This week (October 1) marks International Day of Older Persons, raising awareness of opportunities and challenges faced by ageing populations. Elizabeth Quinn writes about re-partnering as an older woman, as one such opportunity and challenge. Re-partnering can come with less pressure and the wisdom of cherrypicking the best bits of singledom and coupledom to come up with a third way.
Good health and the ability to make choices are important components of a happy old age.
Older women’s choices are limited by their responsibilities to others, of which, throughout their lives, women bear the greater load. Their choices are also closely aligned to their financial situation, which is likely less secure when they are no longer or never have been one of a pair.
Single women over the age of 60 are a fast growing demographic in Australia. Not all have chosen to be single and the growing number of older women who face the threat of domestic violence have little option.
But those who have left for other less obvious reasons do so in the knowledge that leaving a relationship – however dysfunctional – is never a good financial move. Nor is it without social consequences.
Some senior singles find themselves the object of pity, somehow ‘lacking’ in a societal sense; no longer invited to dinner parties by their partnered friends unless they are being ‘set up’ with another single guest. As the regular recipient of such largesse by well-meaning friends, I’m always delighted to be allowed to stay up late with the grown-ups but less inclined to want to play house with a prospective dinner party partner, no matter how attractive. I like my independence and am, like many older women, less inclined to move in with a new partner than are men.
Some of us are applauded for our hard-fought singlehood. ‘You’re better off on your own’ is an oft-repeated refrain of many a long suffering wife, for whom the autonomy of living a single life sounds like nirvana and who have chosen to remain in their relationships for any number of reasons. They are rarely quizzed about their choices in the same way as are older women who have chosen to live out their lives unpartnered.
Single older women know firsthand the financial, social and personal disadvantages of living solo and face a future without the reassurance of a reciprocal care relationship or any kind of physical intimacy, an important factor in the wellbeing of many older women. The fact that the moving parts of older people are not necessarily in the peak of condition doesn’t lessen the longing to touch and be touched, or the capacity to enjoy sexual contact.
But there are huge benefits to one’s health and wellbeing from no longer living in a toxic environment, free from the baggage that often accompanies a sexual partnership; from expectations too often unmet that lead to dissatisfaction on both sides; from the need to negotiate how to spend their time and with whom.
With age comes a certain liberation from social mores and a greater insight into ourselves and others.
For the single older woman open to re-partnering, the challenge is to adjust the expectations she may have had in her youth: the most successful long term relationships can be less intense with the passing of time and more open to negotiation. More A Fine Romance than Romeo and Juliet.
Given the benefit of knowing what has and hasn’t worked for us over a lifetime of relationships, it may be possible to negotiate a path that cherry picks the best bits of singledom and coupledom and come up with a third way.
This could take the form of a close and loving connection with a non-sexual partner in our later years, in which friendship, shared values and a sense of humour combine to create a fond partnership of two people who care for each other. Whether or not it develops into something more, it can be the basis for the kind of affectionate connection that is the mark of the most successful long-lived relationships.
Older single women don’t feel the need to be bound by societal conventions.
We can write our own happy endings which may or may not include a knight in shining armour: our heroine may well ride off into the sunset unaccompanied. But these choices are ours to make. It is we who are the authors of our own final chapters.