Chapter 2: A dating app by and for widows and widowers
BY READERS DIGEST
28th Nov 2023 Dating & Relationships
9 min read
Nicky Wake tells Georgia Harris her story and about her dating app Chapter 2, which is forming a community for widows and widowers all over the UK
For widows and widowers in the 21st century, the prospect of dating again—especially dating online—can seem incredibly daunting. After experiencing the "Wild West" of online dating apps, Nicky Wake created Chapter 2, a dating app specifically designed for widows and widowers.
Nicky and Andy's love story
Nicky, Finn, and Andy on holiday in 2010; Nicky has created Chapter 2, a dating app and community for widows and widowers (credit: Nicky Wake)
I met Andy online in 2002—that was
back in the day when you didn't tell anyone you met online. We used to tell
people we met in a bar! He was devilishly handsome, and he "liked" me, so I "liked" him back, and then he sent a multiple-choice questionnaire with
questions like “Coronation Street or EastEnders?”. I obviously passed with
flying colours because he invited me on a date!
We met at this bar in Manchester, and I knew that night it was something really significant: I said to my friend
the next day, "I think I've met the man I'm going to marry". That
night, he told me the two songs he wanted played at his funeral. That is a really deep
first date conversation, but I thought, "he obviously thinks I'm a keeper”.
Thankfully, I remembered them!
"On our first date he told me the songs he wanted played at his funeral"
We had this absolute whirlwind
romance. We met in July 2002, and in the September he said to me, "why
don't you move in with me?". Then in January 2003, we flew to Jamaica for
our first proper holiday.
On our last night we were walking hand-in-hand on the
beach, and he said to me: "would you like to come back here to get
married?". Obviously, as a man he hadn't actually planned ahead. But the
intention was clearly there and three months later he proposed at Chester Zoo—outside
the wallaby enclosure, because that was the quietest area in the zoo!
Nicky and Andy in Melbourne in 2017 (credit: Nicky Wake)
We went back to Jamaica a year
later and got married in a beachfront ceremony, with some very close friends
and family in attendance, and stayed at the same resort for our honeymoon. That was the start
of a wonderful life, and I was the happiest I'd ever been. Eventually my
beautiful baby boy Finn burst into the world in 2007.
I set up an event management agency running glamorous award shows all around the world, and Andy left his
sensible, well-paid job at the police to come and join me. Eventually I had to
sack him because he wasn't very good at his job! I persuaded him to stay at home
to write a novel and look after our son.
He was the world's most wonderful
stay-at-home dad: while I was flying around the world delivering events, he did
every school walk, cooked every meal, kept the house running, and he was my
absolute rock. In hindsight, it was very special that Andy had so much time
with Finn, and that has created incredibly positive memories for him.
Andy's illness
I returned from one of these trips
in 2017, and I could tell something wasn't right with Andy. He said he'd had chest
pains, and my blood ran cold. I dragged him to the doctor's, who told him he
was stressed, but Andy was the most laidback man you've ever known, so I knew it was something more.
We went
back three times. Eventually I insisted they did an ECG, and they diagnosed a heart
attack. He had three stents fitted and he was okay, but, because he was healthy
and only 50, it was a shock.
Andy, Nicky and Finn in 2013 (credit: Nicky Wake)
Three days later I took him home
from hospital, and we were toasting our lucky escape. He went up to bed, and I
slept downstairs because he was snoring like a trooper. In the middle of the night,
I heard the most awful noise—I went flying upstairs, and he was having another
heart attack. I had to do CPR for 40 minutes, on the phone to the operator, waiting
for an ambulance to arrive.
Unfortunately, in that 40 minutes,
his brain was starved of oxygen. He went into intensive care and they put him in an induced coma for two weeks; when they brought him round, he didn't know who or
where he was. He could barely talk: his consultant described it as like a
filing cabinet which had fallen over, jumbling all the files. He moved straight
into residential care and needed 24/7 medical support.
