Finding
Love After 50 -- Online!
by Randy B. Hecht
A 51-year-old man who was married for a few months at
20, raised his daughter alone and never remarried
meets a 50-year-old woman who never had children and
ended her 11-year marriage in 1978. Although neither
reports any instant fireworks, the couple were married
within two years.
John and Marcia (who asked that their real names not
be used) met on OneandOnly.com and quickly joined the
growing population of people who are over 50, on-line,
and altar-bound again. Is there a common secret to
their success? For the three couples I interviewed,
each has matured into a sense of what's really
important to them and discovered what they need to
make a relationship work--something each believes
could not have happened when they were younger.
Attraction or distraction?
John and Marcia's union was hardly love at first
sight. "Things seemed to go pretty well, but
neither of us was swept off our feet," they
recall. "We just knew we'd had a nice time and
had spent a nice evening together. We weren't
physically attracted at first, which made the rest of
it much easier. We were best friends first, and fell
in love afterward."
Hope, a 50-year-old, twice-divorced woman who'd been
single for fourteen years before meeting her current
husband on OneandOnly.com, reports a similar
experience. "I was (and still am) surprised that
we 'took to' each other so easily," says Hope,
who moved herself and her consulting business from
Grand Rapids to Milwaukee, where her husband Dave, 53,
is a member of the Symphony. "Actually, our phone
and e-mail conversations had not been stellar, but
enough to see that there were possibilities."
On the other hand, Annie, who is approaching 50, was
instantly smitten with Alan, the same age. "When
I got home after our first meeting, I sort of knew
this would be it," she recalls. My friends were
very suspicious--they aren't on-line, most of
them--and they thought I was slightly crazy. But
compared with bars and 'social' groups, I think I was
the sane one."
The feeling was mutual. Alan, a self described geek
(he's a computer software engineer) says, "I
thought the meeting with Annie was just an opportunity
to exercise my very rusty social skills. Thought we'd
just have coffee and chat." But he knew
"within minutes" that the relationship could
turn serious--despite the fact that although both were
in the midst of separation and divorce, neither was
legally divorced yet.
Role reversals
Before they knew it, these people had become
couples--and had to meet two, three, or even four
generations of one another's families. How does being
a parent and introducing a mate to your teenager
compare with being a teenager and bringing someone
home to meet Mom and Dad?
Marcia, an only child who'd never had children,
suddenly was meeting John's brother, sister-in-law,
daughter, and grandchildren. How did it go? She
reports that John and his brother "are so much
alike that it's scary, so I had no problem warming to
him immediately," and his wife "hadn't had a
sister-in-law for so long that she was pretty grateful
not to have to handle both of them alone any
more!" And from the way she refers to "our
daughter" and "our grandbabies," you
know even before Marcia says so that they "snuck
into my heart and stole it while I wasn't
looking." As a bonus, she adds, John's
relationship with his daughter has improved
"about 200%" since their romance began.
John had it much easier; all he had to do was charm
Marcia's mother, who Marcia says was "thrilled to
pieces. She'd worried, of course, that I'd be alone
forever, and since she was 81 at the time, she was
afraid she'd never live to see me in a relationship
that made me happy. Well, she's seen it now!"
When mom falls in love
When Annie, a semi-retired theology teacher,
psychological counselor and philosophy instructor,
began "singing around the house," she caught
her son's attention. The 20-year-old student, who
lives at his mother's house when not at college,
"said I was acting like a teenager," she
says with a cyber-grin, "but he meant it as a
compliment."
None of the couples interviewed for this article wish
they'd met at a younger age. "We've talked about
this," says Marcia. "We were both married at
20 and agree that it was waaaaaaaaay too young. We
hadn't had time to season, to mellow, to age
sufficiently. We needed to experience all that we have
in order to become the people we are and appreciate
what we've found in one another. We have more
patience. The little stuff doesn't bother us as much.
We know we're in this forever, but most young people
figure that there's always an 'out' and are much less
likely to put the effort into making the relationship
work."
No room for betrayal
"The physical part is completely
unimportant," Marcia adds. "What
matters...is honesty, faith in one another, belief in
one another, and integrity. Since we're best friends,
we relate on two levels, neither one of which has any
room for deception or betrayal."
Hope agrees. "I'm glad we didn't [meet at a
younger age]. It would not have lasted," she
says. She lists the things she and Dave have now that
younger couples cannot have: "Life experience.
Acceptance that each of us is doing our very best at
that moment. I also have so much less of a fairy tale
idea about marriage, and now find so much more
pleasure in it!"
Venus envy?
So is there anything younger couples have that these
couples envy?
Dave and Hope say that apart from "the chance to
have children together," younger couples have
"very little" they envy.
"For me, nothing," Alan says. "I don't
feel a lot different from my 20s!"
"The only thing younger couples have that I envy
is time," Annie says. "They say youth is
wasted on the young. Now I truly understand
that."
John and Marcia echo her sentiment. Younger couples,
have "absolutely nothing" they
envy--"except that they'd have longer to be
together than we have. But if we can hit 75 or 80,
we'll be grateful for even that short a time."
So no matter what your past, you can have romance in
your future--and make it last a lifetime the second
time around!
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