Avivah Wittenberg-Cox - Late Love : Mating in Maturity.

Introduction

J uliet, talented and successful as both businesswoman and mother, found herself bored and listless in a companionable but passionless marriage. Eventually, feeling if she didnt act she would lose herself and any sense of self-worth, she left her marriage of 30 years at the age of 55 and plunged into the unknown. Many of her friends simply didnt understand it. She has yet to find a lasting new relationship; yet the joy and sheer excitement of the last few years shines in her eyes. Turning 60, she looks forward to a future of discovery and self-discovery.

Andrea had experienced years of emotional bullying and belittling from her husband that left her depressed and deeply unhappy. This was clear to her friends, and even her children. Yet when she finally took the plunge and left her husband of 24 years, and her financially secure marriage, she found herself the recipient of criticism and condemnation by many, including one of her children. Happily, within three years she found new self-confidence, new hope and, above all, a new and deeply appreciative love that has transformed her life in a way that is transparent to everyone who loves her and has completely convinced those who had previously criticized her for what she did.

I had a picture-perfect marriage that, after 22 years, left me lonely and unsatisfied. After years of trying to get my husband to join me in defining a new dance, I waltzed out the door instead. And fell into the arms of a very old friend. We discovered what the term soulmates really means. And I was astonished to discover that the profound happiness I tapped into radiated out beyond myself.

Why werent these transitions easier, more encouraged, more celebrated? Late love seemed to me to be the cherry on the cake of life. Deep, wise and profoundly nourishing. I started to ask around, and found that others too were surprised by joy at an age when they had resigned themselves to love in the past tense.

In fact, it turns out there is an explosion of grey divorce and remarriage in the over-50s these days. It is driven mainly by women, and a minority of men, who are deciding that adequate marriages are inadequate. With children departing into their own journeys, and ever-longer lives stretching out ahead, more mature adults are leaping, unconventionally and aspirationally, at a last chance at love.

A majority of the existing literature discourages them. The dominant mantra of books, counsellors and media is that staying together is the superior, admirable choice. They insist that romantic dreams of great sex and soul mates are the Disney-esque yearnings of the naively immature.

I will argue the contrary. Great relationships are not only attainable; they are a natural and admirable goal for aging humans. And if your current mate isnt interested in working with you to craft an ever-deeper and finer partnership, then it may be your mate who requires changing not your dreams.

For the past two decades, I have criss-crossed the globe as a writer and consultant on gender issues in business. I had always been interested in how issues of gender at work affected issues of gender at home. But when I decided that term limits were needed on my own long marriage, and discovered that late love had given me a new lease on the second half of my own life, the interest morphed into passion. I became convinced that many of the skills and self-awareness that made good leaders at work, also made good partners in life. So I began to ask friends a lot of questions. What was the promise and potential of consciously redefined relationships between partners at home in the second half of life? Did new gender roles contribute to new happiness? And especially, could we become masterful at love?

Late Love explores how todays explosion of marriages in the second half of life may offer innovative role models for mastering newly balanced relationships between men and women. The extraordinary changes in womens roles and the evolving needs of men are transforming todays couples. The results are perhaps seen most clearly in the surge of late unions being carefully designed and created today by men and women who are redefining gender lines at home, with the advantages of self-awareness, maturity and higher degrees of relationship skills.

Fulfilling relationships are a fundamental goal for a life well lived. The increase in marriages between people over 50 suggests its never too late. But can it actually get better? And how? Can divorce be reframed as a creative claim to selfhood? Can our societies aging lovebirds be role models and inspiration for love in a more gender-balanced world?

The book is a rich resource for anyone looking to find and build a mature, joyful union in adulthood. Its also a clarion call for all those who might like to, but are stuck on the fence, in unsatisfactory relationships, or recovering after the loss of a mate (through death or other, more hurtful, departures). Equal parts roadmap and inspiration, the book offers a joyfully fresh perspective on the naturalness of emotional transitions in lengthening lives. It charts a course for the journey towards late love: how to see existing relationships through a fresh lens, how to digest the lessons from the first half of life and how to make wise choices for the rest of the road.

This trend towards second-time-round marriage must be viewed in the context of an unprecedented, millennial shift in gender relations. As womens educational, social and economic empowerment increases, they continue to demand more for the world, and from it. This is true at home and at work. Settling for anything less than mutually supportive, seductive and stretching relationships is so yesterday. As the number of late leavers and lovers swells, their thirst for more is redefining what relationships look like in a greying, gender-balanced world.

And it looks pretty good.

I use my own personal experience and philosophical musings as a launching pad, and add interviews with couples who have consciously created and designed love in late unions. Divorce rates and marriage rates are both dropping overall, but the greatest increase in both is in the over-50s. Why?

My hypothesis is that we can achieve mastery in intimate relationships through self-awareness, hard work and intention, what Eric Fromm called the art of loving. The current view of modern marriage is that love and romance have conquered economics as the founding principle of the institution (described in Stephanie Coontzs Marriage: A History ). But can the recipe of late love be grounded in the success literature (its hard work and 10,000 hours of practice) and in the happiness literature (all humans are happier after 50)so late love becomes the cherry on the cake for humans who focus on relationships as a prime imperative of later life? The research includes a wide sweep over the current global statistics on marriage and re-marriage in the developed world, debunking a few myths along the way.

The rise of women in the course of the twentieth century is pushing almost everyone everywhere in the direction of yearning for deep, satisfying and mutually beneficial and above all more equal - personal relationships. Though, lets be honest, its mostly women who are doing the pushing. Their growing social power, political influence and financial independence are redefining the rules of every game in town.

But, above all, love.

Love has come a long way in the last several decades, although I agree with the writer and observer Alain de Botton that we are probably only part-way through a long journey of learning how to master relationships. But I disagree with his constant (and beautifully argued) case that our ideals of romantic love are misguided and set us all up to fail at good enough relationships. Once you find them, you get why everyone is trying so hard. Because its worth it. And, as the famous ad from LOreal used to say, because Im worth it.