take on raising my children as a price to pay for an eligible widower. Of course, any woman who’d agree to go out with me would certainly claim to be gung-ho about becoming a stepmother to my kids, but how would I know whether her heart was in it?

When I met my second wife (my second first wife, that is), a divorced woman named Batsheva, I could tell she was someone with whom I could build the type of relationship I wanted. And while we were dating, she said something that convinced me that she’d be a good mother to my children.

“I’ve had a hard time raising my own kids,” she admitted wistfully. “They never saw a good marriage, and they suffered a lot before and after the divorce. I’m looking forward to doing a better job the second time around — both in marriage and in parenting.”

That candid revelation was the clincher in my decision that Batsheva was the right one.

Nevertheless, I assured my children that I would not make any commitment until they met Batsheva and gave their approval. Before we got engaged, Batsheva cooked a supper for our family and also joined us for Shabbos. The children liked her and gave me the thumbs-up.

“I’m not going to pretend my heart doesn’t ache,” one of my older daughters told me. “But I’m overjoyed to see you happy.”

I also took Batsheva to meet my mother-in-law and requested her blessing, which she graciously granted.

Batsheva had five children, the youngest of whom was 12, and they did not take nearly as well to the idea of her remarriage as my children did to mine. I believe this had a lot to do with the fact that she followed the standard protocol when seeking a second shidduch, a protocol that advocates keeping your kids in the dark until the shidduch is basically a fait accompli. This stealthy approach certainly has its benefits, as it provides the single parent with the space and privacy to explore a new relationship, but ultimately it makes the children feel threatened, insecure, and resentful. Desperate to maintain their “place,” especially after losing a parent to death or divorce, they lash out cruelly at both the stepparent and the parent.

The way I went about looking for a shidduch, involving my kids in every aspect of the process, may have been unconventional, but it certainly made their adjustment to a stepmother a lot easier.

While Batsheva took upon herself the responsibility of raising my children, I made it my business to give her the happy marriage she had never experienced. I had experienced a loving relationship, and I considered it my responsibility to make it happen for her. Against the backdrop of her previous difficult marriage, she was particularly sensitive in certain areas, and I took care to learn what those sensitivities were and tiptoe around them.

For instance, Batsheva once mentioned to me that her ex-husband used to tell her she was boring, so I resolved that I’d never give her the slightest hint that I was bored by something she said. Batsheva happens to be a very detail-oriented person, and can describe a situation or an object in full Technicolor detail. I, on the other hand, am a big-picture person, with little patience for details; I like to say that I reserve my attention to detail for the intricacies of a sugya in Gemara. Yet because it was important to me not to give off the impression that I found Batsheva’s conversation boring, I made a point of listening to her and reacting with interest even when I didn’t exactly share her enthusiasm for the subject at hand.

In general, someone who’s used to being in a healthy marriage can brush off the occasional insensitive remark, but someone who’s been in a bad marriage is highly sensitive to any hurtful words. I learned to be extra careful with Batsheva’s feelings and to show understanding and empathy even when I didn’t quite understand.

In a first marriage, the children you’re raising belong to your wife as well. Unfortunately, therefore, you often take your wife for granted. In a second marriage you don’t have that luxury — ever. Your wife is caring for your children, and you have to constantly express appreciation for what she’s doing and give her moral support. You also have to be there in the trenches with her and pitch in; they’re not her kids, and you can’t expect her to carry the burden singlehandedly.

You can never give too many compliments, either. “Thank you for making such a beautiful Shabbos for us,” I would tell Batsheva — every week. I also took her away on vacations and dates, and I bought her gifts, big and small, complete with a warm note or a nice poem.

Children can be nasty and cruel, and despite all my efforts to include them in the process of my remarriage, they still had some ugly clashes with their stepmother that culminated with howls of “You’re not my mother!” followed by tears on both sides.

If a kid was openly chutzpahdig to Batsheva in my presence, I would immediately intervene. But if what the kid said wasn’t outrageous, I would stay out of it.

“Why don’t you back me up when the kids give me a hard time?” Batsheva complained in the beginning.

“It’s because I’m looking out for the good of both you and the kids,” I explained. “You’re much better off working things out with the kids yourself than having me step in every time there’s some friction. If I come down hard on them because of you, they’ll resent you for turning me against them.

“Besides,” I added, “If I intercede on your behalf every time, you’ll always be a stepmother to them. You’re their mother now, and it’s not healthy for a mother to need reinforcement on every interaction. If you sit down with the kids and explain that you felt bad because of something they did, that will only draw you closer to them.”

