How Midlife Relationships Work

By Philip Belove, Ed.D.

In a New Yorker cartoon by Leo Cullum, the elephant is on the psychoanalyst’s couch and saying with a pained expression, “I’m right there in the room, and no one even acknowledges me.”

Complex title, I know. But the pieces do fit.

This week I joined friends to celebrate Shavuot (Shah VOO oat) the Jewish holiday commemorating the day that Moses was said to have carried down from the mountain the tablets with the Ten Commandments.  The celebration was an all night study and discussion party, sort of like a pleasant version of a finals week all-nighter, with tea and cookies and singing.  Among other things we talked about something the Jewish philosopher, Martin Buber, had written about the Ten Commandments.  (Bear with me.  One point will lead to the next and will end up with me sharing something vital that I re-learned about how to be a good relationship partner. )

The personals specify STR or LTR, (short term relationship or long term) as if those were the only choices. I’m not so sure. I think that there is a growing hybrid, the MTR, the mid-term relationship.

As one very smart and very attractive 50 year old woman explained to me, the problem is how to be “looking for long term relationships and dealing with the libido in the meanwhile.”

I think it is The Central Issue in dating at midlife. It is the thing that everyone struggles with.

I think the problem of how to have a sex life when single at midlife is equally vexing to both men and women. Midlife adults are sexually active and want to be. But how?

The best answer is a good long term committed relationship. It’s the best sex, the easiest sex, the most emotionally satisfying sex and the richest, most textured sex. Far and away, most of the people who report having the best and most frequent and most satisfying sex at midlife are people who are married or settled into in long term relationships. Then sex simply becomes part of pleasant domestic tranquility.

Midlife singles, by definition, are people who experience long sexual dry spells. These are people who, for one reason or another have backed away from long-term committed relationships. By 35 or 40 they’d tried for the Big One and they’ve either left or been left or have avoided it altogether.

You can tell how midlife singles are doing in their midlife transition by how they handle their sex lives.

The midlife transition happens in stages. In Phase One people tend to panic or choke. Panicking and choking are opposite ways of being ineffective.

When you panic you become impulsive. Your perception narrows. You lose sight of the big picture. An example of this is believing the relationship is over at the first sign of angry words.

When you choke, you over-think. You freeze up, distrust your instincts and become controlling. An example of this is needing to be 100% right before you ask anything for yourself in a relationship.

Phase One is Crazy Time. People in this phase are sexually impulsive and reckless or frightened, frozen and shut down. It’s possible to sexy, warm, sensual and friendly and still be very responsibly and aware of what you are doing. But not in this phase.

Phase Two is very difficult for different reasons. I know that the name I gave it, “Quiet Time,” makes it sound rather like “nap time.” It isn’t. It’s more like those still moments you have just after you wake up from a disturbing dream. Whatever it is, it finally has your full attention, but you aren’t yet sure what it is. You know you have to change something.

In order to change, in order to stop doing the things that don’t work, you have to recognize one of two things. Either

In case you think I am reading too much into those sentences, let me point out the flow of the whole book. You can recognize the dance of dating as certain men might think it through. Chapter six is about “how to sweep her off her feet and into your bed;” seven is about “the priming date,” which is the one that comes before the “seduction date,” described in chapter eight. Then, after some hints about sexual technique, the book has a chapter called, “handling problems women cause,” on how to deal with women who get really angry. Then a chapter called “breaking up is easy to do.” I may be a bit shrinky here but I think the order of events describe a plan. I also notice that it was in their breaking up chapter that they discuss commitments and how to think about long term partnerships. By now we are at page 400 of 450. Then there is a 25 page chapter on how to make a relationship last and a summary.

Jerry was 48 and divorced twice. That in itself was not remarkable. Half of all marriages end in divorce and two-thirds of all second marriages. He’d been single for seven years with two major (two year long) relationships and a handful of minor encounters. You could say he was a veteran of the midlife dating scene. Angel was 45, with similar statistics.

These are definitely not casual relationships. We’re not talking about casual sex although the fact that they include sex is central to what they are. If we are bound to be single for many years between 40 and 60 or more, we are still going to want to have a sex life. One woman, recently divorced said that despite it all, she and her husband had a good sex life. “I didn’t believe how hungry I got.”

In any community, there are two sets of rules governing sexual behavior, the proper rules and the real rules. The proper rules are the ones designed to protect families and to foster marriages. The real rules are what people will naturally do as long as it’s nobody’s business but their own.