Rules of Club Wid

1. Club Wid's definition of "widow" is inclusive: we accept all genders, sexual orientations, ages, nationalities, and civil statuses. You do not need to have been married to your love partner in order to be widowed. "Widow" is a flexible term, but we are indeed a Club, and the price of admission is that your romantic love partner must have died.

2. Be kind. Assume good intent.

3. If a post is not to your liking, just scroll on by. There are many different people here, and we don't all think the same (thank goodness!). Fortunately, we don't need to. Keep scrolling, and you're bound to find posts that are on your wavelength. If you find a post that breaks the rules or causes you grave concern, please contact one of the administrators.

4. Don't give advice unless someone specifically asks for it. Most of the time in grief, "shoulding" feels harsh; what we most need is just to be heard. Don't should your fellow members and don't should yourself.

5. Don't compare losses. Nobody wins at the Grief Olympics!

6. Do welcome new members and support members with your comments, as you're able.

7. Where possible, use hashtags at the beginning of your posts to help people know the content and to find them later using the search bar if they wish. Two important hashtags, in particular:

#dating: Use this hashtag at the start of all posts about dating. Dating is a big step for many and not all members are ready for this topic; some may want to scroll on by, while others may want to pay special attention.

#triggerwarning: This hashtag is appreciated for graphic or violent details, but we do NOT use it for discussions of suicide. The suicide wids of our group wisely observe that A) NOT talking about suicide helps increase its stigma and can lead to more suicides from alienation, and B) putting the words "trigger warning" before a conversation only because it includes the word suicide, but no other trigger, can intensify the sense of invalidation and marginalization for suicide wids. Any death could be a trigger, but in Club Wid we talk about and support one another through all the hard feelings of grief over all kinds of deaths. We want to be mindful of the ways in which social customs further marginalize widows--and do better, once we know better.

8. No soliciting. We welcome your sharing widow achievements or publications when they first happen, but please do not post fundraisers or try to sell goods or services. We want this to be a safe space with no financial pressure on our wids.

9. Please use your first and last name as your Band name for Club Wid (Band is the computer platform and app where our group meets online: band.us). We do allow the use of an alias if you have privacy concerns, but this must also have a first and last name and must be disclosed to the admins of Club Wid in the pseudonym section on this form, below.