About this site
We write the page we could not find
Most writing about widowhood is either clinical or sentimental. This site tries to be neither: it answers the question that was actually asked, says plainly when there is no good answer, and does not pretend to an experience it has not had.
IllustrationWho writes here
Every guide is written and signed by the Widowed Love editors. There is no invented author and no borrowed credential. What we do is narrower and, we think, more useful: take the questions people actually type at 2am, answer them in the first two sentences, and say where the evidence runs out.
Every number is checked against a primary source before it is published — the list is on the sources page, together with what we rejected and why.
Who is quoted
Marten Elder
Contributor · widower
Marten Elder is a widower who contributes to this site. He is quoted, never ghost-written: nothing appears in his name that he has not confirmed word for word, and every quote carries the date of the interview it came from.
What this site will not do
These are not promises. Each one is a rule the site is built to enforce, and the reason a page occasionally says less than it could.
- 01
Nothing is published in someone’s name without their word
Lived experience appears as a quotation with a name and the date it was confirmed. Nothing is reconstructed, composited, or written in anyone’s voice. If he did not say it, it does not appear.
- 02
Every number traces to a primary source
Each figure names its publisher and year in the same sentence, and links the study rather than an article about the study. Anything we could not read on the source itself was dropped — including three widely-repeated claims about widowhood, listed on the sources page.
- 03
No invented credentials, ever
We are not therapists, doctors or grief counsellors, and no page here claims otherwise. There is no fabricated expert, no borrowed title, and no professional review we did not have.
- 04
No paid placements
Nobody pays to be recommended here, and no ranking on this site is for sale. Where a link earns us something, it is marked as such on the page it appears on.
IllustrationCorrections and contact
If we get something wrong we correct it on the page and say that we did. Our process, sourcing standards and corrections policy are documented in the editorial policy, including how this site uses AI tools and how its images are made.
Email editors@widowedlove.com or use the contact page. Corrections, sources we have missed and disagreements are all welcome — particularly from people who have been widowed.