As your coach it’s my job to guide you through navigating dating at this time of your life. As a woman dating after 40, I’m sure you’re finding that it’s quite different than dating when you were younger. Duh, right?
Well, I’m of the opinion that whether you’re in your 40s, 50, 60s or beyond, this is the best time to be dating. Today I’m going to tell you one of the reasons it’s so great. (One of the many reasons!)
When we were dating and mating in our 20’s we chose guys based on their potential. Potential to be good providers, or fathers, or attentive companions, or whatever else we thought we wanted and needed in a husband. What else could we do? We hadn’t really lived life yet, and neither had they.
Other than knowing a bit about their past girlfriends and what college they graduated from, there wasn’t much hard evidence to go on when choosing a guy. We relied on instinct, physical attraction, educated guesses, what our parents and friends said and the ever-reliable “chemistry.”
At that stage in our lives we were looking to CREATE a life with someone. Someone who was pretty much a blank slate. We thought LOVE could conquer all and that we could change whatever we didn’t quite like about our guys, right?
The men you are dating now are fully cooked, and we get to put the yummy icing on!
And we all know how well that worked for a large portion of the population, don’t we?
Now, here we are dating after 40. We’ve all been adults for 25 plus years and our “life resumes” are quite extensive. Whatever our romantic history, we know love does NOT conquer all and that compatibility and shared values trump everything. Now we are looking to LIVE a life with someone, not necessarily build one. We’ve already done that.
The good news is that now you’ve got a whole lot of evidence to go on when picking a mate for this stage of your life. In your 20s you didn’t have the history or information to know who a man is in any meaningful way. Now you do, and it is so much easier! You are not looking for potential anymore. You are looking for compatibility and you have his whole adult life history to go by.
The men you are dating now are fully cooked, and we get to put the yummy icing on!
When you get to know a man, you can clearly see how he has dealt with life’s challenges. You can see what he’s accomplished and how he’s treated the people in his life. You don’t have to hope he’ll be successful in his career and also be kind and loving, and adventurous, or god-loving. He already is or isn’t.
I’m not saying that, as over 40 somethings, we are set in stone. People definitely keep evolving and adapting. (At least the ones we want to meet, right?) We can make some changes, especially when we fall in love and want to make our beloved happy.
As a former confirmed land-lubber, I am now a happy weekend boater. All because I see how much my husband loves being out on the ocean. Since I love him and value our relationship so much I was open to trying it. Now it’s a happy part of our life.
For my husband, sharing feelings was not something he was comfortable with. But he loves me and knows I need that more, so he is learning some new skills so we can make our relationship even better. (Learning…not quite there yet.)
We can learn new things and try new experiences, but values, character and personality traits at this stage of our lives rarely change. A man who refuses to share his feelings is different than one who just doesn’t know how but would be willing to learn. Someone who isn’t generous isn’t going to start giving. Someone who doesn’t like being social isn’t going to start enjoying parties.
It’s the grownup dater who knows and accepts this. You don’t choose a 60 year old man for his potential. You chose him for who and what he is today. That means looking at him without unreal expectations or false hopes. You can see who he is in the way he shows up and steps up.
This is so great, isn’t it?
As a woman dating at this time in life, you can give up your fantasies and guessing about what a man might be or do someday and base your decisions on who you see in front of you. Isn’t this so much easier than putting your money on a 20-something blank slate? And so much more likely to end up in a happy, sweet, harmonious love story…one is based in reality and truth and what is right for you at THIS time in your life.
Does this change your perspective in any way? I want to hear from you.
All of this is so true. I’m now happily married to a great man (not a boy!) who is so perfect for me it’s almost like we were made for each other. I can honestly say I don’t envy most women I know, who got married in their 20s. Some of those women ended up very disappointed when their college sweetheart’s “potential” didn’t match reality. I also know some others who started off in love in their 20s, but then grew apart over time, as they matured. It’s almost like they weren’t married to the same person any longer. I’m glad me and my husband both had more “evidence” about each other to rely on, so we could make more informed decisions about getting married (using our brains as well as hearts).
Sometimes, we wish we had met sooner. But on the other hand, we also think we wouldn’t have even liked each other’s 20 year old selves, let alone loved them. We both made our fair share of relationship mistakes, and learned from them. So by the time we met each other, we had gotten a lot of mistakes out of our system. I really think we’re both better partners now than we would have been back then. Not to say that we’re so perfect now…but, we are certainly better and wiser partners now than we would have been back then.
So I just want to give encouragement to the single ladies out there that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side, and there’s plenty of positives in dating at older ages. Dating really is like the cliché about fine wine…it can get better with time.