Tea at Four - The Passionate Side Of Grief Nobody Talks About

Episode Date: June 5, 2026

What are the sides to grief that nobody talks about? Lauren and Christie find out this week on Tea At Four. Nicky joins us to share her experience of losing her husband, and how her grief changed her reality. She tells us about 'Widow's Fire', why grief makes you crave you life, and how she turned this experience into a dating app for widows. In a completely candid chat, we break the taboo on intimacy after death, sex life in your 50's, and being aware of your dead partner watching you have fun...You can find Nicky at @nickywakewidow, and if you looking for dating help after loss be sure to look into WidowsFire and Chapter 2.If you want to suggest a guest for us to have on Tea At Four, let us know at @[e-mail], or DM us on Insta @teaatfourpod x

Experiencing death makes you crave life in every way. I think being horny is part of life. Oh, one of two things will happen to you. You're going to be widowed or you're going to die. F*** how. The first person I had physical sex with after Andy had died was a woman. And I kind of literally did. I hope you're watching both.

Oh. Tea Out four. I'm Christy. And I'm Lauren. And this is the podcast where we saw all things that normally stay in the group chat. And this week we're joined by a very exciting guest. We're joined by Nikki. Thank you for having me.

Oh, it's a pleasure. Thank you for coming on. I've read online you've been described as a wingwoman for widowers. Oh. Would you be able to give a bit of context to that sentence? I was widowed in 2020 and my life imploded. And I needed to find a way to turn pain into purpose. And I did that through a number of different ways,

but one of which was setting up a dating app for widows and widowers who are looking for the next serious relationship. She's an entrepreneur. No, honestly. Oh, thank you. It's a huge feat, though, to turn that kind of grief into purpose like you described. How long did it take between you, you lost your husband? Yes.

And turning that into, you know, a business idea. My husband had a heart attack. And he had a series of heart attacks. The last one of which happened at home. And I had to do CPR for 40 minutes before he was taken to hospital, where he then suffered a catastrophic brain injury. So he had three horrible years where, He was completely incapacitated.

So during that time, I was in the depths of despair and kind of wondering what I was going to do next. And he then died of COVID in 2020. I knew that I had to try and find a way forward. And I became part of the widow community. And the widow community is the only silver lining to the horrible thing that is grief. And I met these incredible widow warriors

who, you know, we banded together to get ourselves through this life-defining thing. And in one of these online forums or group chats, there was a lot of discussion about a thing called Chapter 2 and like, have you met you chapter 2? And that means your next significant relationship. And I thought maybe that might be what I need. And I was also experiencing something called Widows Fire. Now, Widows Fire is a recognised phenomenon

that when you are grieving, you get horny. Because obviously, if you think about it, I spent 20 years teaching my husband Andy how to make love to this body. And he got quite good at it in the end. And then all of a sudden, that is ripped away from me. you overnight. So you know, you're like the empty bed next to you. And your body physically craves sex. And you need a dopamine hit. And we all know that that's one of the best dopamine hits there is. And so literally, you know, I was finding myself walking around

supermarkets smelling men and following, all women actually, because I'm biased. So, you know, it's just like, you know, that kind of desperate need. I went for a massage. And I wept when someone touched me. Wow. And so I thought, you know, I have to find a way forward because as widows, we don't move on. We move forward. And so I downloaded Tinder and it was full of dick picks and ghosting and married men and I was like a vulnerable widow. And I felt guilty. And I thought I need to, I had a few disaster estates. I had a lot of disastrous states, but I had a few very disastrous states with divorces who didn't understand what I was going through. And I thought, I need to date a widower, ideally one that looks like George Clooney.

So I thought, well, there must be a dating app for widows and widowers. And I went online and there wasn't. Now, I'm an entrepreneur and I can smell an opportunity. So I went out and erase some cash on a launch chapter two dating. Dot app in 2022, but to huge media interest. So I'm a complete and utter media hall. And I talk a lot about my story and how it's defined me and how I've turned that pain into purpose. And then in 20203, I have used my own dating app, but still not by my George Clooney.

