Whether well planned or unfolding as emergency, this a challenging task. It is one that necessitates changes, parent/child communication, family support, community services, shared information, financial resources, legal expertise, and medical care.

Underscoring this task and coloring most of these factors is the emotional reality that caring for an aging parent is a psychological journey. Metaphorically, it is one that demands a “return home” in a different role to become the “holding environment” – the psychologically attuned parent– whether that is something you have had or still yearn for.

Although the journey seems daunting and is certainly strewn with obstacles, it can also be an opportunity for mutual and positive connection.

Adapted and expanded from the literature on the risks of caregiving, clinical practice and my own journey, here are Four Basic Steps that may reduce the stress and enhance the privilege of caring for both you and your parent. They include: Acceptance, Balance, Connection and Personal Definition.

Acceptance

Understanding the situation and normalizing the responses of both you and your parent reduces anxiety and facilitates acceptance and functioning.

Time Travel

Unlike the care of children which, despite its challenges, is linear and moves forward, care of an elderly parent is more like time travel. It involves being transported backwards and forwards between different points of time.

• Within hours, even minutes you are making decisions as a parent for a parent, while worrying as a child about their reactions.
• You are busy thinking ahead in terms of resources, finances and legal needs while at the same time hearing about your parent’s childhood, reminders of your own or questions about who is still living.
• You are worrying about how safe a living arrangement could be or how appropriate a resource might be while your parent is insisting there is no need for help on one day and clearly in need of considerable assistance on another.
• You are faced with the reality that no one gets younger and no one keeps a parent or lives forever.

Recognize Your Strengths and Limitations

One of the greatest traps in the care of an elderly parent is a failure to recognize your own strengths and limitations. Understanding what you can and cannot do depends not only on the level of care of the parent, the support of siblings, financial resources, etc. but on your own personality, needs and situation.

If you can move beyond the guilt of not doing it exactly as your parent insists or not doing it “the right way”(whatever that is) you will be more open to creative solutions that may pull from family, friends, church, community and medical resources. Ultimately, you will be better able to sustain connection, be less resentful and be more caring.  

• The fact that you are doing the finances while your brother does the visits does not mean you are not caring for a parent. It may mean you are covering care in the most efficient way.
• The fact that you have hired home health aides to help care for your parent does not mean you are not caring for a parent. It may mean that someone with more patience is spending time or that someone who has never heard the stories is eager to listen.
• The fact that you insure proper care and demonstrate a wish to stay connected in some way that your parent sees, knows or even only feels (holding hands with a parent with Alzheimer’s Disease), you establish constancy – you are there.

Recognize Your Parent’s Strengths and Limitations

Recognizing and understanding an elderly parent’s limitations while at the same time remaining open-minded about their strengths is key to enhancing caregiving.

Memory Problems

• There is for many aging parents evidence of memory problems, particularly short term or working memory, which is more vulnerable to aging than long-term memories.
• Often as a caregiver you can be worn down by the fact that your parent has asked you ten times who just called but can give a detailed description of their childhood home.
• Sometimes it seems as if there has been a change in mood and memory function in a day – a reality perhaps explained by a recent study that suggests that “ silent strokes” may explain the memory loss in up to 25 percent of older adults who experience memory problems.
• Essentially, the decline that we see or the strengths that we glimpse in an aging parent unfold day to day. It is our understanding of this and reaction that makes a difference.

A dear friend confided that he had come to realize that his frustration with his mother’s memory lapses had to do with his upset about losing her as she once was. His frustration, he realized, was becoming more of a problem for her than her memory.

A women who was worried about placing her Dad in a rehab facility, as he seemed unable to communicate much with her or remember much, was shocked to find him singing all the words to Sinatra songs with the other residents. She hadn’t accounted for the stimulation of the other residents or the power of music to arouse dormant memories.

A man reported arguing with but waiting too long to take the car keys from his Mom who insisted she could still drive. Thankfully, no one was hurt, but when she left the car running at the bank drive-up window and walked away – the limitation was loud and clear.

