Single at 50, and loving it
FLYING SOLO: I holiday when and where I want and spend my money as I please
They call us the “silver singles.” It’s not a term that I — nor, I suspect, anyone else not coupled-up in their 50s — likes that much.
Being over 50 is not old these days. I know 50-something women who run marathons, start businesses. …. I even met one recently who’d just won an Iron Man contest for age 64-69.
But there’s a definite demographic shift going on when it comes to our relationships. While the divorce rate continues to fall overall, the trend is not mirrored by the over-50s. We are now the only group whose divorce rate is actually rising.
At 51 and single, I can say this is the best age yet for flying solo.
In my teens, I waited by the phone for a boy, any boy, to call. In my 20s it was all high drama, getting my heart broken and dating jerks. During my 30s, my biological clock meant I needed a partner to have children. My 40s were spent dealing with the romantic hangover of my 30s — divorce and being a single parent.
Being single in my 50s feels like I’ve finally got myself back.
There is such joy to being able to do whatever you want without permission.
I finally understand my great aunt Florence, who never married and lived alone in a cottage by the sea. Her life was completely uncompromised and I can entirely relate to her contentment.
It’s not easy for everyone. As a nutritionist and hypnotherapist, I see many 50-something women.
They come to me because they want to lose their tummies. Yet, dig deeper, and what they really want to lose is the big lump in the armchair called their husband.
Their eating and drinking is often a symptom of their unhappiness — but a fear of being alone stops them from tackling the real problem. By contrast, I can do as I please. I don’t have to go to boring business dinners as a plus-one or visit someone else’s parents. I don’t have to cook “his” dinner or do “his” washing.
I can go on holiday when and where I want, I can eat the food I want and spend my money exactly as I please.
Of course, having three children, aged nine, 13 and 16, does clip my wings a bit. And indeed, concern for them is another important factor in why I am not flinging myself at the first available man.
Having teen children is also a pretty good boyfriend repellent, but I am still very, very picky.
Do we like fewer people as we get older? Perhaps.
It certainly takes courage to be single in your 50s. Those who remain married into their fifth decade can sometimes wear their marriage like a status symbol.
But role models for a new normal are emerging. Thrice-married actress Kim Cattrall, who celebrated her 60th birthday this year, says of her single status: “You know so much more about what you want and what you don’t want and what you’ll put up with. I feel in that area, romantically, retired.”
I did register with a well-known online dating site awhile back. It promised to match me with my perfect partner.
The only “matches” that came back were men 10 to 15 years older than me. So, the question I asked myself before going ahead was not “do I like him?” but “do I want to spend the next decade counting out his blood pressure tablets in the morning?”
It wasn’t hard to answer.