Love the Second Time Around

Explore the heart of this book.

Love the Second Time Around addresses a hopeful relationship that enters a life already formed by love, loss, work, duties and established connections. The person being considered also brings an existing life. Compatibility requires more than enjoying time away from those responsibilities together. Will Bourne examines motives, grief, attraction, learned patterns, former relationships, children and adult children. The book asks what a household would combine, which roles have actually been agreed and what promises depend upon assumptions nobody has named. Financial resources, obligations, health, sexual history, caregiving, privacy and location receive proportionate attention without becoming a legal or clinical textbook. Widowhood retains its distinct account. A deceased spouse need not become meaningless, and the new person is not a replacement. Divorce, abandonment, betrayal, protective endings and wrongdoing are not merged into one moral story. Responsibility for harm stays with its actor; a reader's grief or desire for care does not manufacture equal blame. Christian faith is examined rather than used to force a decision. Jesus, grace and the Holy Spirit remain within repentance, truth and responsible conduct. A spouse cannot certify forgiveness, guarantee another person's change or perform the work of redemption. The book receives conscience questions seriously while preserving necessary protection and access to competent independent help. The last movement considers the lives affected by a new covenant, companionship beyond changing logistics and what younger generations receive through the adult's conduct. Book Ten retains fuller legacy, adult-family stewardship and release. Here the reader is invited to choose from the place where they actually stand.

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Questions this book helps you face

• What is the central purpose of Love the Second Time Around?
• Why do you say, “You are not starting over. You are starting from here”?
• Why include a chapter saying that the reader does not have to remarry?

The conversation behind the book

Love the Second Time Around addresses a hopeful relationship that enters a life already formed by love, loss, work, duties and established connections. The person being considered also brings an existing life. Compatibility requires more than enjoying time away from those responsibilities together.

Choose a question from the interview index, or read the conversation from the beginning.

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Follow a question from Love the Second Time Around into a reader pathway, article movement, or connected resource. Choose the doorway that meets you where you are.

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