Warning: Widow’s Fire Ahead... When Your Sex Drive Goes on Overdrive After Loss
When your sex drive “wakes up” after loss, it can rock your widowed world.
But it is more complex than that.
We’ve lost our partner, our intimate playmate, our other half. And whether that connection was lost in the prime of their life, the sunset, or after a prolonged illness, our minds and hearts miss that connection on a visceral level: the sight of them, their smell, the comfort of their touch.
Grief leaves a void. A huge one. And nature abhors a vacuum. What I teach in my courses on surviving widowhood is that evolutionary biology causes us to continue the species, not to make us happy. And when that survival of the species need kicks in, it can cause problems.
Enter widow’s fire, the all-consuming, almost-irresistible drive for sex that can follow bereavement.
As a certain point in the grief process, our libido can kick in with a vengeance to fill that void and provide us with several things:
· A distraction from the grief
· Comfort on a physical level
· Reassurance we are alive
· A sense of control
· The intoxicating cocktail of hormones and neurotransmitters that overwhelm the grief
Things to keep in mind:
· Widow’s Fire is a normal part of the grief process: You’re not crazy, you’re grieving.
· Widow’s Fire is a NORMAL response to trauma: Losing your spouse is a trauma. It is a normal trauma response to have an increased desire for sex. Biologically, we feel a drive to reproduce and ensure the survival of the species.
· Give yourself grace: You’re trying to handle this with a brain that is drenched in grief and overwhelmed processing the loss.
· Widow’s fire is insidious: You are dealing with survival mechanisms that have evolved to continue the species. You’re not crazy and it is not your fault that your sex drive has kicked into overdrive. Mother Nature wants you to re-partner, and fast, and this is one way to ensure that happens. Being in vulnerable situations (like drinking at a bar when you are lonely) can lead to difficult situations.
Things You Can Do:
1) Be honest with yourself about your feelings: Denying them only causes you to expend energy you don’t have (because, grief!) in suppressing them. A grief journal is a great place to deposit these feelings and work through them, as is a trusted therapeutic relationship.
2) Take care of the Touch Starvation: Touch starvation is real, and a powerful impetus for human contact. There are a couple of ways you can approach this.
Engage in activities that have non-sexual touching involved, such as ballroom dancing lessons.
Seek non-sexual touch with scheduled massages.
There are professional cuddlers who can be hired.
When you are at an event with other widowed people, take advantage of the hugs that are freely available and offered. Our community knows how touch starvation feels.
3) Care for your need for intimacy: What we often miss as much, or at times more, than sex, is the need for intimacy.
Widows and widowers fill that in a variety of ways, including:
Seeking close relationships with friends
Filling the intimacy gap with a widowed person as a grief buddy-someone to talk about days with or to discuss parenting issues with. This is not a sexual relationship, just a deep friendship that may or may not be with someone of the opposite sex who is also widowed.
4) Care for Your Sexual Needs: Within your own standards, take care of your sexual needs.
Understand your own boundaries, even recognizing that widowhood may have changed them. Grief is a transformational event, and I counsel clients not to judge yourself by your life with your partner.
Some people deal with this by shutting down their sexual side, desiring only their deceased partner. If this is your situation, you are not wrong. Everyone deals with grief in a different way.
You can masturbate, which will release oxytocin and other hormones, plus the neurotransmitters. This also helps with sleep.
If you do decide to engage in sex, remember that grief has made you physically and psychologically vulnerable. Protect yourself against STDs. You are fighting both your physical needs and your grief-driven vulnerability. Visit your doctor and have a frank discussion about what you need to do to protect yourself.
Whatever you decide to do, this is NO reflection on the level of love or commitment you had for your partner.
Do not allow the judgements of others to affect your decisions or your choices. They did not endure what you had with your loss, nor do they understand your individual situation with Widow’s Fire. This is part of developing your Widowed Backbone, which is so critical for this process.
5) Seek situations where simple, uncomplicated joy is present: Happiness is hard to find in widowhood. You can put yourself in situations where it is a part of the environment.
Be around animals, particularly babies. Some widows and widowers find joy in animal yoga, such as yoga with puppies or kittens.
Be around young children in a playful situation. Taking out nieces, nephews or grandchildren to a playful situation
One thing to remember is that how you respond to Widow’s Fire is not a judgement of your success or failure in managing your grief transformation. It is not a reflection of who you are as person. It is not a report card on your strength of character or virtue. Guilt has no home here.
This is simply another part of the process in dealing with your grief.
Maggie Moore, The Widow Coach™
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About the author: Maggie Moore, The Widow Coach™ is a Certified Grief Recovery Method Specialist™, Widow, and Coach. She specializes in taking clients from “desolation to transformation” via her Widowed Navigator™ system, teaches a full suite of grief recovery classes, is a sought-after speaker for groups and professional certification, and consults with businesses affected by loss. You can reach her at maggie@thewidowcoach.com
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