Marrying in Midlife

With his blessings from above, serve it generously with love. One man, one wife, one love, through life. Memories are made of this. Memories are made of this.

Dean Martin

Getting it right for the last time

When I retired in my early fifties, I never expected to remarry. I designed and built my home in the mountains thinking I would always live in it alone. I was comfortable being by myself. After all, in the previous three decades, I spent less than 40% of that time married. So I was pretty practiced in singledom and the art of creating a life for myself through friendship, community, and personal spirituality.

Imagine my surprise when I met someone at the age of 54—and married him two years later! 

Maybe it’s happened to you. Or perhaps it will come to pass. If it does, how will you handle marriage in midlife? 

At the shrine of friendship never say die, let the wine of friendship never run dry. Les Miserables 

I’ve never been one to talk about having a best friend. I guess it always felt so exclusionary to my other friends. It wasn’t until I recently married that I understood what it meant to have a person that intimate—a person that listens attentively, avoids blame and sarcasm, and validates your feelings. A person you can reveal anything to. For me, that’s Rick. 

Sure, you can have that feeling in marriage at any age, but in midlife each partner in matrimony has learned a couple things that weren’t obvious in youth: you don’t feel the need to change the other person and you don’t sweat the small stuff. 

Personally, I find it much easier to divulge my fears, desires, and peccadilloes now than I did during my first marriage. In other words, I’m comfortable in my own skin. When it comes to healthy relationships, experience counts! 

While certainly both people in the marriage understand themselves better than they did 20, 30, or even 40 years ago, newly married midlifers also have a greater commitment to growth. And growing keeps each of us vital, fresh, and younger than our years suggest. 

Lastly, I feel like I have a true teammate in Rick. We try to support each other in the achievement of our individual goals as well as those aspirations we jointly hold dear—and I’ll be the first to admit its probably easier being empty nesters. We make it a point to revisit and revise our goals periodically to adapt to changing life events. And we use these goals and values to set priorities and make decisions as a team. 

So if someone comes along, He’s gonna give you some love and affection, I’d say get it while you can, yeah! Janis Joplin 

Sometimes partners who have been married a long time may unknowingly take each other for granted. Unfortunately, I never experienced that long of a marriage to test the theory! But I do know that the need for simple expressions of appreciation or affection can be forgotten. 

One of the things I’ve found myself doing the last couple years is studying my friends’ marriages. I’m looking for clues as to how husbands and wives interact as it all seems so foreign to me. As one example, I’ve noticed how when Jane’s husband, Bill, speaks in company, her eyes are glued on him—even if he’s telling a story she’s heard many times before! She gives him her undivided attention and I think that’s powerful. 

Other friends, Lisa and Pat, are wonderful role models for us when it comes to spending quality time together. They really work at it. They regularly do small things for each other—always looking for ways to tell the other partner that he/she is loved. As a result of listening to them and seeing their marriage in action, Rick and I started a little (what I hope is a) tradition.  

Neither of us is that enthusiastic about exchanging a bunch of gifts at Christmas—we feel we’re at the point where we really don’t need anything. Rather, every month of the year we each do something special for the other person. I confess, sometimes it is a gift—but just as often, it would be a very special dinner cooked by me or a massage from Rick catered to what I want tended to.  

One day, while Rick was working, I secreted his car away for a wash and delivered it back unannounced, thus surprising him when he walked out to the car to drive home. Another time, when Rick knew I was expected back in town on the airport shuttle to a car suffering from the effects of a recent snowstorm, he drove to the parking lot where my car had been sitting for days. He then cleaned all the windows of snow so that I could jump in the car and drive immediately home. No fuss, no muss! 

Then, there’s sex.  Certainly, sexual difficulties at midlife are most often the result of normal physical and emotional changes that often reduce desire. But there’s still desire. There are many ways to compensate and adjust to these diminishing desires. 

When Rick and I married, I promised him a “good” 40 years. You can do the math. That means that not only do I have to live until I’m 96, but that I personally need to have a quality of life that allows the two of us to enjoy our marriage. (Rick is almost a decade younger than me.) 

 That’s one reason why I decided to get serious about loosing weight recently. Now, with 18 fewer pounds and better eating habits, I find myself feeling younger and even more desirous of sex, much to my husband’s pleasure! 

We are family. I got all my sisters with me. We are family. Get up ev’rybody and sing. Sister Sledge 

One last topic on the subject of midlife marriage. Getting hitched late in life generally means that one or both of you were married before and may have children. Jane’s talked about becoming an instant step-grandmother when she and Bill married. In my case I acquired two step-daughters who live in Ohio.  

I think that it’s easier to marry someone with adult children, which is generally the case if you re-marry in your 50s or 60s. Rick is in his 40s and the younger of his daughters, Nikki, is 16 and still in high school. His older daughter, Shannon, 21, works as a chef—and has always had a very close relationship with her father.  Nikki, on the other hand, was five when her parents divorced—and living the following 11 years with her mother distanced her (and not just in mileage) from Rick. 

That’s why I find it interesting to attempt to thread the needle with Nikki—being the wife of her father, a step-mother who lives 1000 miles away, and hopefully a trusted adult who wants to build a loving relationship with her.

There is great joy in bringing disparate families together. But I understand that to build enduring relationships, I can’t too eagerly force it--it could certainly backfire. But that’s OK, I have time. 

So what experiences have you had when marrying in midlife? Share you thoughts with us and our readers.

Comments

*Name	*Email
*Comment
*For security, enter the word you see below