Young widowhood: A qualitative study of sexuality after partner loss

Abstract

Partner loss deprives young widows of physical contact, emotional intimacy, and the fulfillment of sexual desire. Although disenfranchised and oppressed, sexuality is a core piece of women’s identity, and sexual bereavement may compel widows to reconstruct their sexual identities. This existential phenomenological study seeks to illuminate the sexual loss and coping of young widows aged 45 and under. Qualitative findings from 21 women indicated three findings: a) young widows felt profound loss regarding their sexual relationships, leading to deep physical loneliness and an initial disinterest in sex; b) some subsequently experienced widows’ fire, an involuntary and often distressing intense sexual desire marked by cravings, obsessive thoughts, and a longing for connection; c) widows’ fire complicated their struggle to understand their post-loss identities as sexual beings. These findings highlight the neglected and significant repercussions of sexual loss for young widows and point to a need for heightened support, psychoeducation, and research.

A life partner’s early death inflicts numerous losses on a surviving spouse, including the deprivation of physical contact, emotional intimacy, and the fulfillment of sexual desire. This loss may significantly impact sexual identity, a fundamental component of a person’s overall identity (de Boer, 2023). Although women’s development of a sexual sense of self occurs as an ongoing process, scholars posit that women urgently experience the need to achieve sexual self-understanding and reconstruct their sexual identity during significant life transitions (de Boer, 2023), like widowhood. Scholarship documenting widows’ efforts to reconstruct their overall identities after a life-altering loss parallel this finding (Wehrman, 2023). Significant life transitions impact women’s sexual self-perception, expression, and satisfaction (Daniluk 1998, as cited in Koert & Daniluk, 2009) and compel women to construct new ways of understanding and connecting with themselves sexually (de Boer, 2023). Losing a sexual partner represents a transition in which sexuality is salient, intensifying the struggle to adjust (Malatesta et al., 1988), and the deprivation of physical contact and emotional intimacy forms a significant secondary loss to grieve (Barrett, 1981). Because sexuality forms a central component of identity and since sexual self-understanding develops intensely in response to life transitions (de Boer, 2023), the experience of young widows bears further examination. This study thus explores the experience of sexual partner loss and sexuality of post-loss young widows.

Literature review

Scholars have approached the complex and dynamic process of sexuality from various perspectives. The sociological framework of sexual scripts rejected a biological view of sexual desire and behavior (Simon, 2017). Instead, it proposed that culture and socialization produced the tenets of sexual norms and desires. Broadly, the framework emphasized three influences: the societal or cultural, the interpersonal, and the intrapsychic (Simon, 2017). Sexual scripts guide beliefs about “how, why, and with whom to be sexual” (Carpenter, 2010, p. 161). A cultural script expresses dominant social norms, such as a belief that widows should remain faithful to their deceased partners. Interpersonal and intrapsychic scripts are embedded within cultural scripts. Interpersonal scripts refer to the behaviors and expressed sexual desires deemed acceptable among sexual partners. Intrapsychic scripts are each person’s internal thoughts and fantasies about sex that are developed over time and heavily influence what they deem to be desirable in sexual interactions (Simon, 2017). For example, one person’s intrapsychic script may equate romance with satisfying sexual interactions. Sexual scripts play a significant role in shaping individual and societal attitudes and behaviors related to sex and can be used to describe the experiences of young widows.

The life course perspective provides another sociological framework informing an understanding of the development of sexuality. From this perspective, a person’s lifespan represents a composition of concurrent trajectories that traverse different dimensions of life (Carpenter, 2010). In each trajectory, transitions are encountered that induce a status change (Carpenter, 2010). Transitions in a woman’s sexual trajectory could include the first menstruation, the first sexual encounter, marriage, motherhood, divorce, menopause, and widowhood and have profound impacts on a woman’s self-image as a sexual being. Furthermore, life course trajectories can also be understood through the lens of cumulative disadvantages or advantages depending on the difficulties and opportunities enabled by earlier transitions (O’Rand, 1996). Based on O’Rand’s work, Carpenter (2010) would categorize young widows’ early loss of a sexual partner as a disadvantageous sexual transition, as it is forced and unwanted.