Aware of her short-term memory problem, my mother’s denial is something I have come to appreciate. I recently asked her who the president was. Her response, “Who cares?”

Levels of Happiness

In our attempt to understand what our elderly parents need – we often overstep and project our needs. A new Pew Research survey reveals that our projected expectations are not accurate for our parents. Research suggests that until you reach their age you really can’t know how it feels.

I have heard many say  “I don’t want to live that long – how can they be happy?”  The reality is that most are.

• Research revealing the U-bend of happiness tells us that past middle age there seems to be growing happiness into the later years that occurs regardless of money, employment status or children.
• Maurice Sendak, renowned children’s author shares in an interview at age 83 that he has lost many beloved friends and can no longer walk, “But, you know, there’s something I’m finding out as I’m aging that I am in love with the world. And I look right now, as we speak together, out my window in my studio and I see my trees and my beautiful, beautiful maples that are hundreds of years old, they’re beautiful.”
• “Don’t Mess with The Bingo” – It is a surprise to many of us to watch elderly parents, whose prior life work has ranged from homemaker to court judge, play bingo with such enjoyment and interest. Why are we surprised?
• Consider what happens when you invite a group of people to compete in a task they can master with the possibility of a financial reward? Isn’t that a version of what most of us are doing?

Balance

One of the most important aspects of caregiver self-care is a balance of work, family, play and caregiving.

• While there is concern for many Baby Boomers who are sandwiched between care of children and care of parents, it is important to consider that the real issue may be balance and time and not multiple roles.
• A recent study on woman caregivers of elderly parents, found that while the overload was greatest with women caregivers who had careers and partners, this group had the lest resentment about caregiving and the greatest reported life satisfaction.
• This suggests that multiple roles, much like diversity of caseload with professionals, may actually serve as a protective factor to burnout.
• What becomes important is for the caregiver to recognize what he/she needs in the different domains of their life and to feel entitled to create that balance.
• It makes sense in reducing the sense of competitive needs to invite family members and partners to join in on some of the caregiving – Children and grandparents are a wonderful and mutual resource and connection for each other when time together is special and planned.
• Caregivers benefit from talking to their partner about their caregiving role, including them and asking for help and ideas.  Given that most adult caregiver children have a history with their elderly parent that may make them reactive to a comment, expression or parent personality trait – it is often the daughter-in-law or son-in–law who can handle a situation or make a suggestion with a better outcome!
• Caring for an elderly parent is something most partners understand and support – particularly when love and mutual concern for the marriage remains apparent and time to just be together remains important.
• Central to any balancing act is the caregiver’s need to feel entitled to play i.e. to pursue his/her stress reducing activities – be it gardening, exercise, music, a poker game or choir practice on a regular basis.

Connection

Both caregivers and aging parents need connections. Research informs us that networks of support are crucial in reducing caregiver stress and burnout as well as providing social outlets to reduce loneliness and hopelessness in aging parents.

• Siblings are often a primary source of support for care of aging parents. Some siblings do this seamlessly in a way that buffers stress, validates reality, provides levity and meets different needs of the parent.
• Some families are drawn together for the first time by the critical needs of an aging parent such that the common purpose offsets old hostilities and offers a new appreciation of the distinct contribution each can make.
• “ Not the Brady Bunch” – For many caregivers, the source of support is not a sibling or family member because the family is not one that can step up together. People are different and their histories bear on their capabilities as well as their sense of responsibility.
• Some caregivers are not only the only one to step up in a family but they face the added stress of hearing the parent’s concern for others who are simply not doing their share. This is a very difficult situation best buffered by partners, supportive friends, groups dealing with caregiving and outside resources.

 Personal Definition

In this culture, the needs of an aging population are mounting and adult children are playing a major role in their care. More than a task, caregiving for an aging parent is a psychological journey that involves challenges and complex feelings on personal and interpersonal levels. How you define this journey very much bears on how you will cope and what feelings you will carry.

