The enduring guilt of finding love as a young widow... and why the happier Karen becomes with her new husband and two children, the stabs of self-recrimination grow ever sharper

• Karen Whitlock married husband Graham in 2005 after meeting as students
• Seven months after the wedding Graham died suddenly aged just 31
• Karen was left a widow aged 30 and wasn't looking for a new relationship
• Eventually she started dating neighbour Richard and they married
• But despite now having two daughters together, Karen still feels guilty about being happy

By Karen Whitlock For The Daily Mail

Published: 18:06 EST, 5 January 2015 | Updated: 18:07 EST, 5 January 2015

Karen Whitlock, who was widowed at the age of 30, when her husband Graham died suddenly

Snuggled in a corner of a cocktail bar in London, Richard and I beamed at one another as we clinked glasses and toasted the start of our romantic weekend away. Oblivious to everyone around us, I remember thinking that it was one of those rare moments of pure happiness.

Then suddenly the moment was ruined. That malevolent, preying creature called guilt that had stalked me relentlessly for the past 18 months stabbed me in the heart, sending tears and inky mascara from my carefully applied make-up sliding down my face.

How dare I feel so happy with this man when I was still so obviously in love with someone else? My husband Graham had been dead just over a year. I still dreamed of him and slept with his jumper under my pillow. My ring finger was still dented from my wedding band. How could I contemplate being someone’s girlfriend when I still felt like someone else’s faithful wife?

When — or if — to seek new love after being widowed remains one of life’s taboos. Though I’d experienced nothing but encouragement from my and Graham’s friends and family, there will be people who read this and question, as I did many times, whether I should have moved on so quickly or even at all. Whether it was fair on Richard to enter into a relationship when I was still so torn and vulnerable.

But things change when you’re a widow. Your world shifts on its axis. There are people who don’t know what to say to you or, worse, say nothing and allow your friendship to wither. Others stand in your corner with a bucket and sponge as you attempt to navigate the emotional maelstrom that exists where your life used to be.

But what no one prepares you for is the guilt. Being a widow is utterly steeped in it: guilt that my husband died aged just 31, while, then aged 30 myself, my life carried on.

Guilt that, despite my aching sadness for my past, I longed for a future filled with happiness, love and children, with another man.

Rich, who is now my husband and the father of our two young daughters, has been astonishing in his support. Far from despairing as I dissolved into tears in the cocktail bar that night, he offered words of comfort and understanding, just as he had from the moment we were introduced by a mutual friend in January 2009. But the happier I’ve become over the years, the more guilty I’ve felt about Graham.

We met in late 1996 while I was studying zoology and natural sciences at Cambridge University, and he was doing a maths and computing degree in Bristol. He was dating a girl I knew at Cambridge and a group of us became friends.

When their relationship ended, we saw each other platonically. It’s hard to pinpoint the moment we fell in love, possibly the day in February 1997 when we were walking through Cardiff — where Graham was doing a gap year — and he turned and kissed me for the first time.

Karen with her first husband Graham on their wedding day. They married in 2005 in the Forest of Dean after Graham proposed one evening

He was a brilliant raconteur who loved laughter, making people happy, messing about on computers and listening to music.

Together we loved dining out and watching thought-provoking films at independent cinemas.

He was placid where I was stubborn and if we argued over daft things such as the housework he’d quickly want to make up — I couldn’t stay cross for long when he was around.

We bought our house in Stroud, Gloucestershire, in 1999, by which point he was working in computing and I was a science teacher.

Six years, later in January 2005, he proposed at home one evening and we married in May that year at Clearwell Castle in the Forest of Dean.

During Christmas 2006 we had a magical holiday cruising down the Nile. We talked about starting a family. I could picture Graham tumbling around our garden with a young brood and he’d tease me with off-the-wall Cornish (his home county) names he wanted for our children.

But the time wasn’t right as I’d just started a new job. We could wait a while . . . we had ages.

But then, eight months later, on August 15, 2007, Graham died, and with him all of those hopes and dreams. He’d had flu-like symptoms for a few days and when I got home from a yoga class that Wednesday evening he was laying on the sofa complaining of a strange sensation in his heart.

A few minutes later I was making him a drink in the kitchen when I heard a strange moaning sound and dashed to the lounge to find Graham collapsed on the floor.

After her first husband's death, Karen met her second husband Rich after she was introduced to him by a friend

What happened after that is a blur. I remember dialling 999, giving CPR to Graham and believing he was going to be fine once the paramedics arrived.

A support vehicle whisked me to the hospital where Graham had been taken and I was led to a small room where a doctor gently told me he’d died.

I shook my head. This couldn’t be true. How could my vibrant, healthy husband, whom I’d cuddled just an hour earlier, be gone?

My parents — retired teachers — and Graham’s arrived and we sobbed in disbelief as we sat with him in a little room. He looked calm and peaceful. I was utterly heartbroken.

A post-mortem revealed Graham had died from myocarditis — inflammation of the heart muscle triggered by a virus that caused his heart to stop working.

