7 Ways to Find Love and Friendship Later in Life

Remaining open to connecting with new people can be rewarding
By Wendy Sue Knecht for Next Avenue


Credit: Adobe Stock

There’s no question of the importance of personal interactions and connections with friends as an important source of our well-being. This is especially true as we age, and much has been written about the challenge of making friends and finding love in the later years.

Looking for love, or even just hoping to make a new friend, can seem intimidating when you’re older. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Personally, I didn’t find Mr. Right until late in life, and it definitely took some work on my part to be ready for the right person when he came along.

Here are a few insights that may be helpful in finding love and friendship as we get older:

1. Re-frame old mindsets It’s all how we frame things in our minds that affect our vision. With the right mindset, it is easier to find love and friendship.

Although it is often said that as we get older we get more stuck in our ways, this doesn’t have to be true. We learn more about ourselves as the years go by, and our tastes become more distinct; but that doesn’t necessarily imply that we have to become more rigid. As I’ve experienced, it is possible to become more open-minded as we age.

When I got married for the first (and only) time at age 47, I can’t tell you how many comments I received from well-meaning friends and acquaintances: “Really, wasn’t that difficult?” “Weren’t you used to living alone?” and “Weren’t you set in your ways?”

“No!” I would emphatically answer. Being single for so long made me ready to welcome change. Having more self-knowledge made it easier to feel open to new experiences. I realized that being set in my ways was a choice and served no purpose. I made a conscious decision not to be “stuck” in a rigid mindset.

2. Don’t expect others to be perfect With age comes confidence, and hopefully, the acceptance of our own imperfections. Personally, in my younger days, I had strict standards that everyone had to live up to. My friends used to tell me that I was “too picky” regarding men, which was a nice way of saying “too critical.” Once you come to accept your own faults and imperfections, it is much easier to accept other people for who they are. Not only do I not expect anyone to be perfect, I would hate for anyone to expect that of me.

3. Don’t let others define you When we were younger, many of us chose friends a lot like ourselves. Hence the “cliques” in high school, where everyone was pretty much alike. Back then, we needed to be alike to be accepted.

Once we have the self-assurance of age, it is no longer necessary to find a partner or a friend to define ourselves. You can appreciate others more fully when you realize they are not a reflection of you. Differing opinions and tastes can make things more interesting if you are open to listening without judgment. For example, the famous friendship between Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Anthony Scalia comes to mind.

4. Embrace quirkiness Perfect is boring and quirkiness can be a lot of fun if you have a sense of humor. My husband’s “Obsessive Cleaning Disorder” would have driven me crazy in my 30s, but now I can work around it and even appreciate it. As long I keep my own modicum of neatness, I can reap the benefits of his obsession. I am perfectly happy for him to clean up the dinner dishes and organize the drawers (he does a much better job than I do).

Quirkiness in ourselves and in others can make life more interesting. Don’t fight it, embrace it.

5. Celebrate differences An appreciation and tolerance of differences is a big bonus of getting older.

A recent vacation was a big eye-opener. In my newly acquired travel agent role, I booked a small French river barge and filled it to capacity with 21 people. I recruited half of the passengers, whom I knew, and one of my friends brought along the others. Although mostly everyone knew at least one or two of the others on the trip, it was a fusion of childhood, college and work friends from all walks of life, white to blue collar. Everyone took a leap of faith and I held my breath, feeling responsible for the whole lot.

Our group was smart to ignore the topic of politics — one that is way too divisive these days. But everyone took the time to learn from each other. We shared our love of travel, food and wine, and embraced each other’s differing backgrounds. By the time the seven-day trip ended, we all had made a few new friends.

6. Visualize Remember the self-fulfilling prophecy is just that. If you really can feel in your heart that you are ready to meet a new friend or love interest, you are much more likely to be open to it when the opportunity presents itself. Visualize it happening. I found there is a lot of value in putting good thoughts out to the universe.

7. Keep an Open Mind Keeping an open mind is key to finding new friends and love as you get older. Never say never; love and friendship could be just around the corner.

By Wendy Sue Knecht
Travel expert Wendy Knecht is a former flight attendant, a designer of travel bags and author of Life, Love, and a Hijacking: My Pan Am Memoir. She blogs at WendySueKnecht.

