Few people have a long range goal of dating in midlife. To the many who find themselves faced with the possibility, midlife dating can seem like a mystifying, even overwhelming, journey to find a partner.

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.

“ Why Can’ t You Just Say, Thanks?”

If this sounds familiar it is because most of us have said it or heard it.

• Most people want to feel appreciated, particularly by the person closest to them but too often the expression of gratitude gets lost in the fabric of couple’s lives.
• Recent research in the field of positive psychology informs us that feeling gratitude, the awareness and appreciation of what is valuable and meaningful to oneself, has many benefits including positive mood, enhanced physical health and optimistic outlook. Actually expressing gratitude has proven to have even greater benefits in terms of personal happiness and relationship enhancement.

Then… Why is it difficult to express gratitude to a partner?

People are complicated. Add in couple dynamics, prior history, unconscious factors, cultural context and you multiply those complications.

• Most partners don’t consider how often they thank their partner or if not-why not?
• Few are aware of the proven benefits of expressing gratitude on their personal feelings, their view of the partner, the patterns and value of the relationship.

Consider Recognizing Your Resistance and Understanding the Possible Benefits of  “Just Saying Thanks.”

As the Penn State Sexual Scandal continues to unfold and dominate the media, people everywhere are expressing shock, anger, anguish and loss.  College Football, a beloved symbol of healthy American values, has been fractured by the disillusionment suffered when trust and safety are gone and children are no longer safe. Driven by the news and social media updates, people everywhere are asking:  How could it happen?  Why wasn’t it stopped? Who should be blamed? Who was protecting the kids?

There is one group that is not surprised.  They have been silently asking these questions for years. They are the countless adults who were sexually abused as children.

For many of them the Penn State Scandal is emotionally complicated. Whether they have identified and come forth as victims, embraced the power of healing or live with the memory of abuse on the edges of awareness, they are watching a nation grapple with an unthinkable crime – child sexual abuse, a crime of betrayal and the destruction of innocence -“ soul murder.“ For them the response to this scandal carries with it the possibility of both positive and negative impact.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words – the words of warriors are different. For centuries, warriors have written in a way that has pulled us into the heart and horror of war. As illuminated by Jonathan Shay, Homer’s epic poems, The Iliad and The Odyssey depict the brutality of men and war and the difficulty of homecoming in a way that has had timeless relevance for generations who have served. Ernest Hemingway experienced war firsthand and wrotes dispatches from his many frontlines and Vietnam veteran and author, Tim O’Brien invites us to shoulder, Things They Carried in Vietnam.

Building upon this tradition, The National Endowment of the Arts has made a unique contribution to American Literary History and to those who have served our country. In a project called Operation Homecoming: Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Home Front, in the Words of U.S. Troops and Their Families, they reached out to the 2 million active military and their loved ones and invited them to write about their personal experiences of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while the events were happening.

The response was overwhelming. The National Endowment of the arts offered fifty writing workshops by esteemed literary figures on 25 bases in 5 countries, an aircraft carrier and a fleet ship in the Gulf. Six thousand troops participated – another 25,000 were sent the audios.

Given that there are now 81 million baby boomers in this country ranging from ages 46 to 66, there are many people navigating the transitions of midlife. When you add to that the fact that 80% of the male boomers and 77% of the females are married the journey gets more complicated.

Amazon lists over 2,000 books dealing with midlife with titles as different as Awakening at Midlife, Midlife Meltdown, Thinking about Tomorrow: Re-inventing Yourself at Midlife, How to Survive Your Husband’s Midlife Crisis, Midlife Crisis For Men: Male Menopause, My Favorite Midlife Crisis etc. The message is that against the backdrop of mortality and a story half told, men and women navigate their midlife passage in different ways with different challenges and different needs. When married, the impact they have on each other is inevitable.

It depends. It most cases it’s not the differences that threaten a marriage, it’s how the partners experience and react to those differences.

There Are Always Some Differences

Whether you were drawn together by the attraction of opposites or finally found your ideal match in terms of similar looks, education or socio-economic background, most partners at some point realize they are married “ with differences.” The fact is that no two people have the same goal, react the same way or enjoy the same thing, at the same time – ALL THE TIME. ( Thankfully)

• “ You really like working in the garden?”
• “ You don’t mind driving the kids for 8 hours to ski?”
• “ You really want that many pairs of shoes?”

When Do Differences become Problems?

Working with couples, it seems that differences become problems when they are unexpected, imply change or are experienced as a threat to either partner or to the relationship. Often partners react to the assumed threat with accusation or judgment which sets the stage for conflict. For example,

While most partners can live with having different tastes in foods and music, differences that emerge in the face of life events ( jobs, children, financial burdens) often threaten partners.

Suicide ranks as the eleventh leading cause of death in the United States. We have lost loved ones across the generations.

• Older Americans are disproportionately likely to die by suicide. Although they comprise only 12 percent of the U.S. population, people age 65 and older accounted for 16 percent of suicide deaths in 2004.
• Suicide is the second leading cause of death in college students and the third leading cause of death in adolescents.  Every day 14 teens take their own lives.
•  According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for the second year in a row, middle -aged adults have the highest suicide rate in the country, surpassing even older Americans.

While there are many factors that contribute to suicide, an important new study identifies two factors that have been associated with increased risk for suicidal thought and behavior across the lifespan – hopelessness and lack of connectedness to others.

Do you know why you overeat?

Overeating is a common and complex behavior in this culture.

A Pew survey finds that about six-in-ten Americans say they eat more than they should, either often (17%) or sometimes (42%). More particularly, a majority of Americans report that they eat more junk food than they should, either often (19%) or sometimes (36%).

More than 85% of people say that Americans are more overweight today than five years ago and two-thirds of the public call this a “major problem.”

While issues with eating are often driven by personal or familial dynamics, food expert, Brian Wansink, who conducted research with thousands of people over many years, found that when it comes to overeating, people actually share some common patterns.

Recently the question was raised by some of my colleagues as to whether there can be happiness in a sexless marriage. An article on the subject refers to the research of Robert Epstein, a psychologist who reports that 10 to 20% of the romantic relationships in the U.S. are sexless.

According to Epstein, a sexless relationship is defined as one in which the partners have had sex less than once a month or less than 10 times a year. Others writing in the field take the word more literally – suggesting that many couples happy with that schedule would not describe their relationship as sexless.

Maybe the question of how sexual a marriage is and whether or not the partners are happy is a far more complicated one than the rate of sexual intercourse over time.

Work with couples would suggest that happiness from sexual relating must account for the trust and special connection partners feel for one another, the way they hold, touch, laugh, tease, celebrate, walk together, worry about, lean on, cry with, nickname, argue, text and call each other — the many dimensions of sexual intimacy.

Are you lonely?

Loneliness is defined as a lack of desired social connection and social support. It is often associated with feelings of isolation, worthlessness, and sadness. Loneliness is not necessarily the state of being alone. One can be utterly lonely in a room full of people who don’t seem to notice, in a college dorm with no special friend, in a marriage with no understanding. Loneliness is not the peaceful solitude we cherish. It is the pain of being without meaningful connection, a feeling of emptiness that entraps us in fears, longing and negative perceptions about ourselves and others.

Loneliness is widely prevalent.  In a survey of eighteen countries, the United States was in the top quarter of countries in terms of average levels of loneliness.