• For some, it will be the opportunity to give back to someone who has shown great love and care to them.
• For others, it will offer the promise of parent-child closeness unknown before, one that can lighten old pain and add new memories.
• For a few, it will reflect giving that continues to be without appreciation but validates the essential goodness and hope of a child’ love.
• For a significant group, it will be a journey of care and heartache with a parent who no longer remembers but is nonetheless remembered and loved.
• For all it will be a journey of pain and privilege.

Let It Go

If you are human and you are in a relationship, it is inevitable that at times you will be angry with your partner. Once you and your partner have come to some resolve or have agreed to a working resolution, let the contention and disagreement go.

You may think it is important to explain to your partner one more reason you were angry or to analyze his/her character flaw. It’s not. Your partner will not be grateful for this information. Let it Go!

Once you and your partner move on to a positive mood or enjoyable place, go with it, feel it- let it take. Positive memories and experiences build recovery momentum. They facilitate problem resolution because they broaden perspective, re-kindle appreciation of each other and build trust.

Look at Each Other More

Making an effort to actually look more at your partner has real potency in relationship enhancement. There is increasing evidence that eye contact is associated with the power to influence, connect, support, invite trust, and enhance intimacy with another person.  Do you remember the first time you looked at each other and how it felt?

• Neuropsychology informs us that we are wired to make eye- to eye contact, that mutual gazing between partners, starting with the mother-infant pair, registers connection at a level beneath consciousness. It is an unspoken expression of attachment.
• In this non-stop multi-tasking, high tech culture, many of us hardly realize that we have stopped looking up from the computer as we are talking or as we run out for the next car pool.
• Planning to look at each other and hold the gaze offers a private relatedness – It can affirm the bond, soften the tension and re-ignite the interest.

Lighten the Load Together

The reality in this culture is that most working couples, particularly with children, are clocking in many hours at home and at work, and trying to strike a balance between the two. The strain they feel is often played out in their clash about chores. According to a 2007 Pew Research Center Survey of American adults, 62% ranked “sharing household chores” as third in importance in a successful marriage across age groups.

• There is a lot of love packed into knowing that your partner is doing his/her share with household chores. It reduces feelings of overload, resentment and depression.
• When partners are teaming with chores, the sense of “we” is further enhanced by expressed appreciation for what has been done and acceptance of what just wasn’t possible that day!

Is there anything more loving than a made bed, a cleaned sink or a child tucked in?

Laugh With Each Other

Laughter has been associated with reduction of stress, anxiety, improvement of mood, self-esteem and coping skills. It is also considered the closest distance between two people.

When couples “ get each other” or “ laugh at similar things” they share more than perspective. Laughter is transformative. Making a partner laugh or laughing at something together, or even laughing at yourselves implies the wish and capacity to let go, to share something, to be intimate.

• As Jay Leno says,“You can’t stay mad at somebody who makes you laugh.”
• As one woman re-connecting with her spouse of many years said, “ I knew we were ok when we started to laugh together again.”

Love Yourself

Loving yourself in a healthy way is a gift to a partner- a relationship enhancer. You may have scars from the past that have dampened your self-esteem.  You can’t change your past but you can take charge of your present. Your partner and your relationship offer a new opportunity for positive affirmation.

• No matter what your height, hair or weight, just be your personal best. Partners don’t want perfection they want someone who hasn’t given up on themselves or on them.
• Choose an achievable personal goal that you can really enjoy be it a cooking class, bowling league, or listening to audio books. Let your partner know how you enjoy it. Sharing pride or excitement is expansive and attractive.
• Consider looking at one positive quality of yours and one positive quality of your partner’s each day no matter what else happens. It’s like a daily relationship vitamin. It fortifies the positive sense of self and positive view of your partner.

Let your Love and Desire be Known

One way to feel more love and sexual desire as a couple is to express it. This does not equate to just asking for or complaining about sex. Most partners want to feel loved and desired by the other in the course of the day to day life they share. – They want to be “more than just friends” they want to be the special one to their partner.

