Ask Andrew: How do you find love after sixty?
Have read The Single Trap and found it very helpful especially the advice to write things down when trying to work out why I seem to go for men who are unavailable!
But I’m 64 (although active and joining clubs/societies etc.) since my husband died 5 years ago. Most of the usual advice on how to meet people does not seem to work for my age group. Opportunities for mixing are slim. Do you have any thoughts?
Andrew writes:
There are both advantages and disadvantages to looking for love after sixty. On one hand, there are fewer available men but on the other, you have learn some useful relationships skills. In many ways, I find it easier to help someone who has been married (but has divorced) than someone who has never lived with someone find love. However, you’re in a slightly different case (being a widow) and I wonder if that’s part of the problem. You didn’t want to be back on the singles market again. You still love your husband and probably miss him every day. (My first partner died fourteen years ago and I still had a painful five minutes today after seeing a desperately thin acquaintance on the street who looked like he was suffering from cancer.)
If like attracts like, you are attracting or being attracted to unavailable men because you are in some way unavailable yourself. Although there is a corner of your heart that will always belong to your husband, is there enough room for someone else to move in? I wonder if you have children and how supportive they are. There’s a difference between ‘of course you must get on with your life’ but actually they are uncomfortable about a new man on the scene – and you’re somehow picking up that anxiety and putting up barriers too.
Having said all that, five years is an important landmark – a lot of tears have flowed under the bridge. So why don’t you have a look at ‘Heal and Move On’ – although it is about someone coping with a break-up, there are strong parallels. Your husband was the leaver (however unwillingly) and you are the sticker. You need to make the same readjustments – so your late-husband is remembered for his flaws (and exasperating habits) not just his strengths and, most importantly, you will also need to reclaim yourself.
As for mixing opportunities, the best places to meet people – societies, hobbies, campaigns – are still open to people over sixty! There might be fewer men than women but that’s the complaint that I get from thirty, forty and fifty somethings too. So keep positive, keep mixing, check you’ve truly healed and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be the woman who captures the heart of one of the available sixty something men. Remember, IT’S NEVER TOO LATE TO FIND LOVE AGAIN.
