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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!
Mix 'n Match Copyright (c) 1999 OneandOnly.com Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Find the one who makes you feel young again at OneandOnly.com.
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