On an on-going basis, a word, a compliment, a smile, consistent small signs of authentic affection build mutual desire, the feeling of being loved and the wish to be sexual.  Loving in a more expressive way is not a demand or guarantee of sex – it is the fabric of intimacy that leads to mutual desire.

No one just shows up for a good relationship.

No relationship is perfect.

But…every day you act to enhance your relationship in a simple way, you become part of the relationship you want.

Happy couple photo available from Shutterstock.

Adding to the exercise benefits for improving physical health, the most recent publication of the Monitor of the American Psychological Association underscores the mounting evidence of exercise benefits on mental health. So clear is the impact of exercise on the body-mind connection that it raises the question of how psychologists might use it as part of their treatment arsenal or at the very least motivate their patients to exercise.

As closer look at some of the findings may provide the tipping point for starting, stopping and moderating exercise in a way that benefits physical and mental health.

Findings:

Long Term Depression and Relapse Prevention

• Adding to earlier research that found exercise effective in ameliorating depression, one new study assigned sedentary adults with major depressive disorder to one of four groups including supervised exercise, home-based exercise, antidepressant therapy or a placebo pill. After four months, the antidepressant groups and the exercise groups had the highest rates of remission.
• Significantly, follow-up after a year found that those who had continued with regular exercise had the lowest depression scores, suggesting that exercise is important in preventing relapse.

A take home point for those who might want to start exercising is the value of “supervised exercise” to provide motivation, support, companionship and feedback.

This could take the form of a personal trainer, a group or a buddy exercise experience.

Consistently people report they would not have exercised had there not been a trainer waiting or a friend on the way.

 n this day of social media, a“ home-based exercise” can be enhanced by text, and email reminders or special I-phone apps that bring the reminder and the workout steps or motivation to you.

 The Diabetes-Depression Loop

• A unique study addressed the problem that the rates of clinically significant depressive symptoms and major depressive disorder are higher among adults with diabetes than the general population.
• In this study adults with depression and diabetes were in a 12-week exercise and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) Program. The results showed that those who exercised showed improvements in depression and blood sugar levels compared with controls.
• The mind-body connection addressed here is crucial as there is no way to determine if the sedentary lifestyle, which becomes so dangerous, begins with the depression or diabetes.

As discussed in the blog, “Exercise for Depression: Strategies to Make it Possible,” some applications for beginning and continuing exercise might include:

• Start slowly with something you like doing (walking and talking to a neighbor, walking the dog, walking to music).
•  According to exercise psychologists, people give up on exercise because it is too much too soon for their body or they don’t see immediate results.
• Pew Research surveys found that the major factor that differentiated those who kept exercising from those who stopped was the“ fun factor.” People who made exercise a lifestyle choice found something to do that they enjoyed.

Panic and Anxiety

• Jasper Smitts and Otto, co-authors of the 2011 book, Exercise for Mood and Anxiety, reasoned that people with anxiety and panic not only react with the fight/flight responses of sweating, dizziness, racing heart etc. but have a sensitivity to these symptoms which further exacerbates the panic and anxiety.
• In their study, 60 volunteers with sensitivity to panic participated in a 12-week exercise program and showed improvements in anxiety sensitivity compared to a control group. Essentially the volunteers had come to associate those same bodily symptoms with safety instead of danger.
• Another factor that may have contributed to the re-definition of anxiety symptoms is the increased sense of mastery and body control, which the participants had from the 12-week exercise program.

Even at the start of exercising, long before the weight drops or the muscles pop, the very accomplishment of walking 3 blocks instead of one, of walking stairs without being out of breadth, of less ankle swelling etc. offers success for an achievable goal that in turn reduces the sense of helplessness and bodily fears.

Findings Suggest that Exercise Buffers the Brain From Stress

Theories explaining this impact from exercise include the impact of released neurochemicals as endorphins and and serotonin; normalizing sleep which affects body rhythms and the nervous system functioning; and exercise as a meaningful activity that buffers stress by enhancing a sense of accomplishment.

