Seniors are back in the game
Q My friend was an energetic woman in her late 60s who was full of fun, ideas and organizing skills wherever there were needs. Then early dementia started and finally Alzheimer’s.
Her husband, who had been the quiet one, took over as full-time caregiver in the most capable way, until he had to place her in a nursing home, where she died peacefully ( just before COVID-19 entered our lives).
During that last year, when he visited his wife daily, women would invite him to dinner. He refused those invitations.
There’s a new social stratum among seniors — those who are trying very hard to become part of a couple again.
I even heard of one man, healthy and active in his 80s, who married three months after his wife died.
Is this yet another
“new normal” for our times, creating late-life relationships?
Dating When Old A We’ve known for decades that baby boomers affected their world and relationships differently:
The outsized demographic born between 1946 and 1964, after the Second World War, had the benefit in developed countries of bounding economies and major medical advances.
Still a huge bulge of population, even beyond the upper limit of 74, seniors have been wealthier, more active and more physically fit than any preceding generation.
So why be surprised that they want to stay in the game of dating, coupling and socializing in the ways they always have?
It doesn’t mean they cared little for their former spouse, or don’t grieve the loss and miss that partner of many years.
Instead, it sometimes reflects how much that bond of love and companionship meant to their own well-being, and why they seek it again.
Now, a lot more is changing because of the global coronavirus scourge, with its devastating effect on more vulnerable older people.
I believe it’s already become common in many seniors’ social environments to take a “practical” approach to life as it unfolds.
To relatives and closest friends of the deceased, the revelation of the survivor’s budding new relationship may not be immediately acceptable … but, generally, this is what the future looks like for healthy older folks.