Repartnering after the death of an intimate partner

This dissertation consists of two articles. The first reviews research on repartnering by bereaved partners with recommendations for practitioners. Potential repartnering challenges, such as comparing relationships between the new and deceased partner, feelings of guilt about entering a new relationship, and lower intimacy and engagement in the new relationship are discussed, in addition to other factors that affect repartnering, such as age, gender, the types of death, and the presence of children. The second article examines repartnering among older bereaved partners. Data from two waves of the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (NSHAP) were analyzed for bereaved partners who had experienced the death of a partner at wave 1 and who were (N = 46) or were not (N = 372) repartnered at wave 2. Specifically, analyses examined whether a) loneliness, depression, happiness, and non-partner social support (NPSS) at wave 1 (T1) affect repartnering at wave 2 (T2), b) whether repartnering is uniquely associated with time 2 loneliness, depression, and happiness, and for those bereaved partners who repartnered, c) depression, loneliness, and happiness will relate to the quality of the new relationship. Results found that a) only younger age and identifying as male were negative associated with having repartnered, b) NPSS at T2 was uniquely associated with depression, loneliness, and happiness, but repartnered status was not, c) T2 NPSS was associated with quality of the new relationship, but loneliness, depression, and happiness were not, and d) being a repartnered female was associated with lower depression when T2NPSS was high. Overall, non-partner social support appears to be a more important factor in psychological well-being than repartnering among older bereaved partners, despite some repartnering challenges.