And I wasn't able to hold down a functional relationship, basically. Mainly because I was experiencing Widows Fire, not ready for a chapter 2. So then I launched Widows Fire, which is our naughty sister app. So that's where Widows and Widowers can go and hook up. Congratulations. Thank you. Fucking hell. Sorry.

I shouldn't swear No but you know what I wake up incredulous that this is my life It's like, you know It's really happened It's like you've lived like several lives In the space of like 10 years

And it shows Well So yeah Congratulations Festing Culturally when you think of somebody that is a widow Like in my culture

Like literally it's just you by yourself You can't even bring up Right there you go There's no that conversation Of like what goes on afterwards It's just you're just meant to like you know, live your life, do just keep you to yourself and just and grieve. And grief. Right. So I think the fact that I think hearing your story and how you've

literally found purpose in your grief is absolutely amazing. How did you manage to balance? Okay, this is what I'm going through, but I also need to find purpose in it. Was there like a balance for you or was it? For me, the drive, I keep busy. I'm one of those people who can't sit still. I can't sit in grief and I can't sit with my feelings. And that's probably why I tried to numb the with alcohol. But obviously, during all of this, I'm solo parenting a child. So Finn was nine when Andy first fell ill. He's now 18, despite the odds of fully formed, wonderful human being. And for me, the drive was finding that new reason, finding that reason for being. So me and Andy had started our events business together. But every time I went into that events business,

he'd designed a logo that's on the wall in neon. You know, it was just a reminder of everything I'd lost. And I needed to find this new, new reason for being. I needed to find my purpose, my why. What's put me on this earth? And I genuinely think that helping other people find joy, help me make sense of my loss. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Christy's right. I think I've got a view of a widow, someone's very isolated. Like the matriarchs of my family have kind of lost their husbands at some point in their life and then never like dated or married or been with a man. again. Was that ever a conversation with your, with your husband? It was actually. I'm very glad it was. Me and my husband, his last holiday with me, we used to do lots of holidays and travel the world

together and he was, you know, big into travel. And we went to Sydney and Australia. And the reason we went was his best friend had died. And we went out to see his widow and pay his, pay our respects. He died 12 months earlier. And she picked us up at the airport and she said, look, I need to tell you something that I am actually dating again and I'm dating Adam's best friend. Oh. And we were like, okay, you know, we're very happy that you've found a way. And that made me and Andy talk about it. And that night back in the hotel, he said to me, I said to him, look, if anything happens

to me, right? Yeah. And he said, absolutely. And he said, look, same. If anything happens to me, I don't want you to spend the rest of your life on your own. I mean, at that point, I was 39, you know, or whatever. You know, it's like you need to have those conversations.

Yeah. You know, you have to find a way to move forward. I genuinely, most people wouldn't want their partner to be on their own and sad and lonely for the rest of their lives. So, yeah, they are conversations worth having. So that did help me rationalise that. However, I think Andy would probably be rolling in his grave at the Daily Mail headlines that I have secured since his demise. But he's an atheist and I'm so hoping he's right because if he isn't, I am. absolutely screwed. I'm telling you. I would rather go to hell and face that man.

I mean, there's a distinct chance I might be anyway, but, you know, for other reasons. But yeah, it's a concern. Yeah, it's an interesting thing. I think our generation are probably quite fragile around conversations like that. So you don't talk about the difficult stuff. We don't talk about death. Also don't like, I mean, no one likes death, but especially a taboo like finding love after death. What was it like navigating those? conversations with like your son or like his family yeah thankfully um my son is is beyond shockable and has seen headlines about his mother many of which also into the photo of him when he was like six in a little dickybo suit or something off the cruise but yeah so he's beyond shock these days and he's

hugely supportive of me um he's delighted that i am now dating um you know what i know is my chapter two um so yeah he's always been incredibly supportive supportive and understanding, which I'm very grateful. He's very mature for his age. But yeah, it's a challenge. And, you know, I implore everybody, you all think it's never going to happen to you. I have widows as members of my widow collective and also members of Chapter 2 and widows fire. Who are in their early 30s?

