Today is 

You are visitor

since August 1, 2002!

Dr. Belove's Articles (continued)

The Powerful Crosscurrents of Midlife Dating (cont.)

An interesting example of this process is shyness in men. Male shyness is often hidden by high testosterone levels. At midlife, when testosterone drops, a lot more male shyness is visible. Shyness in relationships is a trait in many men. At midlife, however, those habitually shy men may come to feel that there are things that need to be said.

Now if one of these quiet men is in a stable, long-term relationship with a woman, you can imagine how upsetting this sudden drive toward self-assertion might be. It starts out as an inkling. This man who has been so agreeable might suddenly want a little say-so around here for a change. He might feel that his wife doesn’t understand him, doesn’t draw him out, and isn’t really interested in him. Such a process has upset many long-term relationships.

One man I know had just switched careers. For the first time, he had his own network. For the first time, he has his friends. He’d previously relied on his wife to create a social life. He had been shy. Now, he’d become un-shy.

They began to quarrel more when they went out. He became resentful. He, who once gratefully found her fascinating and charming now found her dominating and self-centered. He, not used to speaking up, couldn’t explain himself. She, not used to drawing him out, couldn’t understand. The marriage ended within a year.

The re-balancing between shy and outgoing can go in either direction, by either sex. Often, it’s the woman who wants to be more outgoing. Often a woman might feel that she has been watching men do certain things for a number of years and, well, "Maybe I’d like to try that out. Maybe I could do this." A woman I interviewed told me the story of how she wanted to do more, but her husband responded to her frustration by doing more and more "for her." She felt patronized. His "help" only made her angry.

Here is poem I found by R. Masten, in Speaking Poems (Boston: Beacon Press, 1977

I have noticed that somewhere around forty

The man comes in from the field

Wearily, he throws his hat on the hook and says,

"You were right, Grace. It ain’t out there!"

And she, with children grown at last

Pulling her coat down from the hook, says,

"The hell it ain’t"

Coming and going they pass in the door way.

If you can see how disturbing these shifts could be in an established relationship and you can imagine how much more so in a relationship that is just trying to find itself.

One reinvents oneself at midlife in stages. At first, there is a Retreat, an exhaustion stage, a running out of gas on the old, outmoded project. Then, in the quiet there a dawning awareness of important little voices that need to be listened to, inklings. I would call this an Awakening stage. Then there is a stage in which the person makes a strong commitment to discovering the new possibilities within, along with a Commitment to a New Self.

Discovering these new possibilities is a trial and error process. A lot of it involves listening to your inklings. The parts of yourself you want to claim at midlife are often stashed in some dark corner of the basement in unlabeled boxes along with your high school year books, and bell bottom pants and old vinyl recordings. Sometimes what you are looking for isn’t all that clear, more like a vague itch.

This uncertainty can look like pathology in midlife dating. I’ve had clients complain, "I don’t know what she wants. Why doesn’t she just come clean and tell me what is going on. Why is she torturing me?" The answer to this man is this: "She doesn’t really know herself. There is no coming clean. If there is a secret, it’s as hidden from her as it is from you. She really is making this up as she goes along. She is improvising a new Self."

There is an end to this making-it-up process. At the end of the midlife change there is a new steadiness, a kind of Wise Maturity.

Retreat. Awakening. Commitment. Wise Maturity. Each of these stages of the midlife change will interact with the stages of dating.

Dating among young adults today is de-regulated. It is even more of a free market among midlife singles. People have to negotiate their own rules. Even so, there is a natural order and a set of organic stages. These natural stages in dating can be recognized by the different expectations that emerge at each stage. I think it helps to talk about three separate stages; 1) Search and Decide; 2) Testing It Out; and 3) Settling In Or Getting Out.

Search and Decide involves seeing whether or not you want to get involved with each other. You both sense possibilities. There’s a lot of sexual tension. It’s exciting. Songs are written about it.

One of the common hazards of Search and Decide is how the seduction dance works. In the de-regulated environment of midlife dating, sex, though often very bonding, is not automatically a commitment. As one woman told me, "Well, when you sleep with someone every week, you’re bound to become fond of them."

And the Search and Decide phase questions come up. "What does this mean for us? What do we owe each other?" Often these questions are left unaddressed. Sometime, when sex starts, one of the partners will glom on tightly and one will back off. This often scares both partners. These things have to be talked about. Not all people have the necessary communication skills and good will. Elsewhere we will talk about these intermediate level communications skills so necessary in midlife dating. Often relationships just die in this phase.

Search and Decide is the time between the first flirtation and the decision to come out as a couple. It can take days or months. At midlife it can take years because midlife singles often carry emotional baggage from previous relationships. At midlife people can be so wounded, tired and impatient that they panic and try to rush past this starting up phase. Many relationships collapse from too much too soon.

Emotional baggage makes people less flexible and less resilient. Some midlife singles enter the Search and Decide process with so much emotional baggage that they are only open to a small range of possibilities. After a while, when you meet people in this phase you become able to assess how open they are. Sometimes you decide that the person you meet, as desirable as they are in other respects, simply isn’t ready for the kind of serious relationship you are looking for.

The next stage is Testing It Out. One characteristic of the Testing It Out phase is that people are curious about what is really possible. Time for a test drive. Let’s take this baby out and see how it really works. Is it satisfying enough? Can I unpack my bags? What’s it like to know where I will be sleeping on Saturday nights? Sometimes the test is very short. The sexual tension subsides and there is very little else. But more often a test ride at midlife can last several years.

Testing It Out is what used to be called "going steady." One of the things about going steady that surprised me when I was young was the fights. Every one had them. I didn’t yet understand that going steady was the time to see what things were really about. You don’t have fights when you are seducing each other. Seduction is all winning behaviors, clean clothes and good smells. The fights are the beginning of real intimacy.