Attention Fatigue (ADHD)

A study intending to examine if walking in a natural winter setting would relieve attention fatigue in adults, found based on pre and post memory scales, mood profiles and self reports that 20 minutes of walking in any outdoor setting, be it a wooded trail, neighborhood or parking lot, provided a significant benefit for short-term memory, tension reduction, depression, anger and fatigue.

• Given that “no time in the schedule” is the number one reason people report for not exercising, the benefit from 20 minutes of walking outdoors is cause to button-up or find a sunny place to make your move.
• It also invites thinking about the powerful impact of family walks or parent/ child walks – particularly as we recognize the overscheduled program of children, and the number of children who deal with attention deficit disorder (ADD) and attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD).
• In this highly connected, technology driven culture, the walk in nature may offer what research suggests as needed time without stimulation to allow the brain to synthesize information, and make connections between ideas. 

Unable to Stop – Exercise Addiction

Given that 7 out of ten American Adults don’t exercise regularly despite the proven health benefits, a group that is often overlooked includes those who have stopped physically or mentally benefiting from exercise. They are the obligatory exercisers for whom exercise has become an addiction.

One man who came to see me with considerable anxiety and despair because his second marriage was ending, mentioned in passing that he awakened every morning at 4:30AM to go to the gym and exercise for 90 minutes. This effort he made to stay in shape also required that he eat certain foods different from what the family was eating, that he be in bed sleeping by 9PM and expand his workouts on the weekends. The cost was an eroded relationship with his wife, very limited family time with his children and considerable fatigue. What was dramatic was that he considered his exercise routine as a necessity for reducing stress in his life – he had never factored this into his problems.

David Linden in his 2011 book, The Compass of Pleasure considers that exercise can activate the pleasure circuit and like food, nicotine or gambling become a substrate for addiction. He notes that exercise addicts display all of the hallmarks of substance addicts: tolerance, craving, withdrawal and the need to exercise “ just to feel normal.”

Exercise addiction is a chronic loss of perspective of the role of exercise in a full life.

Do You Have An Exercise Addiction?

Here are Some Warning Signs:

• By passing family, friends, events and emotional connections in favor of hours of exercise.
• Exercising despite illness, injury, fatigue or bodily needs.
• Continual increase in time, miles or intensity such that exercise takes up all free time.
• Withdrawal symptoms like anxiety, irritability, and depression when circumstances prevent working out.
• Inability to see value in unrelated activities and pursuit of the sport or exercise even when it is against his/her best interest.
• Concern of family and friends for you physical and mental health.
• Interest in talking only about training or exercise related issues or events.

Reflective of the way in which exercise addiction reverses the physical and mental health benefits of exercise, Jane E. Brody in her blog “ Fit is One Thing: Obsessive Exercise is Another,” reports that the obligatory exercisers often suffer anxiety, apathy, chronic fatigue, decreased appetite, depression, hostility, mental exhaustion, mood changes, changes in values and beliefs, diminished self-image, impaired concentration, emotional isolation, sore muscles and disturbed sleep.

Moderation Strategies

• Much as it is important to start exercise slowly, it is important to reduce addictive exercising in small steps.
• Given the thought of stopping often feels untenable, it is worth remembering that your goal is not stopping; but rather, healthy moderation that protects you from stopping due to physical or emotional damage.
• Consider keeping a log of exercise, family, partner, work and recreational time for a week. Take note of the balance – it reflects the priorities in your life.
• Consider reducing the intensity and time of your workouts by using a shorter alternative routine (weight lifting, stretch class, etc.) on alternative days.
• Exercise addiction is often reduced by adding more of a social component that makes it less ritualistic and excessive. On the weekend substitute a workout with a dance class or bike ride with your partner, friend or children.
• Consider utilizing the help of a trainer, coach or physical therapist to guide you back to a balanced and healthy use of exercise.
• Recognize if you need professional help.
• Exercise addictions often reflect a desperate need to be in control or to buoy self-esteem by non-ending goals. They go unnoticed because they are fueled by denial and a dependence on “ the fix” which seems to give you what you need but in the end takes all that you have.