You know, it can happen and it does happen to people. And you've got to, you know, on a very dull and practical point, you've got to have had the difficult conversations around getting your will in place and your power of attorney and all of those things as well as whether you can go on and you know have fun afterwards do you think it's the same for like men who have lost the spouse i do feel like i understand as a female yeah you want to honor your late husband um there's that especially culturally there's that kind of our respect i was really in in a show in a tradition in south africa the men they can wait 45 days whereas the women have to wait like a year and a bit before they can involve in any sexual

activity and I'm just like okay I understand that but if a guy was to go to his male friends and was like yeah you know what I think I'm ready to X Y Z like do you find there's a difference so we actually surveyed our

members because I was interested in that so and also I knew that it could make some good press stats and so men on average were moving on moving forward however you want to call it in less than three months, right? Women, 18 months. So, yeah, I mean, we have, I mean, I see when people join widows via or chapter two, I see, we ask them to prove their widowed status,

right? Because we would be right for being scammed otherwise. If you think about a lot of vulnerable widows, a lot of which you've never online dated before, they're quite, they're not the most tech savvy audience. So we need to be very, very protective of our members. So we ask them to to provide a death certificate to prove when the late partner died. So I can see exactly when people's partners died and when they've joined the app. And some of them, even I do a double take on. And I'm quite a woman in the world. So, yeah, it is interesting, but men absolutely statistically move forward quicker than women.

That is across the board. And then the other problem that I have running a dating app is that men die quicker than women, just statistically. So I'm the only app in the world that's got more women on it than men. Wow. Yeah. That's interesting. I do want to ask, is it only widows allowed on this app? Yeah.

So on chapter two and widows fire, absolutely, it's widows and widowers. We have the odd occasion where a widow where a gentleman or a woman will contact me and say that my partner has Alzheimer's, they're in a care home. So they're in what I would call anticipatory grief. And because I've been there. And I understand that. I say absolutely you can join, but you need to be very clear on your profile. What are the kind of features of your app for someone that's not gone on to it and seen it? Like, I assume some people are coming out of a place of trauma.

Like what's the interface like? Yeah, so I mean, because of my audience and because they are generally over 50s, I mean, we do have some members in our 30s and 40s. Yeah. As I'm 50s, it's very simple tech, you know. Okay. We don't. I mean, some of them struggle to upload photos.

So, you know, we, I spend my life as a pensioner help, IT help desk and a kind of, hello. We tried turning it on and off again. So, you know, we try to keep it very simple and as straightforward as possible. They don't like swiping. So we have an, you know, you scroll through rather than swipe. Profiles are really quite detailed because people like to share their widowed story. And we encourage that because the more you understand about how someone's widowed and when that widow. because people are at different stages

on the widow journey when they come to us. So some people are in the widow's fire stage and it's pretty instant, right? And other people have been widowed five years and are ready for a serious relationship. So we actively encourage that profiles are much more detailed than perhaps you'd find on, you know, Tinder or Bumble or hinge or any of those sites.

I want to ask, again, just going back a little bit, the difference between, like, not a difference, but the contrast between like emotional grief and physical grief, when you lost your husband and you did enter in those new sexual experiences, are you scared he's watching you from heaven? I promised Andy, so I'm bisexual and I've always been openly bisexual. However, me and Andy were monogamous.

So therefore I kind of denied a part of myself if you like for a while. And I'd promised him for his 60th birthday he could have a threesome. With a girl, obviously. I mean, I would have been happy with the boy as well, but he wasn't so keen on that idea. But he died at 57. And I was like, I know, of all the regrets. So actually the first person I had physical sex with after Andy had died was a woman. And I kind of literally did, I hope you're watching both.

So, you know what I mean? Yes, absolutely. And you know, that's the other thing about what we do is have no regrets. I live for the moment, right? And if I want to have an open relationship now, I will do because life is too sure. Yeah. Don't go to the grave with any regrets. That's my one piece of advice.

You know, I live like today's like my last. That's a really empowering story. And it's nice that I guess that was in the horizon and you did kind of maybe satisfy a want from beyond the grave. Yeah. And hopefully it was watching and had a great time. I don't know. But, you know, it's like, yeah.