Widowhood

Bereavement, sexual deprivation, and disenfranchised grief in widowhood

A spouse’s premature death thrusts the bereaved partner into a challenging reality filled with pain and loneliness (Barros-Lane et al., 2024b) and can be understood within the context of the Dual Process Model of Grief (DPM). DPM conceptualizes the grieving process as a fluid oscillation between loss and restoration orientations (Stroebe & Schut, 2010). Loss-orientation describes moments when the bereaved focus on their grief and remembrance of their deceased loved one and experience feelings of loss. Restoration orientation describes the times when the bereaved learn to live in the world without the deceased, perhaps trying new things, relationships, and roles (Stroebe & Schut, 2010).

Yearning is the most prevalent grief indicator in the first year of bereavement (Maciejewski et al., 2007) and is characterized by an intense future-oriented longing toward someone or something highly valued in the past (O’Connor & Sussman, 2014). Sexuality in widowhood should be understood in the context of the deprivation of human contact that is experienced after the death of a partner (Barrett, 1981) and the experience of yearning present within the first year (Maciejewski et al., 2007). The impact and significance of losing one’s sexual partner are frequently disenfranchised (Barros-Lane et al., 2024a). Despite an awareness of the difficulty of sexual deprivation in widowed women, there is frequently resistance and hostility toward their sexual needs. In the United States, widows have historically been “distrusted for [their] sexual experience[s]” (Faull, 2010, p. 92) and have faced familial intrusion and opposition if they attempt to sexually re-partner (Barros-Lane et al., 2024a, 2024b). Young widows are often victims of abusive societal practices that suppress and control their sexuality and violate their human rights, exemplified in the global practices of ritual cleansing by rape, disfiguring widows’ faces with knives, and forcing them to sleep with their partner’s corpse as a symbolic last sexual act in villages in Nigeria (Research Directorate, Immigration and Refugee Board, Canada, 2000); the restriction and stalking of young widows to prevent sexual immorality in India (Lamba, 2023); their ostracization for suspected sexual needs in South Africa (Motsoeneng, 2022); and legally sanctioned, severe financial penalties on remarriage for military, police officer, and firefighter widows in the United States (Kheel, 2023; Barros-Lane et al., 2024a). Put together, these disenfranchizing societal norms oppress widowed women. Furthermore, the disenfranchisement of sexuality is a direct onslaught upon young widows’ ability to engage in restoration-oriented activities such as creating new sexual and romantic relationships; as such, it is also an onslaught upon their grieving and healing process.

Sexuality in young widows

Sexual desire and need in widows can be felt “deeply and quickly” after loss (Courtney, 1985, p.8). Yet, the relative lack of research about young widows’ sexuality suggests implicit bias and scholarly reticence about the topic. Although the loss of a sexual partner is significant at any age, the limited and perhaps outdated scholarship was mixed on whether younger widows struggled more than their older counterparts with their adjustment to the loss of sexual intimacy. Some older studies have found that widows of all ages express sexual deprivation (Goddard & Levinton, 1979), while other studies differentiate the effects by age (Kansky, 1986). One qualitative study of eighteen women found that widows ranging from the ages of 25 to 84 felt sexually frustrated at the loss of their sexual-intimate relationships with their deceased spouse (Goddard & Levinton, 1979). Kansky (1986) found no significant differences in sexual desire between older and younger widows in a small quantitative study examining the sexual practices of 31 white, recently widowed women ranging in age from 30 to 62 (mean age of 47.4).

Conversely, a study with one hundred widows (aged 40-89) found that younger widows tended to feel less happy and more deprived with the loss of sexual activities than their older counterparts (Malatesta et al., 1988). Younger widows missed sexual intercourse and other expressions of physical intimacy (Malatesta et al., 1988). They also experienced more significant barriers, such as negative body image, limited availability of dating partners, and insufficient financial resources for social activities to meet their sexual and relational needs (Malatesta et al., 1988). In a small study, Elliott (1997) conducted qualitative interviews with eight people (five women and three men, aged 44 to 74) and examined how bereavement influenced sexual desire. Her participants reported having little sexual desire after losing a spouse, followed by unexpected and alarmingly powerful feelings of desire and guilt.

The limited literature on widows’ sexual adjustment and behavior suggests that a widow’s identity as a sexual being and her sexual choices after loss are painful and complex to reorganize due to conflictual feelings and external pressures (Elliott, 1997; Kansky, 1986; Malatesta et al., 1988). To fill this gap in the literature, we examined the following research question for this study: How do young widows experience their sexual desires, needs, and sexual self-image after their loss?

