After My Husband Died, I Was Confused About My Sex Drive. Then I Discovered 'Widow's Fire'
Newsweek · C · trust 43/100
0 Share Newsweek is a Trust Project member See more of our trusted coverage when you search. Prefer Newsweek on Google to see more of our trusted coverage when you search. My husband, Al, and I were bedazzled by each other. That is still the best way I know to describe us. We didn’t just love each other. We genuinely liked each other. We spoke the same language about almost everything: politics, business, travel, friends, family and all the ordinary things that fill a life together. We could talk for hours. We laughed. We trusted each other. Al was my rock.
For the last eight or nine years of our marriage, though, we didn’t have sex. Al had prostate cancer and the disease changed that part of our relationship. Someone once asked me how I managed to go so many years without physical intimacy. My answer was simple: I loved him. I adjusted. That was what our marriage required and I never thought of it as some enormous sacrifice. He was worth it. Had the tables been turned, I knew Al would have done the same for me.
Our marriage became a secure, loving relationship where sex simply was no longer part of the equation. Would I do it all over again? Absolutely. Al was always more to me than sex. What we had was comfort, laughter, trust and the wonderful feeling of being completely known by another person.
And something happened that I absolutely did not see coming. While I was mourning the man I loved, my body seemed to wake up. I wanted to be held. I wanted the warmth of a man beside me. And, to my complete surprise, I wanted sex. Badly. I was 80 years old. I could barely look at a photograph of Al without crying, yet I suddenly had this intense physical desire that seemed completely at odds with my grief.
Looking back, I realized how starved I had become for physical touch. While Al was alive, I had simply accepted our marriage as it was. I wasn’t sitting around thinking about sex or what I was missing. But after he died, the absence of touch felt enormous. I missed Al terribly, but I also missed having a man in my life. I missed a male hug. I missed feeling wanted. And I had no idea what was happening to me.
That is how I discovered “widow’s fire,” a term used to describe the intense sexual desire some people experience after losing a partner. Why had nobody told me about this? I started reading everything I could find and talking to other widows . I was amazed by how many women understood exactly what I was experiencing. Grief can leave you numb. Sex, I came to understand, can be a distraction from that grief. It can be soothing. It can make you feel alive again. That made sense to me. Unfortunately, there was no man waiting around to provide it. A vibrator can be a girl’s best friend. I can laugh about that now, but at the time I was genuinely trying to understand myself.
I was on a dance floor after a few too many cocktails when this very handsome man caught my eye. There I was, 80 years old, widowed and apparently still capable of making decisions involving alcohol and men. Thankfully, this one worked out.
Despite my fall on the dance floor, which happens to the best of us, he called me afterward and asked to see me again. On that first visit, we sat together for more than two hours. Conversation came easily. There was warmth between us immediately. Bob later admitted that he liked me both drunk and sober, which I considered a very good sign.
We made plans for dinner later that week. And just like that, I was infatuated. After he left, I wrote in my journal: “Is this lust? Love? Widow’s fire?” I truly didn’t know. I just knew I wanted to envelop myself in this man. And suddenly all that sexual desire I had been Googling was no longer theoretical. Bob and I became lovers.
After years without sex, I was having sex again at 80. And let me tell you, it was wonderful.
I find it funny that society seems to assume women eventually reach an age when we stop thinking about sex. Apparently, nobody told my body. There was passion. There was desire. There was the thrill of being touched again after so many years without that kind of intimacy. I had forgotten how wonderful it felt to be wanted.
But Bob was not simply a cure for widow’s fire. I fell in love with him. That surprised me almost as much as the sex did. I had prayed to God, and even to Al, to send me another good man. Now here I was, at 80, falling in love like a teenager.
I had assumed the great love story of my life was behind me. I was wrong.
Bob is kind, intelligent and, as I like to say, deliciously easy on the eyes.
Most importantly, he understands that loving him does not require me to stop loving Al. When grief comes, Bob gives me room for it. He accepts that Al was an enormous part of my life and always will be.
Some people believe there is only one great love out there for each of us. I don’t. I had an extraordinary love with Al. Now I have another love with Bob. It is different, but it is just as real. Perhaps part of what makes love at our age so special is that you understand time differently. Bob and I know we don’t have 50 years ahead of us. So, we appreciate what we do have. A good conversation. A good laugh. A good kiss. And yes, good sex.
You stop worrying so much about what other people think and start asking yourself what you want to do with the life you have left. Bob is my next adventure. At 83 years old, I feel a little like a new bride. And I am not the least bit ashamed to say it. He’s my man.
Diane Heiler is the author of “ A Widow’s Fire: An Intimate Memoir of Heartbreak, Survival and Moving On.” Widowed in 2023 after caring for her husband through his battle with cancer, she writes about grief, resilience and finding joy again after profound loss.
All views expressed in this article are the author's own.
Do you have a personal essay you want to share with Newsweek? Send your story to MyTurn@newsweek.com.
Read the original at Newsweek →
Open in TruthVane →