Valentine's Day Blues as You Age

By Rev. Laura L. Mancuso and Peggy Buchanan, Vista del Monte Retirement Community, 

How can a holiday known for diamonds, chocolate, and bright red hearts give you the blues?

For those of us experiencing grief the cheerfulness of Valentine’s Day and its emphasis on loving bonds can feel stifling. The contrast between the glowing advertising images we see of young people in the throes of idealized romantic love and the realities of our present lives can be depressing...

Read article in full at About.com

Love & Aging (A Podcast)

Do we lose our sense of romance as we age? Or is there room for love well into our 100s? Vista del Monte Retirement Community's Peggy Buchanan and and Rev. Laura L. Mancuso share their thoughts in this interview with BloomerBoomer.com.

You can listen to the podcast here: 

Rev. Laura L. Mancuso is the Spiritual Life Program Leader at Vista del Monte Retirement Community.

Peggy Buchanan is the Coordinator of Vitality and Wellness Programming for Front Porch and serves as the director of fitness, aquatics and physical therapy at Front Porch’s Vista del Monte Retirement Community. 

Front Porch is a not-for-profit organization, based in Glendale, California, that serves individuals and families through full-service retirement, active adult communities, affordable housing communities, and related management and development services.

How to Fall in Love With Your Spouse All Over Again

Experts and couples reveal five secrets of successful long-term relationships

By Linda Bernstein for Next Avenue

Thinkstock

Last month my daughter got married. During the ceremony, she and her husband gazed at each other adoringly and joy seemed to exude from every pore in their bodies. I found myself wondering, Have any two people ever been so in love?

Even as I squeezed the hand of my darling husband of 32 years, I felt as if I could never have been as much in love with him as my daughter was with her man on their wedding day.

Or maybe, I mused, love just looks more radiant on young faces. Could love possibly have a shelf life? Does it have “planned obsolescence,” like modern technology?

So I did a little research.

What I learned boils down to this: Even a marriage that’s about to smash up against the rocks (barring physical or emotional abuse or criminal acts) can tack its way back into calm and pleasant waters.

We’re not just talking about doing damage control. “It’s almost never too late to start the process of falling in love all over again,” says James Córdova, Ph.D., chair of Clark University's psychology department and head of Clark’s Center for Couples & Family Research.

Taking Too Much for Granted

“One of the things that happens in long-term marriages is that the demands of everyday life steal our attention away from our partners — and paying attention to the other is crucial for happy relationships,” Córdova says. This lack of focus on your spouse slowly unravels the fabric of a solid relationship.

Sometimes the disintegration happens over a number of years, during which the couple exist in a kind of emotional limbo. Córdova notes that, statistically, it takes couples up to six years to seek help or advice after they’ve reached a tipping point. And that, he says, only increases the impact on the marriage.

Fritz Galette, Ph.D., a family therapist who hosts the weekly “Ask Dr. Fritz” on New York City’s WWRL, agrees. “By the time I see couples, they’re often in crisis,” he says. “The discontent has been festering for years.”

And yet experts believe that even in cases where the discontent has been on a low boil, there are still ways to revive the old passion.

5 Ways to Restoke the Fires of Love

Galette and Córdova both recommend that couples in crisis seek professional help, whether from clergy or family/marriage therapists. On top of that, the following steps — first discussed and then put into practice — can help salvage a troubled marriage.

1. Act like you’re in a new relationship. Galette recommends that couples ask each other the kinds of questions typical of new daters’ “getting to know each other” conversations.

Jill Kaplan*, whose 28-year-old marriage had been feeling flat, realized that she and her husband, Todd (names have been changed), had fallen so out of sync that the things she was doing to please him were actually annoying him. “I thought he wanted me to watch sports on TV with him," she says. "I really didn’t always want to, but I kept it up for him.”

It took a close friend, who observed the tension in the family room, to get Jill to ask Todd if he really wanted her company. She got a surprising answer. “It turned out that he preferred not to have me there if I wasn’t into the game!” Jill says.

“That was just the first question,” she adds. “Now we’re on to which family we want to spend holidays with and what clothes the other wears that we really like. It’s like he’s my new boyfriend. It's like I’ve discovered a favorite old outfit in my closet: Todd looks good to me and yet our relationship has the spark of something new and special.”