Method

Existential phenomenology

We based our study on an existentialist phenomenological approach (Garko, 1999) to examine sexual desire in young widows because of its alignment with the feminist perspective and its goal to understand the lived experiences of research participants. Existential phenomenology describes experiences from the perspective of the experiencers. It acknowledges the co-creation of knowledge and mutual influence between the researcher and participant, whom they term coresearcher to denote the existence of mutual influence. It rejects the positivist perspective of the researcher as the objective and uninfluenced expert (Garko, 1999). A feminist perspective also challenges scholars to conduct research pertinent to coresearchers’ lives (Gringeri et al., 2010). The first author, in fact, came to understand the significance of post-bereavement sexuality through her own experience as a young widow and through her membership in multiple online young widow(er)s’ groups. Consequently, the first author queried the online groups about their interest in a research study related to sexuality in widowhood and received feedback that shaped the direction of this study. This study utilized semi-structured phenomenological interviews to aid coresearchers in forming their experiential contexts and constructing and reflecting on their experiences (Cerbone, 2014).

Coresearchers

We recruited people who met the following eligibility criteria: a) widowed in the past 36 months, b) widowed by the age of 45, and c) identified as a woman. Twenty-one coresearchers were recruited, each participating in a one-on-one semi-structured interview via Zoom. Table 1 contains an overview of interviewees’ information.

Table 1. Summary Information on Interview Participants.

Participant	Birth Year	Time Passed	Race/Ethnicity.	Education	Status
1	1987	34 Months	Biracial	Masters	Single
2	1984	24 Months	White	Associates	Single
3	1987	24 Months	Biracial	High School	FWB^a
4	1985	14 Months	White	Bachelors	Cohabitate
5	1978	36 Months	White	Bachelors	Married
6	1990	24 Months	Biracial	Associates	Single
7	1994	19 Months	White	Bachelors	Single
8	1997	8 Months	White	Bachelors	Single
9	1983	14 Months	Biracial	Bachelors	Relationship
10	1984	21 Months	White	High School	Relationship
11	1983	24 Months	White	Trade School.	Relationship
12	1979	30 Months	White	Masters	Married
13	1984	35 Months	Hispanic	Bachelors	Single
14	1980	28 Months	White	Bachelors	Single
15	1981	30 Months	White	High School	Cohabitate
16	1981	35 Months	White	Bachelors	Cohabitate
17	1983	14 Months	White	Masters	Dating
18	1976	34 Months	White	College	Boyfriend
19	1992	7 Months	White	College	Single
20	1983	36 Months	White	High School	Boyfriend
21	1987	8 Months	White	Bachelors	Single

^a Friends with benefits.

Procedure

After receiving approval from the university’s IRB (CPHS #50-22), the first author posted a solicitation letter and flyer that included the study’s purpose, the researcher’s contact information, and the eligibility criteria in several online widowed groups of which she was a member. Those documents contained a Qualtrics link that screened for eligibility and prompted eligible persons to provide their email and phone contact information. After obtaining their contact information, the first author provided a calendar link to sign up for a Zoom meeting for a virtual interview. In alignment with the feminist approach, the first author disclosed her young, widowed status to reduce power differences and to show respect for the coresearcher (Aitken & Burman, 1999). This strategy also enabled the coresearcher to discuss the topic more deeply (Gill, 2022). The first author explained the study’s purpose and obtained informed consent verbally. Coresearchers chose pseudonyms on Zoom before recording the hour-long, semi-structured interviews. Coresearchers were informed that we would erase their contact information from Qualtrics after completing the study.

Measures

The demographic questionnaire asked coresearchers about their race, gender, level of education, and current intimate relationship status. The interview guide included phenomenologically driven questions allowing young widows to describe their personal context (Cerbone, 2014), such as their sexual relationships with their deceased partner, the loss of their sexual partner, if and how they experienced a change in their sexual selves, and reflections on these changes. The questions included: a) Can you describe what your sexual relationship was like with your partner before you were widowed? b) what was it like to lose your sexual partner?; c) what change, if any, was there in your sexual behavior after you were widowed (in the immediate aftermath and months later)?; d) what change, if any, was there in your sexual desire after you were widowed, in the immediate aftermath, and months later?