Although I continually gave Batsheva the message that she was capable of dealing with the kids herself and didn’t always need my backing, I would at times speak to the kids privately and tell them that I didn’t like the way they had treated Batsheva. What I tried to avoid was defending Batsheva to the kids in her presence, which would automatically create a feeling of competition between them.

When the kids tortured Batsheva by giving her silent treatment for a few days, I told her that this was a sign of how much she meant to them.

“They want you to be a real mother to them,” I explained, “and when they do these horrible things, it’s because they feel a need to test you. A real mother stands by her kids through good and bad, and they want to make sure you’re not giving up on them just because they’re difficult.”

For me to say this was easy — for Batsheva to internalize it was a lot harder. But she did. Eventually, she came to love my three youngest children, whom she was actively raising, and they came to love her as a mother.

In building my new family, I sought advice from many experts — and much of the advice I received was, quite frankly, awful. One person I respected advised me to insist that Batsheva’s children who were living with us call me “Abba.” Knowing that relationships can’t be shoved down anyone’s throat, I ignored that advice, and told my stepchildren they could call me whatever they wanted. How would it help if they called me Abba when they didn’t feel that way toward me? They never did call me Abba, and it took a while until I earned their respect and acceptance, but eventually we did establish a respectful and warm relationship.

As for Batsheva, my three younger kids called her “Mommy” from the beginning, as opposed to their mother, whom they had called “Ima.” One of my teenage daughters, actually the one who had the hardest time getting used to Batsheva’s presence, didn’t feel comfortable calling her Mommy, but eventually settled into calling her “Rebbetzin.”

In retrospect, perhaps the worst advice I received when looking to remarry was to marry for practicality, not for love. Building a successful second marriage and merging our respective families was incredibly challenging, and the glue that kept Batsheva and me going through the difficult times was the strong love between us and the desire to maintain our relationship no matter what. In a first marriage, it’s possible that the shared task of building a family can keep a couple together even in the absence of a powerful connection. But in a second marriage, I just don’t see how that’s feasible. I know people who seem to be doing it, but to me it seems like quite a sad arrangement.

Thanks to the strong bond between Batsheva and me, our newly constructed family structure was secure enough to include my first wife without Batsheva feeling threatened. She graciously welcomed her predecessor into her home, actively participating in conversations about her so that she could learn as much as possible about the mother of her stepchildren.

Once, my adult daughter printed a pamphlet with stories and reflections about her mother, and she handed it to me right before a trip. I took it along to read on the plane, with Batsheva sitting next to me. We read it together and cried together. It felt so natural and normal.

My son makes a yearly siyum with a full seudah on his mother’s yahrtzeit, attended by his friends — and hosted by my wife.

The credit for all this really goes both ways: Batsheva, for her part, is a kind, generous person, and I, for my part, have always given her the confidence that she is my one and only wife; my first wife is firmly in the grave, even if her memory is alive in our home. There’s Ima and there’s Mommy, and there’s no competition.

Actually, the only time I remember competition being an issue was when a friend of Batsheva’s visited our house and noticed some paintings that my first wife had painted.

“Are you nuts?” she exclaimed to Batsheva. “How can you allow her paintings to stay up on the walls?” ?

Until then, Batsheva hadn’t had a problem with the paintings, but suddenly it became an issue for her, thanks to her friend’s innocent and well-intentioned comment.

“I would hope you would have the faith and confidence in me that I wouldn’t keep the paintings around if they made me think of my first wife,” I told Batsheva. “I just enjoy having artwork in the house. Should we go and spend several thousand dollars to replace the paintings with new ones?”

The paintings remained. Twenty-two years later, they’re still on the walls.

Batsheva and I also maintained a warm relationship with my first wife’s mother, visiting her regularly until her passing several years ago. I believe this was possible only because I included her in the process of my remarriage from the outset, rather than springing the news of my engagement on her.

Several years ago, I celebrated my 70th birthday. In honor of the occasion, my children — all of whom are long married, and some of whom are already grandparents — gathered to spend a Shabbos together. When I got up to speak before the whole family that Shabbos, I addressed Batsheva and said, “Part of the deal when I remarried was that you were going to raise my children. Loving them was not part of the deal. But baruch Hashem, you did.”

Looking around the room at my beautiful blended family, I gave thanks to the Ribbono shel Olam for giving me the strength to do what I knew was right. I had to flout convention to include my children and mother-in-law in the process of my remarriage, and I ignored “expert advice” in seeking a wife who’d be more than just a stepmother — but I’m ever so glad I did.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 716)