You’ll probably have to deal with people who judge or shame or worry about you because of your personal choices. You’ll be judged by people who think you’re dating too quickly or moving into sex with a new person too fast. You’ll be judged for remaining celibate.
Advice from friends and family can be helpful, but not always. Even when well-intentioned, advice that clamps down your sexuality can stall your healing and make you feel ashamed of your feelings and your body’s desires. Likewise, advice that pushes you forward before you’re ready can make you feel like you’re doing grief wrong.
It’s better to get your advice from a sex-positive therapist, grief counselor, or hospice worker. By “sex positive,” I mean that they see sex as a normal and healthy part of life. They support you when you’re ready to open up to sex again, acknowledging that there’s no time frame that is right for everyone. (See Chapter 16, Grief Counselors, Sex Coaches, Support Groups for more.)
“Friends try to comfort with words
But they are taking my experience
and writing their own on top
Like an artist painting oil over watercolor.”
—Susan Jean LaMaire, in “Seven Stages Scrambled” in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Grieving and Recovery
Myths Others Tell Us
Here are examples of myths about sex and grief. Some you may hear from people in your life or read in magazine articles. Others are beliefs you may have internalized about how grief works. Realize that these are myths, not truths.
Myth: It’s not really sex you’re missing: it’s touch. Hug a friend or get a massage.
Truth: Sure, you’re missing touch. But you’re also missing sex: touch + arousal + orgasm.
“These [self-help books for widows] urged me not to confuse missing touch (acceptable) with missing sex (misguided). Missing touch didn’t have anything to do with sex, I was told, and could be replaced with massages, cuddling grandchildren, and even going to hair salons to get shampoos. Clearly, they didn’t know what Bart was like in bed. This loss wasn’t something a hairdresser could handle.”
—Alice Radosh, “Taboo Times,” in Modern Loss: Candid Conversation about Grief. Beginners Welcome by Rebecca Soffer and Gabrielle Birkner
Myth: Wait at least a year before having sex with a new partner.
Truth: Sex is comforting and an outlet for your powerful emotions and needs. There’s nothing wrong with you if you want to have sex soon after your beloved’s death, or even the day after the funeral. The one-year rule is useful for most decision making—such as marrying again or mixing finances—but when you have first sex with a new person is entirely up to you and your willing sex partner.
Myth: Sex with someone new is disloyal to your deceased loved one.
Truth: Guilt, especially survivor’s guilt, is a powerful force, but letting it rule our actions only harms us. Maybe you took the vow to be faithful “until death do us part.” You didn’t promise “after death for eternity thereafter.” It’s a horrible fact that your mate is gone, and nothing you do to care for yourself is “disloyal.” Wouldn’t your mate want you to care for yourself?
A Griever Shares
“Many people disapprove of a recently bereaved spouse jumping into the dating/mating game quickly. I was told by more than one person that it was ‘appropriate’ to wait a year before having sex with anyone. I thought that was bulls**t, especially because my dear wife repeatedly urged me, ‘Don’t become a hermit’ and ‘Embrace life fully.’ It became a mantra that she uttered over and again to me in her final months.”
Myth: Wait until you’re sure this new person is a potential next mate before having sex.
Truth: This may be true for you if you have firm religious convictions that only allow sexual expression within marriage. Otherwise, screening a possible sex partner as a potential next spouse will only create impossible hurdles and anxiety and send potential dates running. (See Chapter 5, Dating Again, for a more realistic approach.)
Myth: You need to get out there and should have started dating by now.
Truth: When people push you to start dating before you’re ready, it says more about them than about you: your grief is making them uncomfortable, or they don’t understand grief at all. Don’t let yourself be influenced by anyone else’s notion of when you should be ready.
Myth: You should wait until you’re no longer grieving.
Truth: There is no magic moment when grief is over. Grieving is not finite. It does get easier and less painful over time, and it changes into a feeling and a deep connection you can live with. But there’s no magical end point. Grief can coexist with desire—even love—for a new person
“The thing about grief is that there isn’t a place or time at which we arrive once-and-for-all at peace, or healing, or completion.”
—Joanne Cacciatore, PhD in Bearing the Unbearable: Love, Loss, and the Heartbreaking Path of Grief
A Polyamorous Perspective
A perspective from David Wraith, sex educator, cofounder of Sex Positive St. Louis
Almost all the support, advice, and conventional wisdom around grieving the loss of a spouse or romantic partner is tailored to monogamous people. My grief support group was invaluable to me after my wife died, but I had to take a lot of their advice with a polyamory-flavored grain of salt. I was the only nonmonogamous person in my group, and even though I was among the most recently widowed, I was the only person who had dated anyone since my spouse’s passing. Some of the others in the group had been widowed for years and still weren’t ready to date.
One piece of advice that was shared in the group was, “You’ll know you’re ready to date again when you take off your wedding ring.” My current partner and I have been together for three years, and I still wear my wedding ring. I wore it when I was dating other people when my wife was alive, so why take it off now?
One advantage to being queer, black, kinky, and polyamorous is that I’m used to having to screen mainstream thought and opinion through my own personal filter before applying it to myself. Being a polyamorous widower is no different. I had to expect and brace myself for the judgment of my monogamous friends for “dating again so soon,” since many of them had no idea I was dating other people when my wife was still alive.
Reprinted with permission from Sex After Grief: Navigating Your Sexuality After Losing Your Beloved by Joan Price (Mango Publishing), available from Amazon and Bookshop.