Analysis

The first author uploaded the audio files to a site for transcription. We analyzed the data using thematic analysis as Braun and Clarke (2006) laid out, allowing for flexibility in theoretical framing. We used a semantic, inductive thematic analytic approach to help describe young widows’ lived experience of sexuality (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The semantic approach allowed us to code as close to the words of the coresearchers as possible, and an inductive analysis allowed us to code from the ground up, honoring the coresearchers’ voices. Some of the words and concepts described by coresearchers are intimately honest and vividly descriptive of their experiences of sexual longing. In line with the phenomenological approach, the authors were faithful in sharing the wording and feelings of coresearchers. Some young widows used swear words in the interviews. Swear words often convey intense feelings and emotionally discharge strong feelings (Stapleton et al., 2022). To convey the intensity of the coresearchers’ feelings and simultaneously demonstrate respect for readers, the team inserted a string of symbols between the letters that still allowed the word to be recognizable yet not as jarring.

Per the first phase of coding, five of the eight research team members familiarized themselves with the raw data by listening to the recordings and reading the transcriptions to ensure their accuracy. After thoroughly reading the transcripts, the team met and discussed initial impressions and generated preliminary codes relevant to the research question (Phase 2). The codes were utilized to create a preliminary codebook, which three authors used to open-code all transcripts using the qualitative software Dedoose. The first two authors jointly coded all transcripts with assistance from the fourth author. The first two authors coded and organized similar codes under emerging themes in the third phase. This iterative process consisted of presenting the themes to all eight authors and outside reviewers. In the fourth phase, feedback led to changes in the preliminary themes, ensuring each theme was robust, discrete, and uniform. A fifth phase allowed the first and second authors to review and refine the themes, capturing the essence of the excerpts linked to each theme. The eight authors then reviewed the themes and gave feedback until everyone agreed on the findings. The sixth phase involved the first two authors choosing the most compelling excerpts that would allow readers to understand young widows’ experience of post-loss sexuality. The full team reviewed this final report and, with discussion and feedback, reached a full consensus.

Trustworthiness

We used several strategies to ensure the study’s trustworthiness (Shenton, 2004). Before the study’s design, the first author had prolonged engagement with the young, widowed community to ascertain its members’ interest in researching this topic. All authors became deeply familiar with the data, especially the first two authors who undertook the task of primary analysis. To bracket and ensure reflexivity, the team consistently spoke of their assumptions, experiences, and feelings in the meetings and wrote positionality statements (see Appendix). We wrote themes clearly with adequate support from the data to demonstrate their veracity using quotes that we transcribed and presented verbatim. Since we could not member-check in the traditional sense because confidentiality restrictions precluded us from keeping coresearchers’ contact information, we posted the results in the widows’ online forums. Although not ideal for member-checking since we could not ascertain whether the people giving us feedback were our coresearchers, we did receive feedback from members of the online forums expressing strong agreement for the findings.

Results

This study examined the lived experience of sexual desire in recently bereaved young widows. It found that young widows felt profound loss regarding their sexual relationships, leading to deep physical loneliness and an initial disinterest in sex. Some subsequently experienced widows’ fire, an involuntary and often distressing sexual desire marked by intense cravings, obsessive thoughts, and a longing for connection. Widows’ fire complicated their struggle to understand and accept post-loss identities as sexual beings.

Theme #1: Young widows described that, even if they initially had no desire for sex, they recognized the profound loss of intimacy and comfort that their sexual relationship symbolized and experienced deep physical loneliness.

We asked young widows about what it was like to lose their sexual partners. Initially, most of them had no sexual desire, even as they heartbreakingly recognized the profundity of their loss. One woman said, “After he died, the first couple of weeks, that [sex] just was not on my mind at all” [P9]. Another young widow, traumatized after her husband suddenly died at home, said that immediately after her partner died, she “didn’t need it [sex] anymore” [P18]. Young widows described their grief over losing the person who knew their bodies and sexual preferences, and, in turn, who was sexually known by them. For many coresearchers, losing a sexual partner represented the loss of intimacy, trust, and years of sexual experience and familiarity. One widow coresearcher who had been with her partner for fourteen years stated,

It’s so tough … He knew everything about me, about how to turn me on, about vice versa. …Just knows you, your body, what you need and can read your nonverbal cues as to what you want or you know. It seems so tough because it’s scary to think, to start over. Yeah, for a long time, I didn’t even think about sex or anything. There were other things to tend to [P13].

