I craved no-strings sex after my husband died

THERE were butterflies in my stomach as I took a last sip of wine and followed the handsome stranger up the stairs. It had been 20 years since I’d slept with someone new and my emotions were all over the place. I’d always been faithful to my husband Andy. He was the John to my Yoko, I thought we’d grow old together. But he was gone and never coming back. Now I felt a desperate desire for sex with someone else to temporarily ease the pain of his early death – and I’d found him.

Image Credit: The Sun [Woman in pink dress against pink background.]

I didn’t want a relationship. I wasn’t ready. Instead, I needed unbridled, no-strings sex with another consenting adult. When you lose your husband young, you still have wants and needs. You also crave connection intensely. It even has a name – widow’s fire. But society expects widows to be weeping in black, unable to contemplate inviting another man in their bed. I knew what people would say, which is why I’d kept my liaison in a Liverpool hotel quiet.

Image Credit: The Sun [A man and a woman enjoy wine in a Ferris wheel cabin overlooking a city.]

I also felt conflicted and guilty, but there’d been a desire burning inside since I lost Andy in April 2020. I'd not looked at another man in years but, despite being in lockdown, I'd feel a frisson when I caught an attractive man's eye at the checkout or clicked with a single client on a Zoom call. It was like a switch had flicked back on again. Now eight months later, I had the chance to scratch my itch.

Image Credit: The Sun [Family portrait in front of flowering plants.]

The truth was, I’d lost Andy three years before he died. He had a heart attack in July 2017 that left him with severe brain damage. A consultant told me within six weeks that his story would not have a happy ending. Andy needed 24-hour care and moved into a home before succumbing to Covid aged just 57. His death hit me like a train even though I knew it was coming. I’d been living with dreadful anticipatory grief and had the national lockdown not been in place, I might have started looking for a hook-up sooner, especially since I'd not had sex for three years.

Image Credit: The Sun [Woman in yellow blazer and light blue pants sits on a stool.]

In a weird way, I’m glad it gave me the headspace to grieve and not rush into anything rash. I had some online counselling and felt ‘match ready’ once the world began to open up, throwing myself into dating apps. But things had changed since I’d met Andy on Dating Direct in 2002, marrying two years later and having our son, Finn, in 2007. Online dating was much more discreet then. Now it was like the wild west, with ‘dick pics’ and ghosting.

Image Credit: The Sun [a man and a woman are sitting next to each other on a bench]

It was like having a second job replying to messages and as a lone working mum, running my own events business, I didn’t have time. I also had some disastrous dates. Being a widow was something of a passion killer even though the reality is that widows are probably looking for a lot less commitment than other single women. We also live fearlessly and for the moment, because we know life can change in a heartbeat.

Image Credit: The Sun [Woman in red top and pink pleated skirt.]

However, lots of men expected me to be miserable or didn’t want to be overshadowed by a person I still adored. A survey of 500 people who had lost a partner found three in five experienced this strong desire for sex we call 'widow's fire' - and that 58 per cent felt these urges within six months of the bereavement. But the average wait was one year, three months and two weeks to actually do the deed.

The most common reason for wanting sex again was craving intimacy, cited by 27 per cent of people, followed by 25 per cent saying they simply felt 'horny'. Online chat rooms are filled with widows discussing this 'taboo' feeling. "While I was monogamous and faithful with my husband for 11 years, I was pretty promiscuous before we met. So when the widow’s fire hit, I basically just picked up where I left off," according to elk-mom2943.

"For me, it’s been a good distraction. I don’t really form an emotional connection just from sex, so it’s purely physical.". Another called Tiny_Emotion_2628 said: "It raged early on. Found a discreet FWB (an old close friend) started finding feelings, broke it off. No regrets, friendship still intact. Felt guilty for being so horny! But understanding it's a common phenomenon has helped process that. Not feeling guilty about a common biological need now.".

When I joined a support group run by Widowed And Young, I discovered other women in the same boat too. Dating can be taboo as it provokes strong feelings for family and friends who have also lost that person. You end up having to be discreet. We were all under 50 but society wanted us to fade into the background, content with the memories rather than craving real physical affection. If we tried to ‘move on’ too soon, we were judged by people who’d never walked in our shoes.

And even attempting to go on dates was a logistical nightmare if you were a mum and the sole caregiver. It wasn’t conducive to romantic dinners or a one-night stand. Luckily my friends and father were happy to step in for babysitting, plus I often had to work away. My mother-in-law was supportive too – she’d also been widowed young and could relate to my situation. Lots of in-laws can’t. In the end, I met a nice bloke online and we had our dirty weekend away.