Relationships

Join the Relationship conversation! BA50s are dealing with all kinds of relationships: we are married after 50, divorced after 50, puzzling over sexless marriage or rekindling our love lives at midlife; sandwiched in between our aging parents and our adult kids, becoming grandparents and so much more. Not to mention how we are relating to ourselves in this unique stage of life.

Mother and daughter in field

My Daughters and Me…Next Phase

Marcia Byalick
The mother-daughter bond can sometimes feel close to telepathic, like high alert empathy that’s super sensitive not just to the words but the pitch and the tone of the words being said. For better or worse a raised eyebrow or a deep exhale is decoded immediately. The biggest lesson I’ve learned after decades at this mothering thing is that my worth increases with every word I don’t say. If one of us suggests a new spice…or TV show…or bra, we’re all in. When returning from a trip, we each unpack and go through the mail the first hour we arrive home. We are all currently obsessed with Jeremy Allen White, star of The Bear. Nature? Nurture? Who knows. It’s just kind of lovely. Playing the cancer card (I think it’s legal to accept any perks that come along with that prognosis) they agreed to joining me on a three-day getaway in the Berkshires,...
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Sleep Divorce: Can’t Sleep with Him…..Can’t Kill Him

Karla Araujo
I'm considering Sleep Divorce....It’s three a.m. and the mass lying on its back next to me is emitting unearthly sounds. I awaken, surfacing from a dream in which I’ve tried to weave the snorts, rasps, whistles, and jagged breathing into the plot. Clad only in a polka-dotted bikini, I’d been floating through a field of daisies towards Freddy, my third-grade boyfriend, while my husband lay serenely unbothered by his own tortured cacophony. I love my husband. We spoon perfectly, taking comfort in one another’s warm, pliant presence. Randy and I watch TV shows and tennis tournaments in bed, snuggled with our small mutt Zadie, all of us munching popcorn. Awake, we’re blissful. But turn off the lights, shut off the electronics, and we join the ranks of couples contemplating divorce. Sleep divorce, that is....
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Are You Married? Stop Saying These Things to Me about Dating

Ginny Poleman
There’s a scene in the Sex in the City reboot, And Just Like That, where Carrie and her new, career-driven, 50+, single friend, Seema talk about dating. Carrie says, “I think it’s great that you’re still putting yourself out there.” Ugh. Seema points out the insensitivity by saying, “you found the love of your life and had him for many years. And in my eyes, that is something worth still putting myself out there.” Like Seema, since my divorce, well-meaning but oblivious married friends and family say things that make me want to say, “f##k off.”...
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Woman using dating app on the phone

Relationship Therapy: 6 Best Apps to Strengthen Sexual Relationships And More

BA50 Talkers
According to People.com ....Dating apps are de rigueur for finding potential partners now, but using apps once you're in a relationship hasn't been quite as commonplace. Usually, we'd be thrilled about that — more face time, less FaceTime, please — but then came 2020. Dr. Britney Blair, a clinical psychologist and co-founder of sexual wellness app Lover, isn’t surprised by the transition. “Everything is digitized, and especially [during the pandemic] it saves you a trip to the doctor’s office,” says Blair, who adds, “Sex therapy, especially, can be time-consuming and expensive.” Read more on People.com...
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Confessions of a People-Pleasing Addict From Trauma Therapist Rythea Lee

Rythea Lee
Giving up the addiction of people-pleasing creates a crisis. Severe childhood trauma cannot be stuffed forever, can it? Not in my case.My entire sense of self is undergoing a massive renovation and the new look is ugly. My Father was so violent, my Mother so absent, that I was born a workaholic. Watch, listen, and learn; that took every bit of my brain power. I did not let down. Did not rest. Did not “get to know myself.” I got to know them endlessly, and that was my very best strategy. It wasn’t just about observation; it was also about fixing the problem. ...
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I Want a Dating Refund From Match.com

Julie Newburg
“I haven’t met too many women who I want to see again. But you…” he  wiggled his stubby little forefinger across the white cafe table..”you are special.” It could have been a Crossing Delancey moment, except he was not the dashing Pickle Man and I was no Amy Irving.  While I do dream about her curls and that cowboy hat, he was my exceedingly schleppy Match.com date and I was me. “You are a nice guy but I’m not sure there is a fit here for us.“ I said with unusual bravado. I was really trying to save time....
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Abundance

How To Let Go of Your Scarcity Mindset After Divorce!

