Young, old, male, female, romance sim, family sim. Pretty much any sim's spouse can meet an unfortunate and (un)calculated end, leaving behind their widow and possibly their orphans. Sims life is short, so sims must move on relatively quickly. But do they?

How do y'all handle widowed sims' love lives after their special someone dies? Do you have them re-marry, or only go as far as to go steady? Do you have them grieve in black clothes, and for how long? Do you even *have* any widows in your game, or did you ban the reaper from your pixels' (un)lives? How do you handle the curious case of Brandi Broke and Darren Dreamer? (Or that Aspir guy I don't really remember, I guess he was a widow too)

Me personally, it's been a while since I played long enough to actually deal with such a situation. It was only with Coral Oldie, who mourned in black until the end of the round, then promptly died off the next. Brandi seems young enough to me to want to re-marry eventually, but Darren sometimes won't even want to get married, not even to Cassandra. And if it's an older sim whose spouse dies, I just don't even consider them getting back into the dating scene, despite them rolling wants to fall in love again, or the fact that sometimes IRL widows also look for companionship, if nothing more serious.

So yeah, what's your take on widows?

(Watch me wake up tomorrow morning regretting getting out of the line to post this lol)

It depends on the sims' wants, aspiration and remaining time. I've only ever had married sims who died from old age, in which case their spouses are most often very old as well. I find most of them haven't really been keen on getting back into dating and stuff, and when they do, it doesn't really go beyond some flings and dates.
I have one widower who wants to marry rich, but if he does remarry I wouldn't really see it as the same thing because it's not so much about the potential person, whereas his late husband will always be the love of his life.
Then I had one widow who got into some brief romance with her late husband's twin brother, and then with another of his brothers, which would have been a pretty shitty thing to do in real life but in my mind the sims see it differently.
One of my sims wants to marry Denise Jacquet which is not possible since she's still considered married to her late husband, and I like that for story purposes, like on some level she still sees herself as committed to him, or, with her fear of catching him cheating, that she has convinced herself or subconsciously refuses to acknowledge that he's dead.

I try to watch their wants for this to give me clues, unless I have a specific story for them. So if a widow/er has a want to fall in love or remarry or meet new people, I make that happen and see what happens. One widow recently had a wish to go on vacation after her husband died, and when she arrived there she wanted to fall in love! But if they wish to resurrect their spouse then maybe they are missing them, and don't want to meet someone new. Either that or they like zombies!

I had to read the subject line 3 times before I realized you weren't asking our take on 'Windows' and I was going to be like 'Yeah my game works on Windows 10 but you still have to do stuff to make it work'

BUT WIDOWS!

I'm good with them. They usually turn their grief into savvy business ventures. By usually I mean of one example I can think of where Carmen Vu-Hillenburg runs the bird sanctuary in her golden years by herself. She should name a bird after her husband, Blake. However for the romance, if they develop wants to do romantic things I will try to get them a silver fox.

It depends on things like the age when they lost their partner and if they still have children as well as how much they loved their lost partner.It can happen to a pregnant young lady expecting a baby and in that case she might give up their former home and move to a large lot to farm the land and earn at home so she's not having to leave the baby in the care of a nanny and pay for it as there's only one income now.She might also move into subsidized rental housing like my trailer park or some loft apartments for families.

Most of my widows are elderly themselves, so generally they just move in with the heir or have the heir move in with them. In Riverblossom Hills, the dowager queen wears black, but it isn't required elsewhere.

I had a young widow in Podzol (IIRC her husband was struck by lightning) who hurried to marry the first townie she met, because she was heavily in debt, had two preschoolers and couldn't manage the farm as well, and in one hood Mary Gavigan married Cyd Roseland shortly after I got rid of the Annoying One (Nathan). The plague in Riverblossom left several young widows, but I don't remember any of them remarrying - they just got on with being single parents. Same with Brandi Broke: I don't remember her ever getting involved with someone else, though I always feel she should.

Being a widow myself, I have some empathy for the widowed pixels, and treat them accordingly.

Taking personalities and aspirations into account, I try to let them live their lives happily. And - knock on own shoulder here - I think I am rather good at that

Some are good at businesses, some are touring the world (taking the grandkids along if applicable), some meet their next spouses at their first spouses' funerals and some just mingle with hood society, teaching the young ones about hobbies, playing chess with them and impart their knowledge if they can. And the elderly rock band has 2 widowed members currently, and when they perform, the hood shows up to enjoy the golden talents

Wait, did I miss something? I don't remember Brandi Broke and Darren Dreamer even being friends.

There have been games (and I've played them) where those two got on like houses on fire-3 bolts, no less.

But it's not easy doing the pairing. Somehow Brandi gets very bored with Darren (even though they share a lot in common) and the relationship turns sour-he still has the hots for Cassandra through all of it.

Seems money takes priority over love in this case.

As for widows, (like JustPetro) I'm pretty easy with the ladies. It's not easy being a widow, and one has to learn to navigate the waters-and sometimes one does it alone.

Not because one is at a loss for company, but that one is just starting to gain back their life and possibilities. A mate is not necessarily required.

It purely depends on the Sim and their circumstances. I've had Sims surviving up to three spouses, I've Sims staying alone after their first spouse died.

