— The truth about sex and dating after your partner dies
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‘On our first date he told me the songs he wanted played at his funeral – I just didn’t know that I’d be playing them as soon as I did,’ says Nicky Wake.
The 51-year-old met her late husband, Andy, online in 2002, before their ‘fabulous first date together’ at a bar in Manchester.
Soon, wedding bells chimed, and the pair welcomed their ‘beautiful baby boy’ Finn, now 15, in 2007.
Speaking to Metro.co.uk, Nicky says: ‘Andy was the John to my Yoko. We were just destined to be together, and he got me like no one else did.
‘He was the introvert to my extrovert, we complimented each other beautifully.’
Tragically, in July 2017, when Nicky was 49, and Finn was barely 10-years-old, she began what she describes as her ‘widow journey’.
Andy suffered a heart attack, leaving Nicky with no option but to perform CPR for 40 minutes while she waited for the paramedics. Andy survived but suffered a catastrophic brain injury.
‘My late husband, my soulmate…ended up in a care home being looked after 24/7 with little or no quality of life,’ Nicky says.
‘So I spent a few years in what they call “anticipatory grief,”‘ says Nicky, who discusses this in more detail in this week’s Mentally Yours podcast episode.
‘His doctors told me there wasn’t going to be a happy ending, that I just needed to try and navigate a way forward. Eventually we lost him to Covid in 2020.’
Three months prior to Andy’s heart attack, in April 2017, the married couple had had a poignant conversation.
‘He said “if anything ever happens to me you have to promise me that you will move forward”, and I said “absolutely, the same applies to you”,’ Nicky says.
So, twelve months after Andy passed away, Nicky ventured back into the world of dating.
‘I knew at 49 that I was too young to sit in black and wait at home and mourn the loss of my husband,’ says Nicky.
‘And he would have wanted me to find a way forward, I know he would.’
Nicky downloaded Tinder, Hinge and Bumble, saying she ‘knew that it worked, it certainly worked for me last time’.
Online dating…it’s full of dick pics and being ghosted
‘But oh my goodness online dating has moved on so much in 20 years,’ she says. ‘It’s full of dick pics and being ghosted, none of that happened back then.’
Nicky’s says her first date after Andy died, ‘wasn’t the best first date’.
She says: ‘I felt nervous, totally terrified at the prospect. If you’ve slept with the same person for 20 years, you’re so incredibly comfortable, and Andy was my soulmate.
‘If he wasn’t dead already, I could have bloody killed him for making me part of this dating world that I never wanted to be back in.’
The facts: experimenting sexually after being widowed
Three in five people said they are more experimental in the bedroom since the death of their partner.
Over half of widows and widowers have found a new kink or fetish.
About 52% either have, or have considered experimenting with a gender different to their deceased spouse.
Of those surveyed 57% said they have a higher sex drive than before
About 53% said they are more open to exploring sexual relationships with younger partners.
More than half say they are more open to exploring sexual relationships with older partners.
Over two-thirds (67%) are now more confident in the bedroom and 56% said they enjoy sex more now than before their partner died.
About 48% of widows and widowers have more sex now than with their late partners.
Nicky also says she experienced ‘widow’s fire’ – an uncontrollable and all-consuming desire for sex following bereavement, which is regularly talked about in widow Facebook groups and forums.
Nicky says: ‘Widow’s fire is a very real thing. I met someone that scratched an itch and that’s sometimes what you need.
‘That first time you kiss somebody is weird. If you’ve only kissed the same person for 20 years then that’s a real thing, but you ache for physical comfort.
‘If you’re used to sharing a bed with someone for 20 years and that person is gone, it’s a physical pain almost.
‘I had a fling with someone who was entirely inappropriate in terms of a long term relationship.
‘He was a delicious distraction from the pain and grief that I was feeling, and will always feel probably.
‘But did it have any future? No, absolutely not. Was I going to take him as my plus one to various things? No. But he was a lot of fun.’
After suffering from online dating burnout, Nicky had ‘a lightbulb moment’ at a Widowed and Young charity get together. She decided to set up a dating app exclusively for those who have lost partners, called Chapter 2.
Those joining the app have to prove they have lost a partner by providing a death certificate, or a link to a memorial page.
Nicky explains that the app is so important, because widows and widowers are uniquely placed to understand each other.
She says: ‘It’s so hard for anyone who hasn’t lost a partner to date someone who has.
‘For example, my house is full of photographs of my husband and my heart is full of our memories and I need someone to respect that if they are going to date me,’ she adds.
Widows and widowers also understand the outside influence of loved ones, saying, ‘they wrestle with it in terms of approval by friends and family’.
She points out: ‘I was very nervous about telling my mother-in-law that I was dating again, but she was wonderfully supportive.
‘She had also been widowed many years ago and she said “you’re too young to spend the rest of your life on your own”.
My house is full of photographs of my husband and my heart is full of memories – my date needs to respect that
In a new study by Chapter 2, which surveyed 500 widows, about 58% of widowers begin feeling sexual urges within six months of their partner’s death.
However, when it comes to actually having sexual relations with someone new again, the average widow waits one year, three months and two weeks to lose their ‘widow virginity’.
Those aged between 18 to 30 wait the shortest time – an average of nine months, two weeks and four days.
For now, Nicky is still on the dating scene.
She adds: ‘I am always a glass of rioja full kind of girl. I’ve tried to get positivity out of tragedy.
‘I often say if I can help some people find some joy that helps me make sense of my loss.
‘It’s not the big things that you miss. It’s the little things. It’s having someone to come back home to. To talk about your day with. Dating is hard work.
The facts: Orgasms and masturbation in widowhood
One in five widows and widowers said that they have more frequent orgasms with their new partner(s), and another one in five (19%) said they have better orgasms.
Regarding self-pleasure, 30% of widows and widowers said they began masturbating more than before their partner died.
Almost half (47%) said they bought their first-ever sex toy for masturbation, and 41% began watching porn for the first time during masturbation.
‘But I’m ever the optimist and think that hopefully, if I kiss enough frogs, I will find my prince.’
Nicky is soon to be launching a sister-app to Chapter 2 in June 2023 called WidowsFire. The app is ‘all about the physical’, for those seeking a fun and flirty place to explore natural urges.
Nicky explains that people think the sex lives of widows ‘must be really depressing’ but actually says that non-widows, whom she and her widowed friends refer to as ‘muggles’, aren’t ‘blessed with the same magical powers that we are’.
She says: ‘You think that widows spend their lives crying into their gin, but actually widows know to live for the moment.
‘They’ve seen someone they love die in front of them. If that doesn’t give you a wake up call to live in the moment and breathe every second of every day and love your life, then what will?’
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