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Marriage Isn't Necessary for Older Couples to Have a Good Relationship



In Rochelle Ventura's view, the experience of marriage at 22 was like being a domestic slave. Her living arrangements are with Phil Doppelt, 82, a retired software engineer. In the beginning, I explained that it was not my responsibility to plan dinner every night.



Their finances are kept separate; she lives in Los Angeles and he is in San Jose. Since they have been together for more than a decade, they have found love and joy without getting married. Throughout her marriage, she felt she was not her own person. I felt stuck. Now I can leave if I wish. Having Phil, I cannot imagine wanting to leave.



Social and demographic changes have swept over Ventura and Doppelt. In the last two decades, the social landscape for older couples has undergone a revolution: As Dr. Susan L. Brown of Bowling Green University says, The elderly are at the forefront of family change. In the 20 years between 1990 and 2010, divorce rates after 50 more than doubled. The result? More older singles.



It doesn't matter if they meet online, in the gym or at church; they're partnering up in unprecedented numbers, using unconventional methods. Brown says remarriage rates in the over-50 age group have remained steady, but cohabitation has quadrupled in that age group between 2000 and 2020. The number of LATs (long-term committed couples living apart together) is scarce, but researcher Huijing Wu of the University of Western Ontario found that, among unmarried yet partnered persons in Wisconsin aged 50 and older, about 30 percent were LATs.



These couples don't just differ in the way they partner. In her preliminary studies, Boston University sociology professor Deborah Carr has found earlier re-partnered couples are more likely to be equal financially, autonomous as individuals, and free of gender roles than earlier re-partnered couples. In Carr's view, the same holds true for those who remarry after a divorce or those who cohabit. Carr has not studied LATs. Autonomy and equality are built into the very structure of living apart together.



Changing social attitudes also factor into the picture, Carr says. The stigma of cohabitation once meant living in sin or being lesser than marriage. Older adults are not as concerned if some still disapprove. As a 60-year-old, I do as I damn please.



Their real difference is what they're not doing-raising children or acquiring wealth together. Even if they are married, they often keep their finances separate. best dating sites for over 50 for over 75% of Tammy A. Weber's clients, who is a Pennsylvania certified elder-law attorney. It is common to want to leave your assets to your children. People might want to retain Social Security benefits or alimony from a former spouse. Yet fiscal impacts aren't the only reason they keep their money separate.



Maryan Jaross, 68, of Louisville, Colo., for example, has forged a successful career post-divorce and gained autonomy and independence. My heart sank at the thought of giving it up. The shoes I own can be exchanged even if I have 100 pairs. Her partner, Tom Lepak, 65, works in sales for an industrial construction company. Due to this and other reasons, she has built a legal barrier between their finances.



As Jaross demonstrated, there are many women like her who are economically independent, able and determined to have equal relationships. While she enjoys cooking, Lepak does the laundry and cleans up. The yard work and making the bed is something he enjoys. They hire people to do work neither wants to do. We do not have kids or obligations, she says. Couples have a new mindset now.



They also do not feel obliged to go on holiday as a unit whenever they travel, visit family or friends. Jaross and Lepak, for instance, see some of their children separately while other children share their time together. A few days will be spent with his brother in the East; a month will be spent with her mother in New York. They sometimes travel separately, just as Doppelt and Ventura do. Doppelt will be hiking in South Dakota with five other guys while Ventura will be touring Cuba with women friends. He told me that it's fine for us to travel separately. If I had been married before, I'm not sure if I would have felt the same way.



Couples who live in their own homes (and expect to do so for the rest of their lives) have the least traditional relationships and enjoy the most freedom. By living apart, there is no conflict over all the habits, needs, and people that they have accumulated in their lives over the years. Does he sleep in the morning and she sleeps in the evening? No problem. If he sets the thermostat to 65, what does she do unless it's 75? Not an issue. Are her grandkids frequently running wild around the house? Hey, its her house. They have lived on their own for years and need their own space and solitude.



Jeff Ostroff, the host of the podcast Looking Forward, lives apart from the woman he calls the second love of his life in suburban Philadelphia. Ostroff, in his late sixties, keeps a busy schedule, spending time at work, on social media, exercising, volunteering, and seeing friends. It is a couple's routine to talk and video chat several times a day, sometimes for as long as an hour. They usually see each other only on weekends. His time alone during the week means he can devote himself to her almost 100%, he says.



No matter if they marry, live together, or live apart, what really sets them apart is their emotional connection. Their lives have experienced major changes like having a child or an empty nest that often alter them. They understand who they are and what they need. They understand what is important to them and what is not. The University of Colorado Denver sociologist Teresa Cooney found that older couples who remarry are better at problem solving and argue less than younger couples.



In spite of no pressure from family or friends to re-partner, older adults select a relationship that fits their current stage of life if they choose to do so. As one happily cohabiting woman told me, her first husband was a wonderful father. However, he wouldn't have been a good match for midlife and beyond. People who partner later in life choose each other solely for the relationship, for the love, companionship, and emotional support it offers.



In the older remarriages studied by psychologist Chaya Koren at the University of Haifa, people felt more equal and more intimate within their relationships because they felt that each spouse was unique within their union. Torbjorn Bildtgard, a sociologist who studied romantic unions after 60, says time is paradoxical to marriages that take place between older couples. In one sense, they have more time to spend together in their spare time. They are also aware that their remaining years together are limited. It has been a blessing to have found one another. They cherish their love.



Lepak expresses it this way. Instead of worrying about our end, he says, we try to make the most of the time we have together. This is our soulmate, and we feel blessed.