Despite our belief in its benefits- Starting or Moderating Exercise is not easy.

 Most of us will do things that are not easy for those we love.

Take the first step – this one’s for you!

Mature man photo available from Shutterstock.

As is the nature of trauma, those who faced this present trauma live in the shadow of the tragic past and those in the past may be re-awakened to the horror and loss they have been carrying. To a large degree many emotionally and physically once again bear witness to a terrifying and unimaginable event.

While a person’s reaction to trauma is a function of the personal meaning of the event to them, their physical and emotional proximity to the traumatic event as well as their personal history, we have come to know that as an initial help, Psychological First Aid (PFA) can mediate the impact of trauma and make possible steps toward healing.

Dealing with trauma across the timeline from acute impact to long term recovery, I have found personally and professionally that there are aspects of Psychological First Aid that are vital in helping and healing at any time.

Here are some suggestions worth knowing and owning in the aftermath of trauma and re-traumatization.

Establishing Safety

Once someone is out of physical and medical danger, the most viable way to establish a sense of psychological safety is connection with familiar networks of support – partners, family, friends, school or church communities. In cases as the Virginia Tech Shooting, often those who have faced the trauma together may become cohorts that for a time provide “ substantive validation” to each other.

Talking together as a validating peer group, meeting together with school counselors or even connecting on-line with family, friends and peers can reduce the isolation and terror. People heal in community. Connection helps normalize feelings and lightens the burden of trauma.

Making Meaning of Common Responses to Trauma

Validating and Normalizing the common stress responses experienced in the aftermath of trauma moves such responses from pathological to understandable. Making meaning of what we feel empowers us; it reduces the sense of helplessness and anxiety so common after trauma. The three common response groups include Hyperarousal, Intrusion and Numbing and Avoidance.

Hyperarousal or the Persistent Expectation of Danger

This is your human fight/flight response in the presence of danger. It is as if your mind and body does not yet know you are safe. Such hyperarousal is reflected in an inability to relax, exaggerated startle response, inability to sleep, concentrate, and irritability. Not everyone experiences this and such responses rarely last more than a few weeks for most. Strategies to address hyperarousal include:

• Self-Care and Buddy Care for basic needs — are you sleeping, eating and do you have a way that you relax?
• If you run, exercise, play music, read the paper, pray or do something that calms you – this is the time to use your relaxation strategies. In the upset of trauma people often forget these valuable routines.
• How are your friends doing? Model and support self-care in the aftermath of trauma for those close to you.
• Be very careful about the use of alcohol and drugs. People often see them as quick ways to relax, but they actually add to the physical and emotional disorganization experienced after trauma.

 Intrusion or Re-experiencing

Feeling caught in the imprint of the trauma, many re-experience the images or sensations felt at the time of trauma as nightmares, flashbacks, or intrusive memories. While bewildering, they are the mind and body’s way of assimilating an incomprehensible event into life experience. Strategies to deal with them include:

• Re-frame them as understandable sequels to an event outside your life experience.
• Share them, write about them, express them in music, art or some medium – move them from frightening fragments to something you have more mastery of.
• Use positive re-focusing — once you have identified them as unassimilated glimpses and traumatic memories, turn to something that feels transformative. People find nature, pets, sports, prayer and helping others to be effective.

 Numbing and Avoidance

Numbing is a response to trauma that involves physical and psychological shutdown. Like the other responses to trauma, it is actually a functional way to survive in the face of overwhelming danger. When numbing persists if often unfolds into avoidance and isolation as an attempt to avoid triggers of traumatic memory or intolerable feelings of loss, grief or pain. The problem with avoidance is that it leaves a person alone with the trauma. It does not allow for the sharing, diluting, normalizing or integrating of a traumatic event. Strategies to deal with numbing and avoidance include:

• Reach for and accept the offer of someone who knows what you have faced and can be a compassionate presence – a friend, a partner, a family member, a professional, a spiritual caregiver.
• Words are not necessary. Just being with someone who cares regardless of whether you are walking, cooking, or shooting hoops or listening to music takes you away from the trauma and allows you to dare to feel again – a crucial start.