Young widows felt that their grief made them lose sexual desire and recognized that their lost desire and shifting identities as sexual beings were catastrophic. Their sexual history and comfort with their partners affected the thought of being sexual with anyone else. One coresearcher, who suddenly lost her husband of twenty years to a heart attack, shared, “Immediately, I was just so completely broken that I don’t think sex was ever a desire for me” [P2]. She described herself as needing a long time to warm up to another person sexually and shared that she lived with her husband for six months, pre-marriage, before feeling ready to have sex. She expressed overwhelming grief at losing the person who knew her sexually and intimately after years of building trust. “It was extremely tough…Just knowing how long we had been together and how comfortable I felt with him… I’m never going to be able to be that comfortable with somebody else” [P2]. She continued by saying,

He knew how to make me happy. He knew how to make me have an orgasm before he did. And that obviously wasn’t the way it was at the very beginning of our relationship. It took years for me to quote, unquote, teach that, and he was proud of that [P2].

A young widow whose husband of seventeen years died in an accident discussed her early realization that her sexual relationship with her husband was another loss for her to grieve, even if she was not experiencing sexual desire. She remembers wondering, “Okay, my husband died twelve days ago. Why am I thinking about this [the loss of sexuality]?” She eventually understood, “There was this whole side of our relationship that was just ours, that we shared with no one. It was ours, and it was intimate, and it was passionate, and now it’s gone” [P21]. This young widow’s experience illuminates a diverse set of losses that a widow experiences. Some are knowable to others, but some, such as physical intimacy, are uniquely shared between the widow and the lost partner. She grieved for the intimate, shared sexual experiences that disappeared with his death.

I grieved him, and I grieved our relationship. But then there was this whole different side of it that I grieved, this whole physical side that I had only been with one person for 17 years, and now, all of a sudden, it was gone. I jokingly said to a friend about ten days out, and I said, man, what am I going to do? I said I spent 17 years training him. I said I got to f***ing start over [P21].

As the reality of their loss settled in, many young widows reported experiencing deep loneliness and a longing for physical touch and intimacy. “After he was gone and … taking care of somebody was gone. After the kids go to bed, you’re just sitting here at night. That’s when you really started to miss just having an intimacy with somebody… [P4]. Another widow said,

At about month five, I started just feeling more, I guess, more loneliness, like missing companionship, and just, like, realizing that, oh, I haven’t really had a proper hug in a long time [P19].

Loneliness was reported both emotionally and physically; widows described an aching physical emptiness in their bodies. One said, “I just wanted somebody to fill the void of loneliness and intimate touch. I guess it doesn’t necessarily have to be sex” [P2]. She shared the difficulty of losing physical touch, as it was “just immediately sucked out of my life” [P2]. Widows considered how and if they might reinstate physical intimacy into their lives. Some sought any physical contact, while others recognized that they craved a more sexual touch and connection.

I think if I could have chosen, I would have looked for somebody to just cuddle with and close my eyes and just feel like everything was okay. So, I think at that point, it was more about just feeling desired and wanted and held. That’s a big one, just being held [P3].

Theme #2 – Regardless of the quality of their previous relationship or levels of sexual desire, most young widows reported the occurrence of intense desire for sex, commonly referred to as widows’ fire, within the first year after their partner’s death. Widows’ fire is an unbidden and distressing experience involving obsessive thoughts about sex, yearning for physical and sexual contact with another human being, and the longing to feel desirable.

The researchers of this study identified a common phenomenon in the community of young widows, referred to as widows’ fire. As described by coresearchers, it is an unbidden sexual desire that often feels intense and distressing. It includes an intense desire for sex, obsessive thoughts about sex, as well as skin hunger– a longing for physical and sexual contact with another human being and a need to feel desirable. When asked about widows’ fire, one woman explained, “You just want that sexual contact. You don’t care about anything else” [P8]. Widows generally described their experiences of widows’ fire as unwelcome, disconcerting, and a remarkable shift and elevation in sexual desire. They often felt ashamed or unable to speak about it. One woman reported that her desire was unwelcome and as strong as it had been in her teenage years. She compared her satisfaction with once-per-week sexual activity with her late husband to her current desire for sex “every single day, and multiple times a day even” [P18]. Another widow shared,

It was like my sex drive was on overdrive. And it wasn’t that I desired any one particular person or anything … I think the best way to describe it would be, like, someone looking for their next fix …Nothing I did [could] satisfy it. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me. It is literally the weirdest and worst feeling in the world … you feel like your body is betraying you [P21].