I think death makes you think very differently about life. Yeah. Could you just explain a little bit more about like, so the people that come onto the app, What are the kind of success stories? Oh, we've got, yeah, we've got some beautiful stories. So we've had five marriages through chapter two, which not one of them invited me to the wedding. How rude.

Hello, get down. And we've even had a chapter two baby. Now, I thought, I'm definitely beyond baby making. And I thought our members were, but we had two younger members in the mid-30s who went on to have a beautiful baby boy about six months ago. And they are just the cutest. That's amazing. I know. Yeah, we've got some wonderful sex stories and lots of, you know, fiery moments on Widow's Fire that we probably hear less of.

But, you know. In terms of, like, outside of the app, like, how were you exploring your sexuality? Were there, like, forums or, like, how did you find your community? Out of the app. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I was using Field as a kind of a good way to explore. But I met my partner, Dan, on Widow's Fire, my own app. And we've been ever so loved up since.

Oh, wow. Amazing. In regards to dating, is there any dating etiquette when it comes to dating as a widow? Yeah, I mean, we do have a, as part of the widow collective, which is my not-for-profit group. We have a WhatsApp group that's a very, very lively WhatsApp group with widows being able to talk to each other day and night. You know, because it 2 o'clock in the morning when you wake up and you're in a dark place, you want that sort of thing. But as one of those subgroups on the WhatsApp group, there is one around chapter two, the concept, not the app. Do you know what I mean?

So that people can talk about how you, and we do give advice quite regularly in there about this, you know, I think there's very often a sort of tendency that because you've been so badly hurt that you throw yourself so quickly into that we see quite a bit of sort of love bombing and, you know, that kind of stuff in the way. the early days, particularly guys get very confused by emotion. You know, what, what is actually widows fire can be thought of as love. And, you know, so we do give as much advice as we can. But, you know, honesty, openness, transparency. It's like any other app, but we're just dealing with quite vulnerable people and very raw people. So around taking it slow, not rushing into stuff, you know, not feeling like you need to remarry. Quite often when there's kids involved, people feel like they need another mom for their kids. So yeah, we're always very mindful of those things.

And we've done with Chapter 2, we've done speed dating events and I'll always do a talk ahead of that of, you know, trying not to overshare and whatever. And it's about, but the beauty of, I think widows and widowers are uniquely placed to understand each other, right? Dan understands exactly what I'm thinking and feeling on the anniversary of my husband's death. I don't need to talk about that.

I think as we do is we go from zero to 100 emotionally very quickly. Friendships like form, you know, I met who is now my best friend, Natalie, for a coffee. And, you know, within two hours, I knew she was going to be a massive part of my life forevermore because she'd walked the same road as me. Those friendships are beyond the depth of any friendship of someone you just meet at university. You know, that shared life experience and that shared understanding is unparalleled. And that transpires into relationships. I wonder what that first date experience was like.

And I guess starting over again, was that daunting for you? Oh, God, yeah. I mean, you know, that whole thing of, you know, I remember looking in despair in my underwear drawer that was full of M&S and great. And having to go to Victoria Secrets and shave my legs and, you know, and everything else. And, you know, yeah, that's sort of my first proper date.

I mean, the kind of woman I was actually a fairly good friend who was by as well. So that was quite an easy one. And I didn't shave my legs for a blessing because I didn't see it coming. But I would have. But when I had a first proper day off Tinder with a guy that, you know, I'd never met before. And, you know, I kind of knew. So I've been to Victoria's Secretes and bought the new underwear and shaved my legs and been to get my hair and makeup done. And so I got myself in the right place mentally.

And yeah, it was nerve-wracking. When you've only had sex with the same person for 20 years, you know, we had a very good and healthy sex life, right? You then going into combat, you like with someone you're like, you know, you've no idea what that's going to be like. And yeah, that was a, and the guilt that came with that was physically my body wanted to, but emotionally my head was still with Andy, you know. And it takes a long time.