Hundreds of people attended his funeral two weeks later at an alternative burial ground in Gloucestershire that resembles a meadow with sheep grazing amid discreet headstones.

My parents stayed with me for weeks and Graham’s would visit often. Obviously, the subject of me ‘moving on’ was carefully avoided. After all, when is the right time to think about starting anew, if ever, when your spouse has died?

The couple married in an intimate ceremony at a country pub after Karen gave birth to their first daughter Freyja

For many it will never be right, while others — Caron Keating’s husband Russ Lindsay, former England cricketer Chris Broad and Paul McCartney included — find love quickly.

A wonderful former colleague, Sue, who was in her early 60s and had been widowed a few years earlier, took me under her wing and began to help me navigate the complex business of being a widow.

More than anyone, she understood how my heart felt entrenched in the past, but would tell me: ‘You’re young, one day you’ll want to meet someone else, and it will be what Graham would have wanted.’

And she was right. I tried to imagine if our situations were reversed. Would I have wanted this lively, 31-year-old man to be mired in grief for ever? Of course I wouldn’t. He deserved happiness and children of his own.

In fact, it was my longing for a family — and that conversation Graham and I’d had on our Egypt holiday — that spurred me on towards a future he would never know.

By January 2008 I was back teaching full-time. And when flowers and lambs appeared among the hedgerows of Graham’s burial spot that spring, I began decorating the house to make it feel mine rather than ours.

Come the autumn a single neighbour persuaded me to join an internet dating site and took me to a couple of speed dating events, which was a real eye-opener. But the moment I mentioned I was a widow, any male interest waned as fast as my feelings of guilt grew.

How would any man measure up to Graham? It seemed sacrilege to his memory and unfair on anyone else I might meet.

Still, I longed to build a future with someone special. When I mentioned this one morning in the school staff room, a colleague declared she had a single male friend, Richard, she thought would be perfect for me.

The following Saturday I got a text from Richard introducing himself and asking if I’d like to meet for drinks in Cheltenham. Agreeing to a date with Rich, who’s a web designer and at 36 is two years younger than me, felt like betraying Graham. And yet I wanted to meet him, to see what might be possible.

We hit it off immediately and barely drew breath as we talked. Thank goodness he knew I was a widow — so we didn’t need to have that conversation — and was comfortable with me mentioning Graham.

I came home a flutter of excitement, yet the minute I closed the door and saw the framed wedding photos in my lounge, the guilt pounced again. Thankfully, Sue stepped in and gently coaxed me towards a second date.

Karen and Richard with their two daughters Freyja and Emily. When the children are older, Karen says she will tell them all about her old life before they were born

Two weeks later, Rich and I met for dinner and as we parted he kissed me, then left at a pace because he was so nervous about whether he’d done the right thing.

It did me a favour because I was left wondering what had just happened, rather than my thoughts turning to Graham.

I was already falling for Rich, but as our relationship progressed guilt would often eat me up, usually after we’d enjoyed dinner, a film or a walk in the countryside — things Graham and I used to love, too.

And I felt for Rich. Falling in love with a widow who’s still very sad about another man must be tough.

The other way round, I knew I’d feel for ever in their late spouse’s shadow, ruminating over whether they could love me as much as them.

But Rich was brilliant at separating my old life from the one we share, and my feelings for Graham from my love for him.

Although we’d been adamant that marriage wasn’t a priority — my vows belonged to Graham — when we started trying for a family in 2010 and conceived our daughter Freyja, I suddenly craved the stability of being a married couple, of wearing Rich’s ring and sharing his name.

He felt the same and in October 2011, when Freyja was five months old, we married in an intimate ceremony at a country pub.

It was the polar opposite to the big wedding I’d had with Graham, but beautiful in its own way.

I made a little speech about how Graham would have been very happy for us. There wasn’t a dry eye in the room.

Friends and family were overjoyed, including Graham’s father, who, tragically, had been widowed just a few months after his son’s death, and had found someone new. But when we had our second daughter Emily in June 2013, I realised that as my happiness increased, so did my guilt.

After all, my wonderful life with Rich and our children wouldn’t have existed if Graham had lived.

When I look at Freyja, who’s three, and Emily, who’s 18 months, my heart swells with joy, and then sinks when I remember Graham didn’t get chance to have children.

Had he lived, hopefully we’d have had children, but they wouldn’t have been Freyja and Emily. And I can’t imagine my life without them.

On Graham’s birthday, the anniversary of his death or when I’m reminiscing with old friends about him, I still cry. And then I feel guilty for being sad when I’m so happy with Rich and our girls.

When Freyja and Emily are older, I’ll retrieve the wedding snaps of Graham and me that I put away when they were born and I’ll tell them about my old life.

I don’t want them to feel confused by photos of me with another man or to think that when I get upset about Graham it has any bearing on how much I love them and Rich.

I’ll explain to them that I will cherish my past with Graham for ever, but I no longer live in it. My present and future is as their mummy and Rich’s wife.

Interview: Sadie Nicholas