"When Covid hit the headlines, I knew it was the beginning of our end"
We entered this horrible phase of
anticipatory grief: I knew he was going to die, but it could have been two
weeks or ten years from then. But when COVID-19 hit the headlines, I knew that was
the beginning of our end because Andy had been fighting infection after
infection, and he was in a bad way.
And sure enough, I got a call early April,
saying he had a temperature and they thought it was Covid. All the nursing
homes were shut down; you couldn't even go and visit. On April 17 he died.
We had a funeral; we were allowed
12 people, and I couldn't see my friends and family. It was the toughest of
times. Because I'd been in this state of anticipatory grief, I thought I would
be through the grieving process, but I wasn't: it hit me like a train. Me and
Finn hunkered down at home, and I had to furlough all my business’ staff while
grieving. It was the toughest few years of my life.
Widowhood and starting Chapter 2
Nicky found that online dating was like the "Wild West", and knew there had to be a better way for widows and widowers to connect (credit: cotton bro studio (Pexels))
Eventually, I embraced my widow
status. I did some brilliant counselling
and they directed me to an amazing charity called Widowed and Young, for widows
under the age of 51. They have Facebook groups and peer-to-peer support
networks where you can meet up with other widows.
There's a real bonding
process that happens between widows because we've all been through the very
worst thing in the world. Making a friend can take months sometimes, but you
meet a widow and by the end of the night she's your best mate because you’re
inherently bonded by this absolutely awful, unthinkable scenario.
At the same time, I was starting
to date again; because I’d met Andy online, I knew it worked. But online dating
had changed over the past few years! It was full of rude, inappropriate photos and
ghosting—it was terrible. I thought, "there has to be a better way than
this".
There was another issue: when do
you tell someone you're widow? Do you do that on your profile? Possibly not,
because you might be scammed. Do you say on the first date? That's a bit of a
passion killer! So, I was really wrestling with it.
"Online dating had changed ... I thought, 'there has to be a better way'"
I genuinely believe that widows
and widowers are uniquely placed to understand each other. If you walk into my
house, it is full of photos of Andy, and my heart is full of memories—it takes
a very strong man to not feel threatened by that. It's a whole other world non-widows
know nothing about.
I went online, and there were a
couple of widow dating sites, but they were run by mainstream sites: they
weren't authentic, and there was no sense of community about them. But when I
was going to these widow meet ups, people always talked about finding their “chapter
two”—their next significant relationship—wondering how and where to find
theirs. I thought, "there's an opportunity here".
Chapter 2 and Widow's Fire
I raised some investment,
including from three widows who have invested because they believe in the
product and think it's much needed. We launched Chapter 2 in November last year
(last weekend, we were officially one year old), and we’ve hit the ground
running. We've had an incredible response from the widow community—we've
already got over 5,000 members.
We're really gaining traction. We’ve
had an incredible response from the press and because there are
3.12 million widows and widowers in the UK, there's a lot of market to go at. We're
really disrupting the market, which is quite exciting! I'm focused on growing
the community and being known by every widow in the country, and I'm speaking
at dating industry conferences all over the world.
"We've had an incredible response from the press and widow community"
Our average audience age is 45+,
but our oldest member is 96. We do widow meet ups every month: they're open to
all widows and widowers, so they don't need to be a member of Chapter 2. We're
much more than a dating site—we are a very inclusive community, with forums and
blog posts. A lot of my audience have never dated online or haven't dated for
20+ years, so they need all the help and advice that we can give.
I also run Widow's Fire, a slightly naughtier sister site for
people who aren't ready for a committed relationship. Very often, people aren't
ready for a chapter two, but they ache for physical comfort, so that's the flirty fun, no-strings-attached space for widows and widowers.
We launched Widow's Fire because there was talk about it in our forums. People asked, "why is there
not a site for this?", and I thought, "I can build that!". It's
early days but it’s a real success story.
