Embracing Widow's Fire: Breaking Taboos Around Sex and Grief

Here at WidowsFire, we are committed to the cause of breaking taboos about sex and grieving.

I’m Nicky, Founder of widowsfire.dating and chapter2dating.app. I am a widow and know all too well that widow’s fire is a real recognised phenomenon that does affect us and has affected me. I felt it was time to write a personal blog post and start to share my own experiences.

As widows or widowers, we still have needs, desires, and ache for physical comfort and the wonderful moments intimacy can bring between two human beings. This is perfectly natural, and we should never feel guilty about finding ways to ease that pain.

Many of us (me included!) are simply not ready for a committed relationship. We are not emotionally ready for a Chapter 2, but we still have a scratch to itch (so to speak) and deserve to find some no-strings-attached flirty fun to brighten the dark days of grief.

I personally know my darling late husband would want me to find some joy again. We were blessed with a fabulous sex life; he was fabulously filthy fun, and I miss that.

I have looked for my Chapter 2 on several occasions, had a few fairly disastrous relationship experiences with the wrong men, and finally came to the realisation that I was, in fact, the problem, not them – it was my fault these hadn’t worked out because I simply wasn’t ready.

I made a conscious decision a few months ago to stop looking for my Chapter 2 and instead stoke the flames of my widow’s fire and have some fun.

Now before I continue, I will say that I did ask for permission to share this experience, and names and locations have been changed to protect the innocent 😉

We met on an app as that is where most flirty fun can be found easily – other apps are obviously available, but I favour WidowsFire as it is a community of people who understand your situation. It’s a bit of a passion killer dropping into a conversation on a hook-up that you are a widow…

Here we know and understand.

We got chatting; the conversation very quickly developed into rude and flirty chat. Safety first folks, so try and keep conversations within an app until you are comfortable exchanging personal details.

Before long, we were messaging numerous times a day, and the conversations got hotter and hotter. We arranged to meet for a date.

Personally, I try and meet fairly quickly rather than endless messaging, but logistics and locations meant this wasn’t possible, so a date was arranged a few weeks later. I booked us a late lunch at a central location (which happened to be a hotel). I booked a room so that I was in control of whether lunch went further or not; one should never assume that real chemistry will be there.

I spent the morning at the salon getting a blow dry (which I hoped might result in a blow job 😉) and my makeup and left for lunch feeling like a million dollars.

I arrived at the hotel. He had a red wine waiting for me (thoughtful and always a good start). He was delicious, and we hit it off immediately. He was definitely worth the blow dry!!

We enjoyed a wonderful long, flirty lunch exchanging lingering looks, eye contact, and laughter.

A few glasses of red later, we skipped dessert. I invited him to join me in my room. We practically ran up the stairs! We got through the door, he held me and kissed me long and hard. He was a fabulous kisser too!

Things quickly progressed, and we enjoyed an incredible afternoon of widow’s fire, which turned into a room service dinner, more fun times, and he stayed the night.

After a little ‘morning glory’, I kissed him and left for an early meeting with a huge smile on my face and not a minute of guilt or regret.

I’m sure we’ll meet again as we chat daily but are yet to coordinate diaries as I travel lots for work, but I definitely look forward to a rematch.

I would really love to hear your Widow’s Fire experiences and perhaps publish them here, so please, if you’d like to contribute, anonymise your story. Do not include real names or locations as we need to respect privacy.

Email nicky@chapter2dating.co.uk to share your story.

Let’s break the taboos about sex and grief together.

– Nicky Wake, Founder of WidowsFire