In Testing It Out you say to yourself, "Okay, this is how it’s really going to be. Do I like it? Can I live with that? Or am I going to have to demand a change? And what happens if I demand a change? Can I deal with that? Can my partner deal with it?" It’s a big list.

Testing It Out is where the struggles of the midlife transition and the struggles of the dating process really amplify each other. You are testing yourself and your partner. Your partner is testing you. You are both testing the relationship. That is a lot of testing.

At midlife, some people are too caught up working on their own revisions to have a lot of tolerance for the testing stage of relationships. For them, it is too much testing.

Others don’t want to be tested at all. They haven’t yet reached that midlife transition. They don’t want to have to start questioning themselves. In one situation I heard about, a woman broke up with a man because she simply didn’t want any struggles. "I’ve had all the pain I want and I simply don’t want to want a relationship that involves any work." In another situation I know of, a man has said, "It’s woman. And I’m not going to deal with them." These people fall into patterns of serial monogamy. They decide it is easier to abandon the testing crucible and easier to go for a fresh start. They are at midlife. They have the money to support themselves any way they wish. They see no need to strain themselves.

We’ll discuss the elements of this phase in other articles. It’s enough right now to say that I’ve found that many of the powerful emotions that come up in midlife dating resentment, anger, distrust, fatigue, betrayal and many of the peculiar arguments and so-called mixed messages can be sorted by looking to see how the process of the midlife change and the process of dating interact.

In my practice, I find that I can make more sense of what is happening in midlife dating if I am aware of how these twin currents interact, how the process of dating and the process of maturing effect each other. Each is a different force of nature. All one can do is go with the flow. It is easiest to do that when you know where the flow is going.

Return to top

What happens when two divorced people with teenage children try to explore a relationship?

By Philip Belove, Ed.D.

Many teens are tactful and withhold their opinions about their parent's dating activities. They worry about us, but they don’t tell us. They can see we are overwhelmed. Instead, they discuss us with their chums and classmates. We do the same. We worry about them more than we admit.

Many Midlife singles with teen children date "discreetly," i.e, "secretively." Midlife dating often involves things about us we would not want to impose on our children. Most of us don’t want them thinking about our sex lives. And if they are, we don't want to know what they are thinking. Open communication is not the norm.

Yet, children of divorce really care about in their parents’ dating life. They are not free-standing adults. They still depend on us to provide a solid foundation. Often we can’t deliver. A divorce is a psychic earthquake.

Children worry about their parents.. They try to help. If they think we are too worried, they find ways to appear more mellow and cool then they actually are. On the other hand, if they think we are being frivolous they make us worry more by being combative, indignant, resentful and depressed. Dating makes them worry because what happens between their parent and this new Date Person can have significant consequences for them.

When two single adults with no children date, there is only one relationship that has to be negotiated. When a child of divorce is involved five then relationships have to be negotiated. And, consciously or unconsciously, vaguely or clearly those relationships will be sorted out. Here are the five (and you can change the sex roles around to fit your situation):

1) How the new guy and mom will get along.

2) How the relationship between mom and daughter will shift with the new guy.

3) How the relationship between the new guy and the daughter will be worked out.

4) How the new guy will change the relationship between mom and biological dad.

5) How the new relationship between mom and dad will affect the relationship between daughter and dad.

Is it any wonder children of divorce get cranky?

When there are children involved in a dating situation, we are not just creating a relationship with an individual; we are joining a family. The more unsettled people they are, the more mixed up they will be when it comes to adding yet another player to the team. The amount of difficulty that arises because of children during dating will depend on the unfinished business of the divorce. The more emotional baggage, the worse it is.

It’s difficult to generalize. Every situation is different. There are no rules, only rules of thumb. Here are five guidelines to follow in midlife dating situations where there are children of divorce involved.

1. Remember and honor your place in the system when your partner’s children are having difficulties. You have the least authority in the group when it’s your partner’s child, not yours, acting out. Remember the weakness of your position and accept it. What you want is less important than what the parent wants, less important than what the absent parent wants, and even less important than what the child wants. You are a visitor in someone else’s world. No matter how incompetent the parent may look to you, the parent is still the one in charge. The parent is also in charge of the relationship with you when the child is present. The more you try to make things go your way, the more you wear out your welcome. The new person will make things worse by making demands and trying to move in too strongly.

2. Remember and honor your place in the system when it is your child. If your child is having problems, you are the one who should handle them. If you try to avoid this, or try to get your dating partner to play the heavy, you child will try to punish you both. If your child believes you are neglecting him or her for your dating life, s/he will make you regret it.

3. You can’t make it up to them for what happened. Don’t try. Give your children of divorce time to grieve and return to normal. A normal life is the best gift you can give. A nicer than normal life is not a gift; it is a distortion. You will be tempted to try to do better than your best. Don’t. All you can do is the best you can. You will only make yourself a burden to them.

4. Do not maneuver the outside date person into the role of amateur family therapist. Leave that to the professionals. Do not try it at home. If things are gnarly enough to make you consistently year for relief, hire a professional. If your new relationship is really a rescue operation, you will not be able to see what that relationship is really like.

5. The key player in most post-divorce stresses with children is the other parent. Divorces happen when two people give up on each other. They are allowed. But giving up on each other as co-parents is a separate matter. Helping them create a working relationship is a job for professionals. As a prospective partner and an outsider, the best contribution you can make is to stay out and recommend professional help.

Expect the presence of children to slow the dating process. You are not establishing a relationship with a single person. You are joining a group, a divided family, in which you will be a second-class member for a long time. The basic dating at midlife advice holds: Take it easy. If it feels complicated, that’s because it is.

Return to top

Return to Dr. Belove's Articles