The widow and widower community
Chapter 2 has had an overwhelmingly positive response from the widow and widower community (credit: Chapter 2)
The response from the community
has been overwhelmingly positive. Some people aren't ready for dating, and
that's fine, but you can come and join us for free to look at the blog posts
and forums and join the conversation.
People will eventually be ready to date,
but that's in their own time, and first and foremost we're here for the widow
community. We're advocates for the widow community, as well as offering a
dating service. That's not something that other apps are doing.
I think we are possibly the only
authentic, genuine platform for dating. We've got a real USP in the sense that
we're providing a much-needed service to an unserved community. It's all very
exciting.
But it’s ironic: I started it because I couldn't find a new boyfriend,
and then once we launched the site I thought, "I can't use my own site,
that's wrong". It feels a bit naughty to be siphoning off the best men
for yourself!
"The collective term for a bunch of widows is an ambush, which I think is just perfect"
The collective term for a bunch
of widows is an ambush, which I just think is perfect. I definitely have an ambush
of widows and widowers, and I fight fiercely to look after them, protect
them and to help them navigate a way forward. We never talk about moving on: we
talk about moving forward, and that is really important.
Widows and widowers have the
utmost respect for what has gone before. If I date a widower, he will be
happy for me to recognise Andy's birthday or have lunch with Andy's mum
regularly with my son, and all that kind of stuff that otherwise could be
problematic.
I think an important part of what we do putting people together
who understand each other fundamentally. They almost have an emotional
shorthand, and they're a lovely, friendly, fun, supportive community that I'm
delighted to be spearheading and growing on a daily basis.
Chapter 2 events
It’s free to join, it's free to
go out, and it's free to use all of our resources. If you want to like and
message people, then you pay a premium for that, but every month we do a
one-day completely free premium trial, and then three days later we'll do a
special offer. And we've got 12 couples together
already: at our last Manchester event, we had couples coming along just to
say hello!
People often think that widow
get-togethers are depressing, but they're really not! Widows have a lust
for life because they know that life can change in a heartbeat, quite
literally, and they live for the moment. And, until you've been on the dance
floor with 50 widows, you've not really partied.
"Widows have a lust for life because they know that life can change in a heartbeat"
We're running this amazing
campaign over December where we give all of our premium members a free gift
every single day. We're going to do drop-in support Zoom calls on the 24th,
25th, 26th, and 31st December, and 1st
January. Any members who have lost someone can drop in and chat, so people can
come and have a sherry and a mince pie with us!
Advice for getting back into dating
We direct anyone feeling nervous
about dating to our blog posts:
they cover topics like knowing when it’s the right time to date, how to tell
your friends and family that you're dating, dating safety tips, and how to
write a good profile. But if anyone wants to talk it through, they can get in touch with me. I've helped
some of my widows through this process: if someone says, "I don't know how
to upload a photo!", I'm like, "send it to me, I'll do it for
you!"
You have to be brave and you have
to be bold, but a good way to interact is to come to our free events. I'll even buy you
a drink for some Dutch courage, because I know how scary it is! You can just
come and meet other widows, and if that's all you want right now, that's
absolutely perfect, and we will welcome you with open arms.
When it comes to dating, Nicky says "you have to be brave and you have to be bold" (credit: Chapter 2)
I always give
everybody my phone number so if you're stood outside thinking "I can't do
this", I'll come and get you and introduce you to a load of lovely people.
That is the top advice I would give: any questions at all, please feel free to
reach out because I can talk to widows and widowers day long.
I think I was put on the Earth to
help widows and widowers. I try and take a negative and turn it into a
positive, and I genuinely believe I am doing that. I think Andy would be so
blooming proud, and he'd also think it's quite funny that I've managed to
create a business out of what's happened!
Chapter Two is my chapter two. Creating
this business has got me through the darkest times of my life. I've found
meaning, and I've found joy in helping other people find joy. That's something
I'm immensely proud of.
Banner photo: Finn, Nicky and Andy on holiday in 2017 (credit: Nicky Wake)
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