What the Heck is Dating at Midlife?
I have a few ideas about it.
Pay attention to who is headed in the same direction.
“When are you going to start online dating? Come on, girl. You know that’s the way to meet men now. You need to start dating while you’re young and beautiful.”
When I first divorced 7 years ago, one of the things that upset me was the idea of having to date again. Just the thought of it brought up insecurities and self-doubts. Infidelity had fertilized seeds of body-consciousness, feelings of unworthiness, and fears of rejection. The scars of a double mastectomy and reconstruction and a 45+ year old body certainly didn’t help. Friends and family encouraged me to “get back out there while I was young and beautiful” - I felt anything but.
Even though I knew I wasn’t ready to date then, I could foresee that at some point (in the d i s t a n t future) I would want to explore dating and post divorce relationships. I needed some time to breathe, heal, and to figure out what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it.
Turns out there are a lot of different ways to think about dating at midlife; these are a few that make sense to me.
Walking Partners
Late in 2016, while my divorce was being finalized, I called my friend Kady to talk about being divorced. I needed to hear from someone with experience on the path I found myself walking.
One of the many things I remember about that conversation was her definition of dating. She conceived of dating at midlife, those years between 45 and 65, as the experience of choosing “walking partners.” Each guy might be someone with whom you share a few steps on the path, or someone with whom you spend a longer period of time. The main idea is that as you live your life, you notice who is headed in the same direction you are, who is a compliment to the life you live. Then you decide if this is someone with whom you want to share your life, your time, and as you determine appropriate, your bed.
When you pay attention to who crosses your path, whether that is organically or through online dating, you will know when there is someone you want to know more about, someone you want to spend time with, or someone you feel drawn to learn something with or from. You will also know when it is time to go in separate directions. Don’t put pressure on yourself to do anything but notice what is going on within you as you get to know the different men you meet. Get curious about yourself and them.
Even if you want to marry again, the pressure of “finding a husband” can get in the way of seeing the lessons available through midlife dating. Give yourself permission to simply enjoy the company of another. Lighten up your thoughts about dating and it will be more fun. Allow Life to reveal what comes next. That’s a powerful lesson too.
This was a philosophy I could feel peaceful about. Even if I didn’t want to date right then, it took the pressure off of the thought of dating in the future. I had time to figure it out.
There is so much value in dating to find YOU first.
Getting to Know Yourself
When I divorced, I was also at the stage of parenting teens through the ups and downs of middle and high school dating, which gave me some perspective I might not have recognized otherwise. I found myself giving them the advice I wish I had received as a teen and 20-something. Only later would I recognize that its wisdom could be applied to dating at midlife.
I defined dating to them as getting to know yourself as you also get to know someone else. I wanted them to focus on learning things about themselves that would help them build healthy relationships, no matter if the relationship “went anywhere or not.” (I really hate that phrase and the pressure we put on relationships to “go somewhere.” What does that even mean?)
I wanted them to become aware of things like their love language(s), their communication styles (and those modeled in our family), and how their personality interacts with different personalities. We talked about the stories they created in their heads based on someone else’s actions (an amazing concept Brene Brown talks about here and in this book), and how to handle conflict and breakups in a courageous way.
I figured if they were paying attention to what they could learn about themselves in teenage relationships, they would maybe be better prepared to build healthy adult relationships. I also hoped they’d be less likely to focus on the romanticized future of their relationships, but I’d have to ask them how that worked out in reality.
American culture, music, movies, tv shows, and conversations with friends really do a number on our expectations of relationships. Let’s be real: How many people actually marry someone they knew in childhood or high school?
I knew this wouldn’t prevent them from being hurt or possibly from hurting others when breakups happened, but at least they would be able to move forward having learned something about themselves. They would hopefully not feel like their time with someone was “wasted” because it didn’t lead where they thought it would.
What started off as using some of the lessons of my life, marriage, and divorce to create a dating framework for my teens turned into lessons that I could use in midlife to date differently, when I was ready to do so.
It sure can be fun to feel sparks again!
Have Fun, Make Memories, and, hmm…how do I say this?…experience your sensual side again
My therapist actually said this a little differently, but my kids might read this, so I’m going to keep it PG. His theory is that you build the feeling of connection in all relationships through having fun and making memories, so dating is the combination of fun + memories + chemistry (and all that can come out of that chemistry. Wink, wink.)
No matter how you wrestle with the idea of sex and dating (a blog post of its own for certain), after a divorce it feels so good to experience chemistry, desire, and being desired again. There’s definitely something to be said about this theory of dating at midlife. After a divorce, who doesn’t want to have fun, make new memories, and feel a little more alive?
Putting it all together
Truthfully, all of this is just now coming together as I experiment in online dating. I see myself weaving all three of them into my dating experiences. Post divorce, I know more about myself, I know more about who I want to spend my time with, and I’m definitely focused on having fun and making memories. And if a little chemistry comes out of the fun and memories? I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.