[Rolepaul]

It is likely that the man's mourning started with the knowledge that his wife was not going to survive her illness. My mother-in-law lost her husband due to a heart attack and it was three years before she started to think about herself again. Her new husband was married to a woman with a health care diagnosis that took three years to cause her death. She actually meet my mother in law and told her husband, Anatoli, that this is the woman she should marry when she was gone. Marianna and Anatoli were a couple six months after Anatoli's wife's death. They have been together 14 years at this point.
The thought might be that you are not ready to lose the fight and you want to be remembered. You have made important contributions to your family. You might think of this as being disrespectful of your friend. The husband might be thinking of a healthier woman to help raise his children and not put them at risk of the lost of another Alpha female.
I think working out your feelings will be difficult. If the man was not part of the friendship, although the children might have been, then that might be part of the issue. It is hard to be the spouse of a HER+ patient and you never know how each person will respond.
I plan on keeping Nina around for at least another 18 years of marriage, which would put us bth at 72.

Paul