(re-run)
When we were in our twenties and thirties, we were looking for a husband and father of our future children. Our biological clocks ticked louder the closer we got to thirty-five, the cut-off point for a low-risk pregnancy. Yes, older women give birth after that, but fertility drops off in the thirties, and it is harder to have a kid.
Fast forward two decades. The kids are growing up and leaving the nest. The marriage will either get stronger or end in divorce. Some of us are back in the dating pool, a much smaller body of water with a murkier content. Some of us get lucky and find a nice widower who wants to get back what he had before he lost his wife. Others find tired playboys who, at last, want to settle down. Many of us decide that we can be happy being single as long as we have lots of good girlfriends.
Then there are the men. They have reached their 6th or 7th decade and are either aging ladies’ men, too burned by a past lover to dip their toes back in the dating pool, too young, outright con men looking for a sugar mama, or good guys looking to lock it down.
For many women, the shoe is on the other foot. We are financially stable, our children grown. We don’t need to live with anyone to be happy. Going on a date or two a week with a nice guy is great, three or four times a week if they are super compatible. But live together? Many of us don’t need or want that again.
So how do we stay with a guy who wants that? One who gives us a big honking ring to wear to show that we are taken? Wearing a ring is one thing; moving in together a completely different animal.
How many relationships have died because one person is a neat freak and the other one is more creative and messy? How many couples fight over the way they squeeze the toothpaste tube or leave the toilet seat? How many keep track of who is doing more chores or spending more time keeping things running smoothly?
Then there’s the politics. Yes, we women have our own opinions that we have formed over decades. Do men really think they are going to talk us into being like-minded with their beliefs that they have also formed over decades? It’s not likely or at least not genuine.
Yes, we can be playful and sexy and romantic, but not if you are telling us what to do, say, think, or be. Unlike a twenty year old who is essentially a lump of clay, women of a certain age are who we are, take it or leave it.
At this stage of our lives, it is much easier to sustain a long-term relationship if we each have a place to go to cool off, regroup, and get what we need to re-energize before we come back together.
Your place or mine? It’s one way to live happily ever after.
FIRST DATE, WORST DATE EVER! 