'Unexpected phenomenon made me crave sex the minute my husband died'

Nicky Wake's world was shattered into pieces when her husband Andy tragically died following a sudden heart attack - but she was completely unprepared for what came next.

The 54-year-old businesswoman from Manchester found herself craving sex almost immediately after becoming a widow, which left her bottling up feelings of confusion and shame.

From following a man around the supermarket after catching a whiff of his aftershave, to breaking down in tears after a massage because she was being touched again, Nicky found herself in a perplexing part of grief that isn't typically discussed in self-help books and therapy sessions.

What she was experiencing was a phenomenon called 'widow's fire' - an uncontrollable and all-consuming desire for sex following the death of a spouse.

As you can imagine, feeling this way straight after the person you love has died can bring up all sorts of feelings of guilt and heartache, but although it's not widely talked about because of the unfair stigma surrounding it, it's actually a very common thing that widows experience.

Nicky Wake spoke to Tyla about her experience of widow's fire (Supplied)

Research by Octopus Legacy found that 63% of widows and widowers have experienced widow’s fire - and 58% within six months of losing their partner.

Speaking to Tyla, Nicky, who has since created a Tinder-style widower hookup dating app to normalise the feelings, has shared her story to help others feel less alone.

Andy and Nicky met in July 2002 on a dating app and fell 'head over heels in love' after their 'worlds collided at exactly the right time'. By February 2004, they were getting married on a beach in Jamaica.

"Life was pretty perfect," Nicky said. "We started trying for a baby. We tried lots and had lots of fun trying. And eventually, with a little medical help in 2007, our gorgeous baby boy Finn burst into the world, and we were the perfect little idyllic family. We travelled the world together on adventures."

In 2017, when their son Finn was 10 years old, Nicky, who runs an events company, got home from a business trip and found that her husband was 'a bit quiet and introspective'.

Nicky recalled: "I was like, 'What's wrong?' and he said, 'I'm sure it's nothing, but I've got these chest pains.' And my blood ran cold. I knew something wasn't right. I frog-marched him to the doctors."

After three separate trips to the GP, where he was simply diagnosed with stress, Nicky insisted that the doctors do an ECG.

Nicky's husband Andy died in 2020 following a catastrophic brain injury caused by a heart attack (Supplied)

"When they were phoning the results down the line, I saw that the nurse's face go white. And she just dialled 999. He was having a heart attack," Nicky said.

Andy was rushed to the hospital and into surgery, where he had three stents fitted into his heart, and then things began to seem okay.

However, after 'toasting their lucky escape,' tragedy struck again at six o'clock the following morning, when Nicky was awoken by a terrible sound.

"I went rushing into the bedroom, and he was having another heart attack. Only this time it was so much worse than the one before. I did CPR for 40 minutes before the ambulance arrived, which I've still got PTSD for now."

Andy was rushed into emergency surgery and put into an induced coma. Two weeks later, Nicky was told the devastating news that he'd suffered a catastrophic brain injury which left him profoundly disabled.

"So he didn't know who I was, where he was, what was going on. He couldn't walk, he couldn't talk, he couldn't eat, he couldn't, you know, it was horrific. And so we tried rehab, we threw everything at it, but there was no hope," the mother-of-one recalled.

He was admitted to a specialist brain injury residential home, and Nicky began experiencing 'anticipatory grief'. For three years, she 'knew he was going to die, but just didn't know when'.

In 2020, after Covid-19 hit the headlines, Nicky got the heartbreaking phone call to say that Andy had died.

Nicky became a solo parent to their then-10-year-old son, Finn (Supplied)

Recalling this dark period of her life, the businesswoman said: "I spiralled into depression and alcoholism at that point. I ended up in rehab in 2024 to get sober. And so I entered this new phase of life as a widow, which is a label that absolutely nobody wants in life."

Things got even more confusing when Nicky began experiencing widow's fire.

Nicky explained: "I spent 20 years with my husband. I shared a bed with him for 20 years. I taught him how to make love to this body. And he got quite good at it in the end.

"And all of a sudden, that is ripped from you, that feeling. And that is widow's fire. You're aching for physical comfort.

"I remember wandering around a supermarket and smelling an aftershave and following a man - quite literally, you know, aching for some sort of physical touch. I went for a massage, and I wept when someone touched me."

She added: “Widow's fire never goes away. It's something we always experience. I think as widows, you have a real kind of f*** it, live for the moment attitude, because you know that life can and does change in a heartbeat.

"I had three years of knowing he was going to die. So then the minute he died, my widow's fire was through the roof."

When Nicky felt she was ready to enter the dating pool again, she looked around for an app for widows and was shocked to find nothing of the sort on the market.

Nicky set up WidowsFire, a dating app for those who have lost a partner and miss intimacy in their life (Supplied)

"I thought, well, there must be a dating app for widows or widowers. And I went online expecting to find, you know, George Clooney," Nicky admitted.

As an entrepreneur, she decided to set up her own dating app for those who have lost a partner, called Chapter2Dating, which went on to become the UK’s first dating app for widows and widowers, focused on helping people find love again.

After using it herself, though, Nicky realised that another avenue was needed - one for widowers who aren't ready for another love story yet, but are experiencing widow's fire.

"Some people are ready for chapter two of their lives. But I realised there was actually a place for widow's fire," she explained.

And so, her second dating app, WidowsFire was born, with the aim of creating a 'safe, non-judgemental space for those who may not be ready for a new relationship, but still want connection, chemistry, or physical intimacy'.

Through the app, Nicky has been able to not only explore her bisexuality but also found her current partner, Dan, after seven 'very fiery dates'.

Society doesn’t prepare widowed people for the fact that grief and desire can exist at the same time, and this is something Nicky is defiantly campaigning to change.

"It comes with huge amounts of guilt until you can understand it. And part of my mission is to talk very openly about it and normalise it because it is nothing to be ashamed about at all," she concluded.

If you have experienced a bereavement and would like to speak with someone in confidence, contact Cruse Bereavement Care via their national helpline on 0808 808 1677.