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More than 1.2 million Australians share the profound grief of losing their significant other. How do you navigate life as a widow, and does the label define you? Watch Navigating Widowhood on Tuesday 25 March at 8.30pm (AEDT) on SBS or .
When 55-year-old Brett Ogilvie met his childhood sweetheart Jeanette at 16, he knew he was going to marry her.
They wed, had three children and built a life in Queensland as a family.
But tragedy struck when Jeanette was diagnosed with breast cancer. Over the seven years Brett nursed her, Jeanette made sure their affairs were in order. Then before she died in 2018, not long after their 25th wedding anniversary, she prepared something very unexpected for her husband.
“She set me up on a dating app to go live three months after she’d passed,” Brett told Insight.
“It was getting very close towards the end. And she’d figured that … there was no way I would ever find anyone by myself,” he said with a laugh.

“She didn’t tell me anything about it.”

A man in a red shirt stands next to his female partner, who is wearing a white shirt and sunglasses. They are both smiling.

Jeanette (left) didn’t want her husband Brett (right) to remain single after her death. Source: Supplied

Though they didn’t speak much about what the future of Brett’s love life might hold, Jeanette mentioned she’d love their youngest daughter to have a positive maternal figure.

But he was still shocked when he received the email telling him his dating profile was active.
“It was so authentic. It had … things that no one else could know,” the Brisbane dad and cyber security specialist said.
“Initially, I was desperately angry and hurt and guilty. Because I was going through the whole struggle of guilt with everything, and dealing with children and work and all those things.

“It took me a little while to come to terms with the fact that she actually wanted a life for me beyond our life together.”

Dating a widower

Dina Collison discovered that dating widowers has its own unique challenges.
“I’ve had a couple of dates with different men that have been widows,” she told Insight.
One man’s wife had set up a dating app for him, like Jeanette had done.
“[He] was dating very quickly after their partner had died. He certainly wasn’t ready to move on,” Dina said.

“Another gentleman I dated for quite some time was so in love with his wife that had passed away that he was never going to be able to move on.”

A woman in a black lacy dress stands in front of a wall of plant pots and smiles.

Dina says she would try to avoid dating widows in the future. Source: SBS

She says he spoke about how beautiful their marriage was, how happy they were, how hard it was when she was ill, and how devastated he was when she died.

“Not only was she the love of his life, she was his best friend as well and to lose her … he was just never going to be able to replace her.
“I certainly couldn’t have lived up to her standard … so, there was never going to be a place for me in his heart.”
Though Dina won’t be looking to date someone who’s been widowed in the future, she said there are some positives.
“They’re generally of my age group [and] because they haven’t lost half of their income or half of their assets to a divorce, they’re generally self-secure,” she said.

“They don’t have financial issues and they’re not looking to benefit from your earnings, which I have found by dating divorced men.”

‘A very visceral experience’

The grieving process doesn’t have a blueprint or set timeline, according to Grief Australia. Instead, it is a deeply personal and individual journey influenced by many things, including how the person died, their age, their life circumstances when they died, and how isolated the person is who’s left behind.
Interfaith minister and funeral celebrant Jackie Bailey says the experience of people who’ve been widowed can differ depending on whether the death was expected or sudden.
“There’s a lot of anticipatory grief that goes with a protracted death,” Jackie said.
“If you’re watching a partner die of dementia, that’s its own very particular type of grief. It’s an ongoing sort of grief [with] loss of some part of that person every day.

“With a sudden loss, the grief is compounded by shock.”

She says widowhood often comes with a profound loss of identity.
“It’s a very visceral experience when your partner dies — and even if that was a person that you fell in love with for a week, that was your person.
“You saw yourself in them and they saw themselves in you … that has a very physical impact.”
Jackie adds the immense sadness and pain of losing a partner can also be accompanied by several physical side effects.

“There are immune system imbalances, sleep disturbances, forgetfulness — it’s a bit like having a brain injury,” the Illawarra-based minister said.

You saw yourself in them and they saw themselves in you … that has a very physical impact.

Jackie Bailey

Time doesn’t define a relationship

When Nikki Shah lost her best friend of almost 10 years and partner of around a year Mike to bone cancer, she felt like she didn’t have the right to grieve as a “widow”.
She believes the way people view and treat someone whose wife or husband has died is different to the way they’d treated someone who’s lost the person they were dating.
“It did feel like that term could only be used with people that were together for years … so I felt like a bit of an impostor using that word,” she said.
“People would say on numerous occasions, ‘well, you hadn’t been together that long’.

“[When Mike died], there wasn’t the sympathy there because it was ‘my boyfriend’.”

A couple stand on a boat together, embracing and smiling.

Nikki (right) says the pain of losing her partner Mike (left) to cancer wasn’t diminished by their relatively brief romantic relationship. Source: Supplied

When Nikki felt ready to date again a couple of years later, she was attracted by men who were unavailable.

“I think it’s because, inside, I wasn’t ready to completely open up because I was scared of losing somebody again,” she told Insight.
She eventually met now-fiance Nick on a dating app, who stood out to her because he stated on his profile that he was a widower.
“I thought, if somebody is willing to put that on their profile, then I think I’m ready to open my heart and meet this person.”
Nick lost his wife Nicole to cancer. Nikki says their shared experiences make them stronger as a couple.
“I think I probably would have found somebody again but I didn’t think it would be somebody like Nick who just got every part of me and would allow me to have those moments of having a broken heart.

“And just know that he wasn’t there to fix it, but he could hold it. And the same for him with Nicole.”

Nikki says they both still cry sometimes when they miss their other halves.
“But we sit there and then we can talk about it. And I think that’s a really special thing to be able to do.”
Brett ended up using the dating platform and going on a few dates after Jeanette died.

“Eventually, almost a year after Jeanette had died, there was this one woman on there who caught my eye,” he said.

A couple embrace and smile at the camera.

Brett (left) and Marika (right) met first on a dating app, then again in church. Source: Supplied

The woman he was matched with, Marika, said dating apps weren’t for her but if they ever met in real life, she’d give him a shot.

By chance, Brett met Marika at a new church after friends encouraged him to go.
Brett and Marika are now married with a large, blended family — and Brett says he feels grateful to Jeanette for pushing him in that direction.
“I would never have gone there without being held to account.”
Griefline provides confidential support on 1300 845 745 and via
Readers seeking support with mental health can contact Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636. More information is available at. supports people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.
And for more stories on sex, relationships, health, wealth, grief and more, head to hosted by Kumi Taguchi. Follow us on the , , , or wherever you get your podcasts.
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