DEFINING A NEW WAY OF LOVING IN SECOND ADULTHOOD
Do you have a partner or a project or a person who moves you deeply? Someone you trust totally? Have you heard yourself use the word “love” in circumstances you hadn’t before? Do you connect love with sex? If you feel you are missing love in your life, what is it you miss?
The reason I ask is that everywhere I go, I hear from women who are experiencing love, intense love, in new ways. In some cases, they do not label the feelings “love” but the more we talk, the clearer it becomes that the word is taking on a wider definition. We are finding love – and sometimes sex – in circumstances we would never have dreamed of earlier in our lives. I want to know more about this expanded and enriched love life.
“I have fallen in love for real and for the first time in my life,” a 52-year-old bride tells me with a tinge of disbelief. Would she have fallen for the same guy thirty years ago or would she have dismissed him as uncool or inappropriate? I wonder. Why now?
“I have fallen in love with my husband all over again,” exults a woman who has been married over forty years. “There were times where I thought we would never make it, but this was worth hanging in for!” What happens in a long term relationship that refires the engine?
“I was happily married for forty years,” says another woman, “but when my husband died, I found myself becoming increasingly drawn to other women. I just found the intimacy so easy.” What is it like to make this kind of transfer or eroticism and intimacy?
And what is it like for the women who never felt satisfied in their heterosexual relationships who are discovering their true sexuality now?
”You may be shocked,” says a very serious-looking doctor, “but I have discovered the joys of one night stands. I need a rest from ‘relating.’ And the sex is great!” I am not shocked; I have spoken to countless women who are experimenting with separating sex from long-term commitments, and countless others who are experimenting with sex in general. Does reaching the “fuck-you fifties” set us free to literally go there?
Then there are the women who have found the opposite is for them – relationships without sex or commitment – good, comfortable, compatible companionship with someone who probably wouldn’t be a satisfactory partner. Others are feeling deep satisfaction in the non-sexual connections in their lives. “I got married about ten years ago, to a man I adore, and we are very happy,” says an executive I know, “but I think my real life-long passion is for the young people I have mentored over the past thirty years.”
Grandmotherhood seems to be another source of unexpected joy. “I can’t believe it,” a friend marvels, “but I feel like I am awaiting a lover when I am going to see my granddaughter. The love is so intense.” What is it about being maternal again that turns an otherwise reserved woman into a doting and dotty grandma?
Most of all, women in every conceivable situation and life style recommitting to their women friends. They are exhilarated by the new levels of understanding and trust that surpass all other connections in their lives. What is it like to build on a long-standing friendship? What is it like to fall out of love with an old friend? What is like to find a new friend?
As diverse as these expressions of love are, I see certain ingredients that they have in common. For one thing, by now we know who we are, which makes it easier to know what we want. At the same time our expectations are more realistic than back when love was what dreams were made of. We don’t expect to change anyone (very much) and we don’t expect a perfect fit or a protector. We are definitely better at managing on our own, not sweating the small stuff, and living with the insecurity of ongoing change. And we are ready to take some risks. Together we are defining a new way of loving.
In my next book I will try to describe what it is going on. Please help by telling me how it is for you. (write me at info@SuzanneBraunLevine.com or post your comment here.)