Many widows divulged feeling skin hunger, a powerful need to physically connect and feel another person. One described it as “loneliness if loneliness smoked crack. It’s a different kind of lonely that has this intensity” [P5]. She explained that her craving for human contact was tied to sexual desire, grief, and need for comfort.

Skin hunger is real … I mean, yeah, can you buy all the battery-operated boyfriends or girlfriends you can afford? Sure. But it’s not the same thing. There is no other person on the end of that. … And then, when you’re going through the grieving process, I think that a lot of those emotional needs are sort of overwhelming [P5].

Others reported a similar drive to connect with another person physically and emotionally.

Masturbation is a good quick fix, but it doesn’t replace the intimacy. And I was desperately craving intimacy. I wanted to be touched. I wanted to be held. Him looking at me in my eyes, him caressing me. A sex toy can’t do that, you know? [P9]

Many coresearchers also expressed a profound need to feel desirable, which was seemingly rooted in their drive to feel alive and to maintain their identities as sexual beings. It also appeared to illustrate their hope, as young widows, for future romantic partnerships. One widow commented, “I want someone to want me, and I want to hear them tell me they want me. That’s a huge piece of it” [P14]. Another stated, “It’s like a different level of wanting …Like just this need … to be desired, to feel like you’re wanted, to feel like you exist in someone else’s mind” [P13].

Widows’ fire seemed to be common for many young widows, regardless of the nature of their relationships with their deceased partner or their previous sex drives. One grieving widow described a loving and respectful eight-year relationship with her husband and expressed gratitude for their high level of sexual compatibility. She reported that they sexually “enjoyed each other, [and] spent as much time as we could together” [P20]. She experienced widows’ fire within three months of her 36-year-old husband’s death in a work-related accident and said, “It’s like it just hits you out of the blue. You don’t know why. Suddenly, everyone you’re looking at is at a [sexual] opportunity” [P20].

Conversely, another widow described dissatisfaction with her twenty-year marriage, both emotionally and sexually [P15]. Her husband was reportedly oppressive and controlling toward her and her children, and she consequently did not experience herself as a highly sexual person. She was shocked, three months after her husband’s death, to feel lust for a man she disliked, whom she described as “not a great guy and just gross” [P15]. Her consternation was evident as she shared, “[Widows’ fire] is a real thing. I remember very clearly within those first few months being like … why do I feel this desire to just [have sex with] you? What the hell? I’ve never been this person” [P15].

Humor and relief garnered from the sharing were evident as some widows disclosed their heightened desire and compulsive search for potential partners. “It was kind of funny because I felt more like a high school boy-crazed version [of myself]. I still wasn’t doing anything with anybody, but I just started fantasizing about people … I’d get ahead of myself and make up all these stories” [P14]. Another coresearcher described feeling “on the prowl,” like a “teenage boy at a country fair.” She humorously related how she would scan for wedding rings on men’s hands because without the wedding ring, “every dick [was] an opportunity” and said, “It was a mission or instinctual drive that wouldn’t go away” [P11].

Theme #3 – Young widows reported that widows’ fire and the ensuing feelings of confusion, grief, shame, guilt, and isolation exacerbated their struggle to understand and make sense of their post-loss identities as sexual beings.

