What do you do when you have finally reached retirement age, and your loving spouse of many years has recently passed away? Perhaps you were even the main caregiver, and your own health suffered greatly, prematurely aging you during this time. Does this sound at all familiar to some of us baby boomers in our “golden years?” Oh Lord, now what do we do? The loneliness is overwhelming. Who do you have that you can really talk to now?
Here is a likely situation: You were married to a woman for 45 years that you emotionally and intimately loved but now she is gone. What to do? You could likely live another 25 years. You’re not good at loneliness! Push has now come to shove. Well, there was that girl—a classmate your age back in 1966 when you were a sophomore in college. You shared one hell of an intimate and emotional relationship. In retrospect, there’s no doubt that you loved each other but were much too young to realize it then. Whatever happened to her? Viet Nam intervened!
I hadn’t heard from her since 1967 when I was 20 years old. I wondered. Is she still alive? I did some searching on the internet, found her and sent her an email, but heard nothing back. Maybe she was happily married, maybe not. I had no idea how to find out. Should I hire a detective? Should I just wait, secretly keeping alive the hope she’d turn up someday?
Hey oldsters, have you experienced this sort of thing? Lots of us in this similar situation when a mate dies unexpectedly.
I spent the next decade grieving extensively over the loss of my long marriage and lost intimacy. I experienced extreme emotional longing. During that time significant back and leg problems overtook me. I required two serious spinal operations involving lengthy recuperations and even a hip replacement. To cope and maintain my home I took in a live in helper and that platonic relationship limped along for years. I never remarried. In 2023 there was a message on my computer from someone with a very unusual first name wishing me a happy birthday – nine long years after I’d emailed her.
She was now a widow — reaching out after her husband’s long, wrenching illness and death. I was flabbergasted. Oh my God!! There was probably only one person in the whole universe with that odd name. I answered in minutes. Within the next hour we both got up to speed explaining our current situations and it was perfectly clear to me where this was going to go. Friends and my relatives were horrified. Who is he taking up with now? He is in a relationship! I wasn’t in a romantic relationship but they assumed I was. His wife has only been dead for… 10 years!!
Were you startled by the reactions from good friends and family members when you decided to involve yourself with a new mate, or maybe take up with a friend with benefits? God forbid, do you dare use the words “LOVE” or “marriage” ever again?
What really is going on here? Do oldsters present themselves as senile when what they are really doing is making radical, yet rational, changes? Do they realize their time left on the planet is limited and they want to actively pursue happiness? Does the desire not to merely go on living but, if possible, start living it up come from age-related chemical changes? Or could it be that “wiseness” has set in?
It is today a year later, and my college sweetheart who I hadn’t seen in 58 years sits nearby on the couch. I am in my recliner — it’s the way we most often arrange ourselves to write. And yes, we are both freelance writers. Yes, the controversy we stirred up took us by complete surprise and it still haunts us. Quite honestly, we never anticipated such strong pushback. We’d expected people — relatives and friends alike — to be enchanted by our story, not horrified. We’ve both been marching to our own drummers and accepting responsibility for it for decades now so, where is all this new flack coming from at this late stage of the game?
Why did this happen? Has it happened to you? It’s not fun,