I mean, I'm now six years into grief, nine years from when he first fell ill, and I've finally hit acceptance. And I am, my heart is open and ready to love Dan now. And Dan's widow timeline is very similar to mine. Yeah, you've got to find peace with yourself. And those first few dating forays can be challenging and difficult. I mean, obviously we do meet, we do have members who meet within six months of being widowed for Madden in Love and that's their chapter two. but you're almost, it's a safe space to start dating again because you're within, you're dating people who understand.

Yeah. You've shared a little bit about like kinks and obviously this like intense widows fire. Do you think that comes from that fearlessness like when you have lost the biggest love of your life? Something I didn't care about before, which like being adventurous sexually. Do you see that? Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think I know myself through my own personal journey, but through other people I've spoken to,

is we, I mean, that survey I talked about where we found out we're men and women, we also ask people if they question their sexuality. And 38% of people question their sexuality after losing a partner. You know, I know people who've transitioned from male to female after losing a partner. When you're widowed, that moment changes every aspect of your life going forward. And your inhibitions change because you actually think, for the moment. Makes you want to suck the ounce out of every second you're given because you know your partner was robbed of that. And that does extend for me definitely into the whole kind of kinked

world. Do you think all widows are horny or they're just not chatting about it enough? Yeah, I think a lot of the older generation of widows won't be. I mean, I write a block called Confessions of a horny widows. Of course, I think everybody is. Yeah, I think experiencing death makes you crave life in every way. And I think being horny is part of life. And, yeah, we're put on this earth to do one thing, aren't we? Right? And if something utterly life-changing and devastating happens to you,

it will compel you to. There will be some widows who are in their 70s, probably not listening to this podcast, who will never feel that again. But maybe they didn't feel it in the first place. You know, I think there's a generational thing of widows, people are widows in their 40s and 50s, who are experiencing this sort of second renaissance in their own sex life.

There is a thing, isn't there, that you have a higher sex drive when the older you get. Not that old are, you know, but your 50s are great girls. You've got a great time. Really? I promise you. Never, ever been having as good sex as I am now. So, yeah. Love that. Yeah.

Love that. I guess something that's worth talking about as well is when you have suffered such a loss as some people have, do you think the fear of rejection is greater? Like, are people quite protected? Are the boundaries? Yeah, it can be, and it is. And I've seen that. You know, people talk about a second morning.

There's a lot of coming together, finding joy and hope, right? And putting everything into this, this love bombing or whatever that's going on. And thinking that you found happiness again. And then because that wasn't built on strong foundations, it was two trauma people coming together. It can implode. You know, I always say as widows were a bit brinket. And if you put two broken people together at the wrong point, and you're not very clear about what it is.

If you put two broken people together and go, it's widows fire. What we're doing is soothing each other's pain physically and emotionally. Yes. That's fine. If you've got one person who's experiencing widows fire and someone who's ready for a chapter two, that can be quite dangerous. So we do quite a lot of blog posts and content around this stuff to try and educate people where we can.

If you throw yourself into a second. relationship and that falls apart you can almost get a rebound of grief yeah you know grief isn't a linear thing that you progress through they say there are you know five stages of grief there aren't there are a thousand and they happen all on the same days some days and it does feel like that second secondary loss of like I shouldn't be back here dating I should still be with andy your story has been shared by the sun but you went on this morning yes what has the public feedback been your approach to grief. I remember when I went on ITV this morning and you get this full sort of duty of care document where they're like, don't read the comments after it. Of course I did. I mean,

it's hysterical, is it? You know, when you're engaging with the tablo media, you know what's going to happen. And I'm very comfortable. You can say I shouldn't talk about grief because I'm a widow. Why shouldn't I? Why shouldn't I talk about sex? You know, it's like it's my life and I'm going to live it the best way I can and the only way I know. And I was never going to be that shy retiring widow dressed in black hiding from society. And I don't think I should be. So, yeah, I mean, I think I'm standing up and saying what a lot of widows are thinking, but aren't able or willing to vocalise because they can't because they've got jobs

and they've got kids who are young at school. And, you know, I can be quite frank. And what I say doesn't damage anybody. And I think it's important conversations. that need to be had. One of two things will happen to you, you're going to be widowed or you're going to die, right? Which is very depressing.