Young widows understood and experienced themselves as sexual beings in the context of their sexual and romantic partnerships. After losing their partners, they were left with altered and shaken sexual identities and contended with the quandary of how to understand, accept, and reinvent themselves as sexual beings outside of the relationship with their partners. Widows’ fire heightened the confusion and intensified the struggle to comprehend and accept their post-loss identities as sexual beings. One young widow compared widows’ fire to the experience a person has when they are “pregnant and […] have cravings for weird foods that you don’t understand why. It’s the same with widows’ fire” [P20]. Many widows described feeling ambivalent, disturbed, and troubled by their sexual longings and widows’ fire and felt unsure about how to understand or contextualize their feelings. A young widow aptly expressed her ambivalence and confusion, stating, “Wait a minute, am I supposed to want this with someone else? And is this normal? And is this natural? And if I act on this, what does that do to my commitment to my husband?” [P18]

Another coresearcher expressed negative judgment toward herself, stating,

It was hard because right after he died, I started experiencing urges, and it made me feel like a monster. He’s been dead for two weeks, and what’s wrong with me? … I did not understand what I was feeling … having these feelings and these urges so fresh [after] his death made me feel like I didn’t love him. It made me feel like my focus was on where it shouldn’t be … And having those feelings made me feel like I wasn’t focusing on my grieving [P3].

Widows also frequently reported ambivalence about feeling sexual pleasure because sexual pleasure and masturbation had become deeply connected to the lost loved one. One widow reported that she avoided masturbating due to the inevitable grief that would follow. She shared, “Even on the occasions where I would go to get myself off, if I didn’t do it quickly, I would start to cry because then I was like, he’s the one that’s supposed to be doing this” [P14]; another said that when she engaged in self-pleasure, she would “bawl my eyes out” and “not even think about him [deceased husband]” [P17].

Because widows’ fire creates such urgency for sexual activity soon after the death of a partner, many young widows sought to understand both its presence and timing. They described their relief upon learning that they were not alone in their experience. Some stumbled upon information, while others actively looked for resources about heightened sexual desire in widowhood.

I didn’t feel like I should feel it [widows’ fire]. It’s not something that you ever hear about. I think it was probably about six months after, and I was in a group and I ended up joining one [young widows’ social support group], and it’s where they speak a lot more on everything. And that was the first time I heard the term widow’s fire [P20].

Another coresearcher said that she “looked stuff up and started seeing that this is really common. So, I did a little bit of research to try to understand it because everyone has it almost, I’d say” [P11]. Understanding and learning more about the nature of widows’ fire from other young widows brought relief and helped coresearchers make sense of their experience and feel less alone.

Young widows overtaken by widows’ fire also tried to understand the betrayal that their sexual desire might represent. Some were stuck with feelings of guilt, while others tried to make peace with their continued sexual identity. A coresearcher who was widowed two years earlier discussed her struggle with guilt.

I mean, I felt very guilty that I even had those desires. Like I said, my husband was an extreme party animal. He was the life of the party. And I knew for sure if tables were turned, he would have already been out having sex to fulfill that desire, and I wouldn’t have loved him any less. And I know he wouldn’t love me any less. But you still feel guilty no matter how much you talk yourself in or out of it. There’s just this huge guilt that just pulls you [P2].

While some widows felt mired in guilt, others sought to make peace with their widows’ fire by accepting that their marriage was over. One coresearcher explained, “So I’m trying to just kind of get into that mind frame that we completed our vows, and it’s okay. Right? It’s okay to go out and be a human again and to live and explore all that” [P13].

Discussion

This study examined the sexual desires, needs, and sexual sense of self of young widows, which is an important topic for several reasons: a partner’s death disrupts identity (Wehrman, 2023), sexuality is central in a person’s sense of self (de Boer, 2023), and the loss of a sexual partner carries a significant secondary loss (Malatesta et al., 1988). However, the experience of the death of a sexual partner has received scant attention in the literature. We found that young widows experience substantial and painful shifts in their sexuality and that the loss of their sexual partners is an unwanted and disadvantageous sexual transition (O’Rand, 1996). To our knowledge this is the first time this topic has been directly studied with in-depth qualitative interviews.

In the first theme, many young widows describe their lack of sexual desire immediately after their partner’s death, paired with their recognition that the comfort and trust embedded in their sexual relationships with their partners is lost. This immediate lack of desire for sex (Elliot, 1997) and their grief over the loss of sexual comfort and intimacy (Malatesta et al., 1988) have been identified in previous studies; however, this study was the first to qualitatively examine the nuances of the grief that accompanies sexual loss. We found that the sexual bereavement of widows is a significant secondary loss. As widows grieve for their sexual partner, they may oscillate between their lonely, active longing for the deceased and their attempts to self-soothe and recreate themselves as sexual beings within an altered, partnerless status, mirroring the oscillation described in the DPM (Stroebe & Schut, 2010). Both the loss and the restoration-orientation may be painful. Masturbation, while self-soothing and restoration-oriented, seemed to buffer widows’ fire only slightly and presented a conundrum. While helpful, engaging in masturbation exacerbated the longing for their deceased, causing widows to avoid masturbation or to accelerate its process to evade an onslaught of grief. The mix of grief with sexual longing and coping is a new concept that deserves attention since this may be a nuance in the way grief shows up in young widowhood.

