What if I told you that falling in love when you are 40 or beyond is the BEST time? Better than when you are 18 and hot to trot, better than in your 20s when you didn’t know yourself from a hot rock or your 30s, when your baby and/or career clocks were ticking so loud you couldn’t hear yourself think. Love After The Age Of 40?
Love After The Age Of 40?
Absolutely! Maybe even more so than when you are young. Sometimes when one is younger the lines between lust and unconditional love are harder to determine. It also helps if one is clearer about what love is. For those who think it is a feeling or a fog that comes over a person, falling madly in love will be a random if not illusive experience.
But somebody said something to me recently that stuck: It’s not scientific, not official, not guaranteed and, in fact. There are statistics that make a lie out of it. But there is truth IN it and it’s that truth that I’m thinking about today.
New rules
Everyone I talked to said something to the effect of: All bets are off. In a new relationship after a tough marriage, you get to rewrite all the rules. If you were passive or felt pushed around in your first marriage, you can start off, right from the beginning, in a new role. You can make the plans, get your voice heard, assert whatever it is you couldn’t in your first marriage.
Women who married in their 20s, 30s, 40s, have lots of new priorities, wants, skills, passions, goals and traits. So much has changed! If you and your first partner couldn’t or didn’t grow and change in compatible ways, finding someone new can be liberating from all those parts of yourself you have moved away from, grown out of or simply chose to release.
I already had my one shot at love-NO
Widows often believe this, particularly if they had a wonderful relationship with their husbands/wife. They come away thinking that they will never find such a good man again. However, this is exactly the reason why it is possible; if you found great love once, you can certainly do it again. You have the track record for success! Consider your circumstances differently and recognize that you are a magnet for love, since your energy is filled with loving thoughts from your past.
You know what’s real
You are less emphatic about hanging on to romantic notions of what love should be. Stability and compatibility become more important than butterflies and chemistry. You have accomplishments under your belt, and you’ve experienced some bumps and bruises along the way.
You know life is not always fair and that people are fallible and complicated. What 25-year-old can say that? Your life well lived has honed your ability to empathize and show patience and understanding; which you gladly pass on to your mate. A more realistic view of love and romance takes a lot of pressure off a relationship, so you can focus on what counts.
What Price Are You Willing to Pay?
Now that you have expressed yourself, what’s it going to cost you? This is where we sometimes get into trouble. We ignore the signs that he cannot “deliver” and instead decide we can change his mind if we just hang on. Many times women/men will stay in a relationship just to say they “have a man/women.” If you want, keep him/her around as a friend, or just see him/her occasionally.
But if you are serious about finding a permanent mate, keep dating other people. Your life is not over after 40 and you do have options. Enjoy yourself, take up a hobby. Just live life!
I don’t see why not
The thing is, the human soul doesn’t necessarily – or in most cases – “grow old”. I suppose a day comes when you look in the mirror and ask yourself who the heck is this old woman/man? Or what is my grandma doing here?
The fact that “you become wiser” is nice folklore – in fact, you don’t. Sure you’ve been through more life experiences and you react differently based on experience, but that’s it. Your soul doesn’t change much, really. If you’re in a loving relationship, you’ll still see the other person like your wonderful partner and you’ll still be very much in love after 50 years together. If you’re not in a relationship, or not one based on love, then of course you can fall in love at any point in time. Whether you admit it or not, that’s a totally different story. While your soul doesn’t change, the expectations of society do, and what you consider appropriate at 20, you may not consider appropriate at 60 – not because you don’t want to, but because people tend to comply with what is expected of them.
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