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 when she married at 22. Now 83 and living with Phil Doppelt, 82, a retired software engineer, she says they were on an equal footing. The first thing I said was dinner was not my responsibility every night.
Their lives are divided between her home in Los Angeles and his in San Jose, keeping their personal finances separate. The couple has spent more than a decade together without getting married. She says she did not feel like her own person in her marriage. I felt stuck. Now that I am free to leave, I can do so. With Phil, however, I can't imagine leaving.
Doppelt and Venezura are riding a social wave and demographic wave, respectively. The social landscape for older couples has undergone a revolution in the last two decades: As Bowling Green sociologist Susan L. Brown says, 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.
Whether they meet online, at the gym, or at church, they are pairing up in unprecedented numbers and ways. Brown says the divorce rate among over-50s has stayed steady, but cohabitation among that group has nearly quadrupled between 2000 and 2020. Studies on LATs (long-term committed couples who live apart together) are few, but sociologist Huijing Wu of the University of Western Ontario discovered that in 2011, over a third of unmarried but partnered Wisconsin adults over the age of 50 were LATS.
These couples do not simply partner differently. According to Deborah Carr, a sociologist at Boston University, older remarried couples tend to be more equal financially, more autonomous as individuals, and more free of gender roles. The same might apply whether they are remarried or cohabiting, says Carr. Carr has not studied LATs. Even in the midst of living apart together, autonomy and equality are inherently engrained.
In addition to changing social attitudes, Carr points out. In the past, cohabitation was stigmatized as living in sin or inferior to marriage. Many older adults don't care whether some disapprove. My attitude is typical: As long as I can do what I damn well please, I'll do it.
The thing that makes these couples different is what they are not doing raising children or building their fortune together. Although many couples are married, they keep their finances separate. Approximately 75 percent of Tammy A. Weber's clients have that situation. It is common for parents to want to leave their assets to their children. It is common for people to retain Social Security benefits or alimony. Fiscal impacts are only one reason for keeping their money separate.
The 68-year-old financial planner, Maryan Jaross, lived independently and autonomously following her divorce, she says. It certainly wasn't something I wanted to give up. It doesn't matter if I have a hundred pairs of shoes. 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 factors, she has created a legal wall between their finances.
Women like Jaross, economically independent, capable and determined to have equal relationships, are not rare. While she loves cooking, Lepak does the cleaning and laundry. His favorite chores are making the bed and doing the yard work. They hire people to do what neither one wants to do. She says it's a huge relief not to have children and responsibilities. The mindset of a couple has changed.
These friends and partners also have no obligation to operate as a unit when they visit family, friends, or travel. Jaross and Lepak, for example, see some of their children separately, others together. Hell visits his brother in the East for a week; she will spend a month with her mother in New York. They sometimes travel separately, just as Doppelt and Ventura do. While Ventura is touring Cuba with his female friends, Doppelt will be hiking in South Dakota with five other guys. He told me that it's fine for us to travel separately. That's something I didn't feel when I was married before.
Living in dating website over 50 (and planning to remain there for the rest of one's life) is the least traditional relationship and has the most freedom. Apart from each other, they can sidestep possible conflicts over the habits, needs, and people they have gathered in their lives over the decades. Does he sleep late and she gets up early? No problem. Is he miserable even at 65 degrees while she is miserable at 75 degrees? Not an issue. Occasionally, her grandkids run riot over her house? Hey, its her house. Most have lived on their own for years and need their own space and solitude.
Despite living in suburban Philadelphia, Jeff Ostroff, host of the podcast Looking Forward, lives far away from the woman he calls the second love of his life. In his late sixties, Osteroff works on his own schedule, goes on social media, exercises, volunteers, and spends time with friends and family. He and his girlfriend of more than six years talk and videochat several times a day, sometimes for more than an hour at a time, but they typically see each other only at the weekends. His time alone during the week allows him to completely devote himself to her, he says.
Whether they marry or live apart, these couples are distinguished by the emotional texture of their relationships. Their lives have been transformed by life's major transitions, such as having children or having an empty nest. It is clear who they are and what they need. What is important and what isn't to them is evident to them. University of Colorado Denver sociologist Teresa Cooney observed that older couples are better at problem solving and tend to argue less when compared to their first marriages.
When older adults choose a mate, they select one who fits who they are now, despite feeling no pressure to remarry. She thought her first husband would be a good father, and he was. But he was not the right partner for my midlife and beyond. Relationships in later life are primarily driven by love, companionship, and emotional support.
In the older remarriages studied by psychologist Chaya Koren at the University of Haifa, people felt more equal and more intimate within their relationships because they felt that each spouse was unique within their union. The passage of time affects older couples paradoxically, according to Swedish sociologist Torbjorn Bildtgard, who studied emotional unions after 60. However, they have more free time together. They are, however, aware that their time together will be limited. They are so grateful to have met each other. They cherish their love.
Lepak expresses it this way. Our goal is not to be concerned about our end, he says. We focus on making the most of every day together. The fact that we've found our soul mate makes us feel blessed.