Access You Coping Skills

In the aftermath of trauma, it can feel as if you are frozen in time with the trauma. The past seems gone and the future seems impossible. It is really important to reach behind the wall of trauma to your resiliency traits because they still belong to you and they are what you have drawn upon in life to cope in situations of pain, disappointment, adversity and even loss.

• Individual resilience traits include physical strength, intelligence, interpersonal strengths, independence, sense of humor, creativity and spirituality.
• Resilience is also reflected in social skills, problem solving ability, utilizing positive emotions, strong family and community networks.
• Resilience also means knowing when too much time has passed (usually after a month) and you are still suffering in the aftermath of trauma and traumatic loss and you need professional help to reclaim you functioning and your sense of self.

Whether you have just experienced the horror of the recent shooting at Virginia Tech, you are jolted by your loss from the last Virginia Tech Shooting or you have just re-visited the pain and assault of a personal trauma – you are not alone as you try your best to heal and hope.

Frightened boy photo available from Shutterstock.

The reality is that despite the horror stories of friends or the fictional depictions of perfect couples repelling down snowy peaks, the experience of midlife dating really depends upon your goal.

When you expand the goal of midlife dating from finding someone to finding and re-defining yourself, the experience changes. Instead of a solution to being alone – midlife dating becomes an evolution of self.

Why Midlife Dating?

Usually something has or has not occurred in the lives or personal relationships of people ages 40- 65 that makes midlife dating a consideration. Some have left a troubled or contentious marriage; some feel they have been the one left; some have never looked up from a career; some have weathered the illness and death of a partner; and some have decided they are finally ready  to settle down.” Most don’t want to be alone.

Some Important Considerations

Notwithstanding these different starting points, here are some common issues worth considering as you take on midlife dating as a personal experience.

Everyone is Anxious – No One is Perfect

If you are anxious with even the thought of midlife dating – it fits. Dating at any age conjures up feelings of insecurity, fears of rejection and worries about whether you or anyone approaching you will be desirable. When you introduce dating into the reality of midlife, the worries increase and the assets are too easily forgotten.

“I haven’t dated since high school – I can’t do this.”

“Have you seen ‘Sex and The City’ – where do you I fit into that?”

“What would I say I’m interested in – my kids?”

“Who wants a guy on medication?”

For too many, Bob Seeger’s famous lyric applies, “I wish I didn’t know now, what I didn’t know then!”

In fact, if people accept their personal best, remembering the experiential benefits they have acquired and re-focusing the goal from fear of judgment to curiosity about the experience, they can often lower their anxiety enough to find out that no one is perfect. They often find that many share similar feelings, differences can be interesting and age is not an issue.

Everyone Comes with Baggage. It’s What You Do With It That Counts

Many folks approach midlife dating with the pain of lost or broken bonds. Understanding what you carry can often help you use rather than misuse your history.

Death of a Spouse or Partner

• Midlife dating can be difficult in the aftermath of the death of a spouse or partner. Regardless of what friends and families think, people grieve in their own way and in their own time. As one young widow answered in the book by the same title, “I’m grieving as fast as I can.”
• Often the wish to meet, to begin a new chapter, to reduce the loneliness conflicts with the feeling of disloyalty to the deceased. In this regard, others who have had a similar loss can be immensely helpful. As one widow in a bereavement group said to another, “I’ll never replace him in my heart but he would have wanted me to have a life.”
• Often when they find that they really like someone they are dating, a widow or widower will be overcome with renewed sadness and the yearning for their deceased partner. This is not a signal to stop but a verification of something special which reminds you of what will always be special.
• A trap in dating after the death of a partner is the wish to replace him/her in body and mind. To do so is to derail the possibility of a new and different experience with a person who matches the you “now” – older, wiser, and probably different in some special ways.

