Notes

Older couples don't need marriage to have great relationships

Relationships don't need to be married for older couples to be happy

Rochelle Ventura, a retired election consultant, says she felt like a slave at age 22 after she married. She says she shared a home with Phil Doppelt, 82, who was a retired software engineer. It was not my responsibility to plan dinner every night. I explained this at the beginning.

They split their time between Los Angeles and San Jose as well as their finances. Despite never marrying, they have experienced love and joy together for more than a decade. I didn't feel like I was my own person during my marriage, she says. I felt stuck. In this case, I can leave. It would be impossible for me to leave Phil.

Social and demographic changes have swept over Ventura and Doppelt. Social landscapes for older couples have changed significantly during the last two decades. According to Bowling Green sociologist Susan L. Brown, older adults are at the forefront of family change. Divorce rates after age 50 doubled between 1990 and 2010, says the author. The result? More older singles.

Women and men are finding each other in unprecedented numbers and in unconventional ways, whether it's online, at the gym, or in church. According to Brown, marriage rates over 50 have held steady, but cohabitation in that age group has almost quadrupled. Researchers are scarce on the number of LATs (long-term committed couples living apart together), but a study conducted by Huijing Wu at the University of Western Ontario found that in 2011 about a third of unmarried but partnered couples over 50 in Wisconsin were LATS.

These couples do not simply partner differently. Intensive research by the sociologist Deborah Carr at Boston University found that repartnered older couples have more equality financially, are more in charge of their own lives and are less reliant on gender roles. No matter whether they are remarried or cohabiting, Carr says, the same seems to hold true. Carr has not studied LATs. The very structure of living apart together builds in autonomy and equality.

Carr says social attitudes are also changing. Traditionally, cohabitation was stigmatized as a sin or inferior to marriage. Older adults are not as concerned if some still disapprove. As I am 60 years old, I will do as I please.

These couples are different because they aren't raising children or building fortunes together. Even when couples are married, many keep their finances separate. As Pennsylvania certified elder-law attorney Tammy A. Weber points out, that is true for more than 75% of clients she represents. Almost everyone wants their assets to be passed down to their children. Social Security benefits or alimony from a former spouse are sought by some people. Fiscal impact is just one reason why they keep their money apart.

After her divorce, Maryan Jaross, 68, of Louisville, Colo., built a successful career that gave her independence and autonomy. There was no way I was giving it up. I can buy one pair of shoes even if I own 100. A 60-year-old woman lives happily with 65-year-old Tom Lepak, who works in sales for an industrial construction firm. Due to this and other reasons, she has built a legal separation between their finances.

Women like Jaross, economically independent, capable and determined to have equal relationships, are not rare. Although Lepak loves to cook, she handles the cleaning and laundry. His favorite job is to make the bed and do yard work. It is their job to hire people to do things that neither of them want to do. She says it's huge that we don't have kids or obligations on our shoulders. Now, being a couple is a different mindset.

As well, partners of this type feel no obligation to travel or visit family as a unit. As an example, Jaross and Lepak see some of their children separately, some together. He'll spend a week with his brother in the East; she'll spend a month visiting her elderly mother in New York. It is also possible for Doppelt and Ventura to travel separately. Doppelt will be hiking in South Dakota with five other guys this fall while Ventura tours Cuba with women friends. He told me it was fine to travel separately. When I was married before, I'm not sure I would have felt that way.

When a couple lives in their own home this way for the rest of their lives, their relationship is the least traditional, and most free. Their decision to live apart lets them avoid arguments about the habits, needs, and people in their lives they have accumulated over their lifetimes. She sleeps late and he is a morning person? No problem. While he likes a thermostat at 65 degrees, she is miserable unless it is 75 degrees? Not an issue. Occasionally, her grandkids run riot over her house? Hey, its her house. They have lived on their own for years and need their own space and solitude.

' https://www.bangro.co/lifestyle/over-50-dating-sites-cost-of-memberships/ of my life,' Jeff Ostroff, host of the podcast Looking Forward, lives apart in suburban Philadelphia from the woman he calls his girlfriend. The man in his late sixties lives on his own schedule, spending time working, browsing social media, exercising, volunteering, and spending time with friends and family. His girlfriend of more than six years and he talk and video chat several times a day, sometimes for more than an hour at a time, but usually only see each other on weekends. He maintains that having his own time during the week enables him to dedicate himself almost 100% to her.

The emotional texture of their relationships really sets these couples apart, whether they marry, live together or apart. Their lives have been altered as a result of major life transitions, like having children or an empty nest. As well as what they need, they know themselves. What's important to them is understood, and what's not. Sociologist Teresa Cooney found that older couples who remarry later in life have better problem-solving skills and argue less than those who marry younger.

In spite of no pressure from family or friends to re-partner, older adults select a relationship that fits their current stage of life if they choose to do so. As one happily cohabiting woman told me, her first husband was a wonderful father. Yet he was not the right partner for midlife and beyond. The relationship is what couples in their later years choose each other for, for the love, companionship, and emotional support it provides.

Chaya Koren, a psychologist from the University of Haifa, found that in the older remarried couples she studied, each spouse felt more equal and a sense of greater intimacy. Stockholm University sociologist Torbjorn Bildtgard studied romantic unions after age 60 and found that time influences them paradoxically. As a result, they have more leisure time together. On the other hand, they know their remaining time together is limited. Being able to find each other brings them immense joy. They cherish their love.

Lepak expresses it this way. Rather than focus on the end result, he says, we try to make the most of every moment we have together. The fact that we've found our soul mate makes us feel blessed.


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