In the second theme, young widows discuss a confusing and intense surge of sexual desire within the first year after their loss, or widows’ fire. In addition to losing their sexual partners, which shattered their sexual environment, young widows also faced altered intrapsychic scripts (Simon, 2017) because of intensified sexual desires. The experience of widows’ fire included obsessive thoughts about sex, a yearning for sexual and physical contact, and a longing to be desired. This study is the first to introduce the term widows’ fire and describe sexual desire in premature widowhood to this extent, although prior literature has reported that young widows experience unexpectedly powerful sexual desire (Elliot, 1997) and deeply struggle with the loss of physical touch (Malatesta et al., 1988). We observed similarities between yearning, described as the “unbidden, repetitive desire for a cherished person from the past” (Kaplan et al., 2018), and widows’ fire, denoting an “unbidden, distressing, and intense sexual desire,” particularly concerning the recreation of intimacy and connection with a previously highly valued individual (O’Connor & Sussman, 2014). Both concepts involve a profound longing to reconnect with a former partner or for the intimate connection once held with a partner. We wonder if widows’ fire could be a manifestation of yearning in the sexual domain.

In theme three, young widows described the confusion, grief, shame, guilt, and isolation that accompany widows’ fire. Irrespective of their previous sexual scripts, widows’ fire altered their intrapsychic scripts to the point that young widows did not recognize their sexual selves. Although we conceptualize that increased sexual desire could be a manifestation of grief, internalized grief norms and oppressive societal scripts seem to contribute to the confusion and shame that young widows experience with widows’ fire. The sexual bereavement, needs, and experiences of young widows continue to be a taboo topic in most cultures. Many widows feel shame and wonder if their sexual yearning was at odds with a true expression of mourning and represented a lack of love for their deceased partners.

Limitations and implications for research

Although other studies have examined the impact of partner death on the surviving spouse, this study examines the domain of widows’ post-loss sexuality. Despite the study’s many strengths, results should be interpreted with caution. As this is a phenomenological study, we are not making claims concerning the generalizability of its findings. We recruited coresearchers from online widows’ forums, some of which are more open than others in discussing grief over sexual loss. Because of confidentiality, we did not ask where coresearchers saw recruitment fliers, so we are unaware of their specific group memberships. While we doubt that coresearchers provided such detailed and heartfelt information about their own experiences with widows’ fire because of their involvement in specific groups, it is plausible that being part of these forums allowed them to explore experiences and gain greater insight into their sexuality compared to widows who did not belong to these online groups. Since societal sexual scripts affect sexuality, this study could be replicated to provide an understanding of how women’s sexuality is affected in different contexts. Additional research should explore the impact of partner loss upon various pieces of a person’s sense of self rather than viewing self-concept as a singular monolith. Partner loss may be impactful and cause disenfranchised losses in several domains of the bereaved person’s identity, including sexuality. Further research should also explore the process of integration commonly faced by young widows, their needs for sexual connection, their experiences of widows’ fire, and their grief for their deceased partner.

Conclusion

This study examined the sexual bereavement of young widows and was the first to report on the experience of widows’ fire in the literature. Young widows commonly reported ambivalence and distress as they navigated their grief, post-loss sexual desires, and loneliness while facing societal pressures and the disenfranchised loss of their sexual lives. Widows also reported needs for comfort, connection, and intimacy in tandem with a longing for their partners. There is a need for future research, psychoeducation, and support regarding sexual bereavement for widows, as the concept of widows’ fire is generally unknown, and the needs and experiences of young widows facing sexual loss are often disenfranchised, misunderstood, and unspoken.

Acknowledgments

We thank Dr. Ronit Leichtentritt and the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments that significantly improved the paper. We are also grateful for the young widows who courageously shared their stories and made this study possible. An internal ORCA grant at University of Houston-Downtown funded this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.