Divorce of a Spouse – Breakup of a Long Term Relationship

Divorce is so common in this culture that most people know of the guilt, rage, rejection and devastation that both partners carry in its wake.  In a study of “Divorce at Midlife and Beyond” based on 1,147 respondents between the ages 40-79, the greatest fear reported was of being alone ( 45%) followed by the fear of failing again (31%). That said, the question of how unresolved feelings of self and other will color the decision to date again becomes an important one for divorced folks to consider.

• Some who feel rejected generalize their negative feelings to any man or woman they date. In a sense they are still married to the anger which inevitably gets in the way.
• Some want to review the story of their divorce and unwittingly turn the first date with a new person into a viewing of their painful marriage – never a great date as it brings in a third unwanted party.
• Some want so much to right the wrong, to erase the feeling of rejection that they accept too little from the first person they meet and give too much only to feel rejected again.

It is not a great feeling – but it is not the end. It is a lesson that can expand self especially if it makes you want more and know that you deserve it. Your ex-spouse has no claim on your self-worth – no one does but you. Believe it and others will reflect it.

• Some who end a marriage or relationship finally feel free to be themselves. Others are haunted by what was lost. In either case, most are very driven to begin dating – to start again.
• Dating can be a valuable and constructive opportunity if it facilitates self-understanding and clarification of needs.
• Without self-reflection (self-help books, groups, consult) there is often an unwitting re-play of the same script with new partners. “How do I keep picking selfish women?” “Am I the only woman who gets fooled by narcissistic men?”

Many years ago, a man who had ended his marriage but who was aware that his prior fears of inadequacy had played a part in the dissolved relationship, presented me with a stack of all the responses he had received from a personal ad he had placed. He reported that he was both terrified and overwhelmed – he felt he would never be able to choose a suitable person because he feared he would be taken with any w omen who seemed enthralled with him. What was planned was that he start by not looking for a new partner; but instead, looking for himself in the eyes of different women. Having never dated in his young years – this was an opportunity to learn about himself without the instant fix of someone claiming to love him- a problem when he did not yet know or love himself.

Truth or Dare – The Fear of On-line Dating

• Although they join some 5.5 million single people who use online dating, many midlife daters have some initial apprehension about how deceptive people will be on dating sites.  A recent article in The New York Times addressed this very question with reported research. The article suggests that there is actually less deception on sites where people are seeking long term romantic partners -given that the initial meetings eventuate in face to face meetings.
• There is some deception but it is relatively minor and seems driven by the wish to make a positive first impression. Women, for example, describe themselves as 8.5 pounds lighter, men lie by 2 pounds about weight and men lie more often about height, rounding up a half inch. Few lied about age (something more obvious when one meets) and no one seemed willing to talk politics (probably wise). What is interesting for midlife daters to note is the suggestion that people probably make the same kind of minor adjustments in reality when they meet people face to face.
• Notwithstanding those occasional people who clearly misuse the dating sites with no intention of appropriate connection, most midlife on-line dating as reported and written about offers positive opportunities.
• While it may not be for everyone, one midlife dating author reports that one out of every five marriages are between two people who met on-line.

The Acceptable vs. the Authentic Self

The question of deception and on-line dating is important in that it illuminates an age old dilemma pertinent to midlife dating-the effort to balance an acceptable self to the prospective partner with an authentic self.

If we re-define the goal of midlife dating as not simply the search for a partner but a journey of re-definition and expansion of self then we need room for flexibility when deciding who to date as well openness to the thoughts and feelings of others.

So maybe you don’t describe yourself as a skier but as someone who would like to try. Maybe you date someone from a different culture and find it very interesting. Maybe you are considering being more intimate with someone until you realize that this person will not talk about or be flexible about sexual connection. Maybe you hold your core values even as you explore and expand.

Often when we are excited about re-defining ourselves we become more visible to others and they become visible to us.

Be sure to join me on blog radio on Wednesday with Kelley Connors – I will be interested in speaking to you about Midlife Dating   http://eepurl.com/hLeaI

Here’s the radio show
page:  http://www.blogtalkradio.com/realwomenonhealth

Midlife couple photo available from Shutterstock.