Why You Should Open Yourself Up to Love Over 40

I’m at a fabulous conference in Miami on online dating and then off to visit my dad for a couple days. Here is a repost of one of my popular articles that also happens to be one of my personal favorites. Be back next week!

I had to share this story. It’s absolutely true. It’s about a courageous grown-up woman who confessed her secret wish, did a little work, and then had her wish come true.

My client Pamela is in love. Not only that, but she’s in love with a charming man. He’s very accomplished and, like her, highly educated. He brings her flowers, listens to every word she speaks, laughs with her, shares intimacies about his life and his feelings, wants to know her opinions on everything, takes her to fascinating and luscious places, and even enjoys walking rose gardens with her. He’s also in love.

Pamela is 66 years old. Ricardo is 70. Pamela hadn’t dated for about eight years when we first met. She’s a successful business woman with a PhD. She has two happy and loving sons, a great house by the beach, and a large circle of lifelong friends. She’s full of energy. I don’t mean the “energy for a 66 year old” energy. I mean she can constantly go-go-go. And she wants to.

Pamela had told me that she’d not been dating for so long because she “didn’t need a man to screw up her great life.” (C’mon…you’ve said that at least once in your life, haven’t you?) But as I told her my story — that I was 47 when I was first met and married my honorable and loving husband, who is truly the love of my life — she started to tear up. It touched her, and she admitted that she really did want that too. So we got to work.

She got online, took some advice, and soon after met Ricardo. He’d been online for about a year searching for his mate. Seems he knew it was Pamela as soon as they met.

At 66 and 70, Pamela and Ricardo — two brilliant adults with very full lives — found each other and came together. He still sees his patients and runs his thriving business; she still runs her company, meets her friends for wine, and spends time with her sons. They both keep reading the books they love and having the quiet moments alone that they both need. They have the same great lives. It’s just that now they also have companionship and intimacy.

Ricardo is taking Pamela to Costa Rica next month to meet his family. She doesn’t know the end of the story, and I’d be lying if I said there isn’t some fear of disappointment or being hurt. But she’s plowing ahead with an open heart, knowing that her life experience will guide her to good decisions.

Go, Pamela. You are one helluva fantastic woman.