Yeah. But, you know, if you're widowed, have lots of sex before you die. Rate it. Yeah. I feel like it's, it's, it's, I feel like it's, no, for me, I think it's an eye opener because I feel like,

when you hear, oh, I'm a widow and people be like, oh, yeah, just get a dog or become, get into gardening or something. It's like always like suppressing. It's always like a suppressing thing. Suppress, suppress, suppress, suppress, suppress. Yeah. And you're not really living your true.

whereas the fact that you've built a community that people are open to come like share and connect and reconnect with people that have gone through the same things that they've gone through is really, very important. Because you feel like as females were very much like, let me just close. Heads down, thumbs up, yeah, I'm good, you know,

go ahead with life. They say you had small children. You're just so focused on somebody else and you're neglecting yourself. Yeah, which is very dangerous. Yeah. And, you know, sex is a part of self-care, isn't it?

Do you just mean? And much better than getting a dog. The collective term, and I love this, for a group of widows, is an avalanche. And until you've been on a dance floor with 50 widows getting down, you've not lived. Like, widows just live for the moment. And I love that about them. Avalanche, coins.

What was your current partner's reaction to finding out you run that app you found love on? I was on a cruise. I was away and lonely and horny. And I was on widows fire. And I got a message, and I don't normally respond to messages on there myself, because I try and keep my life elsewhere. But his profile said that he was dominant and mine says I'm submissive. So we were messaging back and two a few times.

And then eventually I thought, I'm going to have to fess up here, aren't I? So I said, do you know who I am? And she sounded really audacious. I own the app. And he was like, oh, right. Wow. So yeah, he paid to meet me, which I quite like. I mean, it's not quite prostitution, is it?

But it's not far off. Wait, wait, wait, what do you mean? Yeah, but then what the really funny thing is, I could go back and see how many people he'd message and everything else, but he'd actually message, get this, he'd message, Nat, who's my best friend, who I met who's a widow. He messaged her first and she knocked him back for being too short because he cheered dates people over and say, God.

So thank God she knocked him back, otherwise. So anyway, they now laugh about it when we're out. Sure. And she's since found a six-foot-plus guy on the app, so everything's good. But, yeah, it's a funny story. Sorry, he paid to meet you. Well, yeah, so because he paid a membership fee. Right.

Oh, okay, got you. Got you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How did we go from a hotel to a dungeon? A five-star hotel to a dungeon? Right, so that's another story. First day was we met in my local pub. We were there two hours and I said, you want to get dinner and he went, let's just

go back to yours. I was like, fine. So that was great. He left at three the next afternoon when my dad arrived, which is a bit embarrassing. But one way to meet the family. And then we had another day. Well, we did actually make it to dinner and realized we actually had stuff in common and got on. And that was good.

And then the third date, he said to me, oh, I'll pick you up, come to my house. I was like, great. We were going to go to the cinema for a night. It's very nice, a bit vanilla, but we'll go. It's fine. And then on the way to the cinema, he pulls up in an industrial estate. And I'm like, what the f-where's this going? And he said, I've got a surprise for you, imagining myself in the back of his boots or something.

And he said, I've booked as a dungeon for a couple of. couple of hours. So I was like, great. How does one book a dungeon? How does it? Oh, just, there are three in Manchester. Yeah, they're all over. So you can, yeah, they're, they're photo studios that you can hire. Right. Full of props and, and whatever else. So yeah, it's cheap in the hotel room. Noted. Yeah. I'm not up in Manchester. Wow. You have them in London. Yeah. I'll send you some links. Please. So now we're going to go into our quick fire question round. Mika, you ready?

I'm ready. Okay. What is the most unhinged dating story that you've heard from a widow? Oh. Oh. Well, most of them involve me, I think, don't. I don't know about unhinged. I've got a sweet romantic one which involved a hot air balloon, which was kind of cute.

That's a great first day, isn't it? It's lovely. It's scary, but lovely. What is your most unhinged dating story? Good God. How long have you got? I mean, I think the dungeon one is probably quite a good. A good example. Yeah, I don't think I can top that particularly.