2. Pay attention to your spouse. One of the biggest complaints Galette hears is that couples feel ignored by their mates. Spouses get used to one another and, over time, don’t really notice what they’re each going through.

“Sometimes people think they’re paying attention to their spouses but they really aren’t,” he says. “I advise couples to look into the other’s eyes when they’re having a conversation. It’s much easier to concentrate on someone’s words and share when your partner is looking right at you.”

Galette also promotes an effective technique called active listening. “When one person speaks, the other can’t interrupt. He must listen completely before he says anything — and then he has to respond.”

3. Share new experiences. For years, relationship experts (and every women’s magazine) have been advising couples to set aside time for “date night.” Córdova says that going out and doing things together on a regular basis and creating romantic rituals is good for a relationship. But it's even better to try something out of the ordinary. Get creative and step outside your comfort zone.

Galette agrees. “Doing something new and different together, like taking tennis lessons — which is what my wife and I did recently — enhances your sense of intimacy.”

Karen and Bob Callahan, a couple who had thought their next step was divorce, breathed new life into their marriage when they reluctantly took a kayaking course together. “Neither one of us is particularly athletic, so when our pastor [whom they had seen for counseling] showed us a brochure, we both thought, Why not?” Bob says.

“Actually," Karen adds with a laugh, "my first thought was, 'If we both drown, it couldn’t feel as bad as how miserable I am now.'”

It turned out that kayaking didn’t take too much athletic prowess, and the two had a terrific time paddling around a local lake. “We started making up stories about the fancy houses we saw and soon we were laughing so hard we almost tipped,” Karen says. The weekend after they received their “certificate,” they booked a B&B on the lake, where they spent less time kayaking and more time just enjoying being together.

4. Be affectionate — physically and verbally. Research has established that touch communicates a wider range of emotions than mere gestures. “The science of touch suggests that a pat on the back, a squeeze of the hand, a hug or an arm around the shoulder can save a so-so marriage,” writes Sonja Lyubomirsky, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside. “Introducing more (nonsexual) touching and affection on a daily basis will go a long way in rekindling the warmth and tenderness.”

According to Córdova, however, this prescription for tenderness must also include loving language — and it needs to be heartfelt. “I love you” should be more than a reflexive recitation of syllables at the end of a phone call. Instead, say something affectionate and sweet at unexpected times.

Loving phrases can — and should — be sprinkled generously throughout your interactions. Tell your spouse he’s amazing while you’re eating dinner. Compliment your wife’s problem-solving abilities while trouble-shooting a plumbing problem.

5. Always be kind. “It’s not important whether your partner is ‘succeeding’ or ‘failing’ when your goal is to have a genuinely loving relationship,” says Córdova. “If your partner shows up late, no matter how annoyed you are, you can still respond with kindness.”

“When Bob and I began paying true attention to how we were communicating," says Karen, "we realized that we were [venting] when we could have easily let the issue roll off our backs.”

So they tried an experiment. One Saturday they left a recorder running. “We were shocked when we listened to it later," says Bob. "The way we were responding to each other made us cringe. It was exactly the kind of negative communication that makes people uncomfortable when they see it in others.”

To find a remedy for that habitual behavior, Bob and Karen made lists of 10 things the other did that bugged them and wrote down their usual responses. “Then we looked at each other’s lists and discussed how we could communicate our feelings without being hurtful,” says Karen.

Once you start being intentionally kind, says Córdova, “the interaction goes to a new place — the kind you would prefer in a happy marriage.”

But, he cautions, “Being kind when you’re not feeling that way takes practice. It doesn’t come naturally at first, but it can turn into a habit.”

What’s Old Is New Again

While we can’t realistically expect our long-term partner to be the exact same person we married, Córdova says, that may be a positive thing. “It’s like you have a whole new person there beside you — someone you can date, with all the benefits of already being married.” Ultimately, he adds, it’s not so much about going back to what you had before. It’s more about going forward and building something new and better suited to who you’ve each become.

Copyright© 2014 Next Avenue, a division of Twin Cities Public Television, Inc.

Front Porch is a not-for-profit support system for a family of companies that serve individuals and families through full-service retirement, active adult communities, and affordable housing communities. More information is available at www.frontporch.net.