Martha Bodyfelt
I’m running out of time.” “It’s too late for me.” When I hear this, it’s heart-breaking. Divorced women think that because they are over 50, it means that they’re on a slow decline to the nursing home. It couldn’t be further from the truth. Running out of time is a code word for “I don’t have clarity on what I want.” Because once you get crystal-clear on exactly what you want---whether it’s to quit your spiritually draining job, or finally travel to Ireland, or actually finally accept your incredible beautiful body---you can break those down into steps and dates to make that goal happen. You have plenty of time to make your dreams happen....
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Do We Divorce Better With Age?

Judith Vandenberg
The 90s brought on a whole new trend in divorce “the grey divorce”. Couples 50 and over who had shared a long-married life were now parting ways. They were confronted with empty nests and retirement and did not want to enter the last chapter of their life in an unhappy union. Since then, the divorce rate for those age 50 and above has doubled and it has tripled for those age 65 or older. We now live in a time where divorce is both common and socially acceptable but “Do we divorce better with age?”...
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Exploding heart

It’s Your Friends Who Break Your Heart

BA50 Talkers
This article, It's Your Friends Who Break Your Heart by Jennifer Senior from The Atlantic  with the tag line...."The older we get, the more we need our friends—and the harder it is to keep them," was recommended to me by a dear friend. We often talk about friendship and how important it is at our age and how these past 2 years have been especially challenging on friendships.  Please read this piece or listen to it all the way to the end.  I am betting every single one of you will find this totally relatable at some point in the piece. It gets even better as Jennifer Senior breaks down the different categories of friendships.  Her writing is spectacular. And this is where it begins.... "It is an insolent cliché, almost, to note that our culture lacks the proper script for ending friendships. We have no rituals to observe, no paperwork to do, no boilerplate dialogue to crib from....
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Julie Newburg

4 New On and Off Line Dating Rules After 60

Julie Newburg
“I’ll meet you halfway,” he proposed in a text.  I’m sure there is a Starbucks halfway between Tewksbury and where you live.” Where the hell is Tewksbury? I thought.  NO. I am not driving halfway to f**king Tewskbury in the middle of winter, to meet some nerdy guy, who I don’t even know. Is this what my life has come to? Traveling to the ends of the earth, in search of love. BIG NO. Maybe I need to take a break from online dating, even if it’s February, always a double whammy for me: Valentine's Day and my birthday. In celebration, perhaps this February I will give myself the gift of a few new dating rules....
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A Love/Hate Relationship with My Breasts

Ginny Poleman
“After 50 years old, you should never have sex on top,” my girlfriend quoted her mother. “Why not?” I cried out. “I love it on top!” “I know, but Mom preached, ‘You don’t want your big old breasts hanging in his face,’” she said wagging her scolding finger. I hadn’t really visualized what my “girls” might look like from HIS perspective. It occurred to me that if I hovered over his face low enough, I could probably smother him to death with my bottom-heavy, pendulous pillows. Always looking for a solution to continue to do what feels good, I asked, “What if I wore a pretty bra?”...
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Bras

Boobs and The Single Lady

Julie Newburg
I have been the recipient of very practical advice since I’ve begun dating, on topics ranging from sexually-transmitted diseases over the age of 60 to how to weed out “catfishers” on Bumble. However, the most humbling advice was from a writing friend, who received it from one of her friends, likely passed down from other well-meaning single women. “Refrain from “being on top” when you have sex. Your boobs will take on a life of their own.” I have never really liked my boobs and this is just one more reason. If sex after 60 weren’t awkward enough, with all the aging body parts, I now needed to worry about smothering a man with my breasts....
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