That's solid. A sad one. Have people cried during sex? Yes. Yeah, yeah. It's a huge cathartic and emotional. That's happened to me, undoubtedly. Yeah. But that can be a good thing. Yeah. I wonder as well, do you have any, maybe not tips, but in terms of like, it's quite a distracting thought to be thinking of, it's such an intimate thing and maybe you're thinking of an ex-partner. How do you ensure you're very present when you are with your current partner? It's all about communication, isn't it? And if you are with another widow, they will understand. You know, that is the beauty, I guess, of what I've created is that we all can talk very openly and frankly about if that happens with another widow, they'll get it. Have people accidentally trauma dumped on first dates?

Oh gosh, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I guess I probably have a couple of times. You know, when you're in the height of, and that's the reason for Widow's fire being there so that it can just be physical. As widows, you trauma dump a lot. And I think it's about not feeling guilty about doing that

because you're just, you need to do that to get to the next stage of communication. I think also seeing as, let's say, for instance, you've gone through such a traumatic experience, people around you will kind of avoid bringing themes or topics that will make you remember. So that kind of allows you to, The one thing that widows always want to do is talk about their late partner and no one

asks questions because they're afraid and they're possibly thought around. You know, one of the best kiss you can give to a widow is say, tell me about Dave or, you know, or whatever it is. You know, what was his favourite music or people just want to remember and they want to share and they want to keep those memories alive. Yeah. Feeling is healing. It is. What's their etiquette about talking about a dead spouse on dates. Yeah, I mean, we all do as widows. They're a huge part of your life. They made you who the person you are today.

And certainly with, that would be different if you were dating someone who was divorced, right? But with widow to widow, it's the one thing that bonds you, that you're naturally going to talk about that and then potentially talk about, you know, your hopes for your own new future. Have you ever had to tell someone you are not ready to date yet? We very often signpost people to widows fire. So if I notice that someone is very newly widowed And they join chapter two I will approve their profile

But say I suspect that widows fire Could be a good place for you to start Wow, it has that level of like vetting for each person Yeah, yeah, yeah, literally I approve every single profile that goes on Yeah It's how close I am to the brand and the product It's, you know, it's my baby And I genuinely care about every member that we have

That's amazing And also a separate point. So you say you operate in those different countries, you've got users from different places in the world. Is there like a different way people in America approach being a widow compared to people in the UK? Not particularly. I mean, the problem we have with America is the size and scale of the place.

So we're a relatively new app. We've only been in the US two years. So you don't have the same population of people. So in California, you know, we might have a couple of thousand members, but they live nowhere near each other. So that is. is a challenge for us in America. It's more around geography than anything else.

Okay. But yeah, I think the fundamentals of grief, loss and dating are pretty much universal. Are widowed people secretly better lovers? I think so. That's down. Yeah, no, I think, again, it's around that openness and honesty. I mean, you know, the best sex is honest sex, isn't it? You know, I think it's about making the best of every moment and living for the moment.

And the last one. What age group is having the wildest sex after loss? Well, I would say definitely 50s, 60s. I would say from the experiences I've had I know and I see on a regular basis is that, yeah, that's the group who are most definitely. The best is yet to come. It really is. It really is. Nikki, thank you so much for chatting with us today.

I guess it's been really nice to have an open conversation about grief and being a widow as to girls who probably think it's not something that's going to touch us anytime soon. But you're right, it could happen to anyone. That's why a taboo idea. But I really appreciate you being very open and lovely to us today. My pleasure. And I hope it doesn't happen to you, but it will happen to people you know. For sure. you know, parents, et cetera.

So it's about knowing about the topics and the conversations and not being afraid of taboo and challenges. So yeah, I think it's an important conversation for us all to have. Yeah. And where can we find you on your socials? So you can find me on Insta at Nikki Wake Widow. You can also find us Chapter 2 dating and Widows fire are both on Insta, Facebook. And you can go to the website chapter 2 dating.com. widowsfire dot dating or nicky wake.com.

My businesswoman queen. Everyone, Nikki! Thank you.