Marriage Isn't Required for Older Couples to Have Great Relationships
When Rochelle Ventura, a retired election consultant, married at 22, she felt like a domestic slave. She says she shared a home with Phil Doppelt, 82, who was a retired software engineer. I explained that I was not required to plan dinner every night.
Their finances are kept separate; she lives in Los Angeles and he is in San Jose. The couple has spent more than a decade together without getting married. The woman says she didn't feel like her own person during her marriage. I felt stuck. If I wish to leave, I can now do so. With Phil, I can't imagine wanting to leave.
Both Ventura and Doppelt are riding social and demographic waves. In the last two decades, the social landscape for older couples has undergone a revolution: As Dr. Susan L. Brown of Bowling Green University says, The elderly are at the forefront of family change. Divorce rates after age 50 doubled between 1990 and 2010 and remain at record levels, she says. The result? More older singles.
Couples are meeting in unprecedented numbers and in unorthodox ways, whether online, at the gym, or at church. Brown says remarriage rates have remained steady for those over 50, but cohabitation has increased by more than fourfold between 2000 and 2020. Researchers from the University of Western Ontario found that in 2011, approximately one-third of unmarried but partnered Wisconsin adults over 50 were LATSs (long-term committed couples living apart together).
There is more to these couples than just their partnership. Deborah Carr, a sociologist at Boston University, has conducted preliminary analyses on older re-partnered couples and says they are likely to be more financially equal, more autonomous as individuals, and freer from gender roles. The same might apply whether they are remarried or cohabiting, says Carr. Carr has not studied LATs. Autonomy and equality are built into the very structure of living apart together.
As part of the picture, Carr says, social attitudes are changing as well. A cohabitation was once stigmatized as living in sin or as inferior to marriage. Even if some still disapprove, many older adults do not mind. It's not easy being 60 years old, but I'll do whatever I like.
What sets these couples apart is what they aren't doing raising children or building fortunes together. Even when married, many couples keep their finances separate. Approximately https://www.bangro.co/lifestyle/over-50-dating-sites-cost-of-memberships/ of Tammy A. Weber's clients have that situation. Most parents wish to leave their assets to their children. People might want to retain Social Security benefits or alimony from a former spouse. Their separation of funds is driven by more than just fiscal impacts.
After her divorce, financial planner Maryan Jaross, 68, of Louisville, Colo., built a successful career and with it, her independence and autonomy. It certainly wasn't something I wanted to give up. Even if I have a hundred pairs of shoes, I can buy a pair. A construction company salesman, Tom Lepak, 65, is married to her. She built a legal barrier between their finances in part because of this.
Women like Jaross are economically independent, able and determined to be in equal relationships. It's Lepak who does the laundry and cleans up after her, but she loves cooking. The yard work and making the bed are things he enjoys. It is their job to hire people to do things that neither of them want to do. Our lack of kids and obligations is a huge advantage, says she. In the modern world, being in a couple involves a different mindset.
When visiting family, seeing friends, or travelling, these couples feel no obligation to operate as a cohesive unit. Jaross and Lepak, for example, see some of their children individually; others together. Shell spent a week with his brother in the East, and spent a month with her aging mother in New York. Sometimes, as with Doppelt and Ventura, they travel separately. While Ventura is touring Cuba with female friends this fall, Doppelt will be hiking in Wyoming with five other guys. As far as I'm concerned, it's fine if we travel separately, he said. I don't think I would have felt that way when I was married before.
In terms of traditional relationships, couples who live in their own homes (and intend to stay that way) have the fewest and have the greatest freedom. It allows them to avoid conflicts over all the habits, needs, and people they have collected over the decades. A morning person and a night owl? No problem. Is he miserable even at 65 degrees while she is miserable at 75 degrees? Not an issue. Is her house regularly overrun by her grandchildren? Hey, its her house. They need their privacy and solitude after living on their own for a long time.
Jeff Ostroff, host of the podcast Looking Forward, is separated from the woman he calls the second love of his life. In his late sixties, Osteroff juggles work, social media, exercise, volunteering, and time spent with his friends and children. He and his girlfriend of more than six years talk several times a day and video-chat for over an hour at a time, but they often see each other only at weekends. According to him, spending nearly all of his time with her during the week means he can dedicate himself completely 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. Knowing who they are and what they need is second nature to them. They know what matters to them and what doesn't. When Teresa Cooney compared later-life remarriages to first marriages, she discovered these older couples are better at problem solving and argue less.
While older adults aren't compelled to remarry, when they do, they choose a mate who fits with who they are right now. I once had the pleasure of talking with a woman who lived happily with her first husband. I thought he would make a great father, and he did. Nonetheless, he was not the right mate for midlife and beyond. Relationships in later life are primarily driven by love, companionship, and emotional support.
Chaya Koren, a psychologist at the University of Haifa, found that in remarriages, each spouse felt more like an individual within their relationship, fostering both greater equality and deeper intimacy. Torbjorn Bildtgard, a sociologist at Stockholm University who has studied romantic partnerships after 60, says that time acts paradoxically on older couples. As a result, they have more leisure time together. Meanwhile, they know they have limited time together. It has been a blessing to have found one another. They cherish their love.
Lepak expresses it this way. I prefer to focus on the present rather than worrying about the future, he says. I feel blessed that I found my soul mate.