Thursday, September 23, 2010

Mature Friendships, Love, and Romance: A Practical Guide to Intimacy for Older Adults

Dr. Morley Glicken and the professionals at the Institute for Personal Growth invite you to contact us about issues pertaining to older love. Those issues are discussed in detail in a book by Dr. Glicken titled Mature Friendships, Love, and Romance: A Practical Guide to Intimacy for Older Adults, available on Amazon.com and through Praeger Publishers. If you would like to learn more about what true love means for older adults and how to be wise in your decisions involving mates, please e-mail Dr. Glicken or contact him at (928) 592-4698 for a free consultation and to find out about the programs and workshops offered through the Institute for Personal Growth. To find out more about Dr. Glicken's past experiences as a scholar, writer, and practitioner, click here. This is what Dr. Glicken says about mature love in his book:

When I think of mature love I think of two people who feel comfortable with one another. They can talk, plan, touch, be intimate, and carry positive feelings for each other through disagreements and times of stress. They protect one another from the fear of being alone and from actually being alone during a health crisis. They know each other’s emotional blind spots and accept each other for who they are, not who they wish their partners were. They are grounded in the present. Instead of bringing up past experiences that involve other people, they focus on the here and now rather than the then and there. They don’t make unrealistic demands on each other but use gentle persuasion to help their partners see blind spots that may sometimes interfere in the relationship.

When times are tough in the relationship, as they sometimes are, people in a mature relationship play fair. They don’t use tactics that hurt the relationship irreparably just for the sake of winning. They think of themselves as “us” rather than “me and you.” They appreciate the talents and abilities of their partners and encourage and support growth. In a mature relationship there are no stars but instead two partners who work and play together rather than two separate people living their own lives.

Mature love means equality. It means that while one person may do better in certain areas of the relationship or have special skills, when everything is tallied up, the contribution to the relationship is equal. Mature love means that time is spent understanding the special abilities of each partner so that those abilities serve to strengthen the relationship. Mature love means never using sarcasm or embarrassing a partner in public. And unlike in Love Story, mature love means saying you’re sorry every 5 minutes, if necessary. In a mature relationship, apologizing should come easily, and it should always come from the heart.

If you’ve had children by someone other than your partner, mature love means treating the children of your partner as if they were your own—with love, tenderness, and concern. It means never criticizing your partner’s children because it’s hurtful and there are better ways to share your feelings. Mature love means understanding that you and your partner have the need to be alone with your own children and that giving your partner and his or her children the time and space to be together, even if it means a week or more without your partner, is part of the responsibility of being an older adult in a loving and tender relationship.

Mature love means that both of you are involved in keeping the relationship vital and interesting. This doesn’t mean that you have to hop around the world or be on the go all the time. It means that relationships become stale in time if two people aren’t equally involved in activities that are fun, challenging, and memorable. The mate who always plans while his or her partner goes along is not taking responsibility to keep the relationship alive. Passive people add nothing to relationships.

Mature love means that you plan to be with your partner through sickness and ill health. No fudging on this one. Mature love means that you’ve anticipated the many things that can happen to older people and you’ve made a commitment to your partner, and to yourself—a sacred vow, really—that no matter what, you’ll be there for him or her. Otherwise, you’re just playing at love and you have an exit strategy. That isn’t mature love; it’s adolescent love. It’s the type of love that results in breakups, divorces, hurt feelings, and broken hearts. It has no place in the world of mature love. Unless you make a pledge to your loved one that you’ll be there for him or her, no matter what, you can’t call your relationship mature or loving. If you have an exit strategy you should call the relationship exactly what it is: temporary, uncommitted, and separate.

Mature love is based in reality. Most of us, after a certain age, don’t walk along the beach hand in hand watching the sunset and then have drinks over a candlelit dinner before making love while listening to the waves roll in. Sometimes, of course, but you can’t do that every night or think of love as something out of a bad romance novel. Mature love is based on deep feelings of affection and warmth, not walks along the beach. I think most of us know that, but unfortunately too many older people base their notions of love and romance on the popular culture rather than the wisdom of older men and women whose relationships have lasted and prospered.

Most of all, mature love means that you can become old together and not worry about your loved one becoming emotionally and physically detached because he or she no longer finds you interesting or attractive. Mature people recognize that aging is an equal opportunity employer; as you age and you want your loved one to continue finding you attractive, your partner has the same need. Flirting, carrying on relationships behind your mate’s back, or having secret friendships is hurtful and just not part of a mature relationship. There are rules of civility that apply in mature love. If you can’t accept the rules and you still think of yourself as an older adolescent, you will not be able to call a relationship mature or loving.

In summary, as my daughter Amy wrote, “Many of us are overwhelmed with our daily workloads and feel unable to make long-term, far-reaching changes in our close relationships. But I believe that each of us has a gift that we can use to make our relationships better than they are. The task is simply to discern what our gifts are and to utilize them. Because, in the end, we are each our own Tooth Fairies, taking what has been lost and giving gold in return.”