And I don't take the Sim's gender into account, since women and men can get lonely without someone in their life.

But as a rule of the thumb, if a Sim is still an adult, they have a higher chance of me finding them something to marry again, if they are already elders, then it's more likely that they stay alone, especially if it's only a few days until their own dead. Plus elders in my game often live with one of their children and take care of their grandkids (or are relegated to a lot at the edge of the neighbourhood, where I don't play them, but just age them along with a cheat object each rotation)
But Elder re-marriage definitely has happened in my game.

As for Brandi and Darren, I've had gamnes where those two end up together, and I find the pairing *very* easy (Family and Knowledge Sims have positive attraction with each other), they gotten along great together and often had one or two kids as well.
Other than that I often had Darren marry Cassandra, while I often had Brandi stay alone, and sometimes I had both of them staying alone.

@FranH what do mean with "Brandi gets very bored with Darren", Sims don't get "bored" with their spouses. Do you mean she stopped rolling wants to have romantic interactions with him, or is it some headcanon/storyline idea?

I meant how you handle their love lives, since they're two widows who have plenty of time left, so they could potentially re-marry and even have kids if they wanted to

When I have played Pleasantview, I usually do try to get them both with someone, not always successfully. Darren needs to remarry because he is not fun to play alone and will become a hermit if you follow his wants. He usually doesn't take the initiative, though, so the courtship has to come from the other side, either from Cassandra after Don breaks her heart or a townie he meets calling him up every day. Brandi is a bit harder because she spends a lot of time focusing on the children and supporting them, so she doesn't have much time to meet people and date. However, more than once I have had her steal John Burb from his wife, which isn't hard to do since he usually feels neglected by Jennifer focusing on her career and he and Brandi both want big families. I have only once had Darren and Brandi end up together, mostly because it is difficult for them to meet since they don't really run in the same circles, and I don't actively engineer such things. But it was a successful pairing.

Once I was playing Pleasantview and Mary-Sue made herself a widow. (She had the want to drink Daniel.) In that playthrough, she never remarried but focused instead on dominating her career and had a string of lovers. So like anything in the Sims, it depends on who they are and what they want. That for me determines how their stories play out.

As for my other widows/widowers, it entirely depends on their wants and where they are in life. In my current neighborhood, Samantha Ottomas became a widow when Peter died in a fire and rolled a persistent want to remarry someone, anyone. She took matters into her own hands by kissing Matthew Hart in front of his wife and thus initiating his divorce. Elders who live in multigenerational homes will usually focus on the grandkids. My other elders typically live in communal housing and either they take up a hobby or they may find a lover among their neighbors, but they rarely have time to go through the whole courtship and marriage thing.

as most said "depends".

In my 'historical-ish' games widows returns (sorta) to the original family and their marriage (and any future in life) is at the family head discretion. Usually they're remarried if it's possible and advantageous for the family, and not giving the additional financial burden (dowry). The marriage is all about the power and property of the family, it's not the matter of 'immature feelings'. They also have to leave any offspring from the previous marriage under the deceased man's family control. That's obviously only the rules for the sims with some meaning in society. Lowlifes rarely even marry at all usually living in some sort of concubinage. The relative power and influence of the women is also important - namely: how much they are able to bend the 'by the gods given' ultimate power of the man to theirs will. Some were pretty powerful in that matter.

In more 'modern-ish' that's completely up for the women. In my current hot take on the Pleasentview Dina never remarried after Mortimer's rather quick but full of joy (I imagine) exit. Just like the Brandi, who just lately get her head over the water. I suppose that Kassandra would if Don would die (she plotted to kill him at some point rolling the wish "see the ghost of Don" - but eventually they settled theirs matters in the relaxed marriage of convenience, at last 'till kids grow up). Even troublesome marriage of Pleasants got somewhat settled, they're both elders now living the life as they wish and still together-and-apart: "I love my job, you love your toys, let's not make the problem from this".

@FranH what do mean with "Brandi gets very bored with Darren", Sims don't get "bored" with their spouses. Do you mean she stopped rolling wants to have romantic interactions with him, or is it some headcanon/storyline idea?[/QUOTE]

Darren is torn between Cassandra and having an ordinary life. I think that causes him to stop caring what Brandi thinks or cares about-he's still looking for Ms.Perfect and he's trying to turn Brandi into Cassandra or something? Brandi doesn't want to become the replacement for Cassie, but she doesn't know how to keep Darren from panting all over Cassie whenever she's nearby.


Hope this makes some sense.

The sim who lost their partner is the one to choose to remarry or to stay single after they lose a husband or wife.They might remain single of they have children to raise as a single parent until the children are grown.

I read the title as What's your take on windows?

... I like windows, they make rooms look less dark.

As for widows, I don't really have many thoughts on them. If they are adults I try and find them someone new. If they are old and they find someone new, they find someone new. And if they don't, they don't.

If it's an elder sim, and their relationship with their spouse was high (90/90+ and BFF), then I flip a coin to see if they 'die from a broken heart' in the next two sim days. Keeps it interesting for me!

Ah okay, so it's a storyline. I was just wondering whether it's a mod that actually allows Sims to get bored with their relationships, and then I would have asked you where I could get that mod, haha.

Yeah it makes perfect sense.