Having experienced the sexual revolution, explored free love at Woodstock and/or witnessed the rise of the internet and all the connections it brought, today’s seniors — those age 50 and older, according to AARP — are not content to adhere to the old stereotypes of Golden Years spent crocheting doilies on the front porch or shuffling off to shuffleboard. The Boomer and Gen X generations are living longer, healthier and more active lives than previous generations, whether on the pickleball court, at Pilates or, yes, between the sheets. Swiping right on dating apps, meeting up in active senior communities and armed with scripts for Viagra, today’s grandparents are defining their romantic and sexual lives for themselves.
Surprisingly enough, that has led to an increase in STDs, extramarital affairs, later-in-life divorce and living together without marriage among seniors. Not only have society’s mores changed, with less stigma attached to these behaviors, says Edith E. Langley, LMFT (licensed marriage and family therapist) in North Carolina, “As people age, they may become less concerned about what others are thinking of them.”
STDs Rates Among Seniors Are Soaring, Even With the Pandemic
Perhaps the most surprising stat having to do with today’s seniors is the soaring rates of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), especially in the group the CDC calls “older adults,” who are 65 and older. “The CDC reports that STD rates among seniors are at their highest on record,” says Dr. Shannon Dowler, Chief Medical Officer of North Carolina Medicaid. “In fact, STD rates in seniors have doubled in the last five years,” says Dr. Dowler, author of Never Too Late: Your Guide to Safer Sex After 60. In the five or six years she’s been working in an STD clinic, Dowler has seen the average age of her patients go from teens and 20s to 40s. “The pandemic didn’t slow the rate down,” she says. “Now we see 80-year-olds with oxygen tanks coming in with syphilis.”
STD rates in seniors have doubled in the last five years
The rise is due to several factors, she says. People are living longer, are healthier and have medicines that help them maintain sexual function longer. Then, too, more older adults are living in retirement communities — she estimates there are about 20,000 such communities in the US — and with the combination of physical closeness and advances in technology that have created dating apps, “you can find a partner to be with and have sex with more easily than in previous generations where older people lived spread apart.”
Finally, seniors also associate condom use with pregnancy prevention, so they don’t often use them. The AARP reports nearly 60% of single women ages 58 to 93 didn’t use a condom the last time they had sex and 91% of men over 50 didn’t use a condom during sex with a casual acquaintance. “We need to break down the myth that older adults are asexual and create a safe space to talk about it,” says Dr. Dowler.
How to Practice Safer Senior Sex
Educate yourself about the new sexual landscape by taking a sex ed course specifically targeted to seniors. “Most seniors haven’t taken such a course in decades or ever and there are new STDs that didn’t exist 30 or 40 years ago,” Dr. Dowler says. For instance, chlamydia and trichomonas have always been there but there’s a rise in syphilis and now drug-resistant gonorrhea.Schedule a safe sex check-up with your physician or department of health annually or when you change partners. Make sure you’re getting screened for STDs; some do not cause any symptoms.Keep the lines of communication open with sexual partners and insist they’re tested regularly. “Some people say to me, ‘But I am only sleeping with one partner,’” Dr. Dowler says. “But who else are they sleeping with?”Use barrier methods like male or female condoms or dental dams, etc.
Seniors Cheat More Than Younger Generations
While it’s not for everyone, approximately 20 percent of Americans 55+ have had extramarital sex, while 14% of Americans under that age say they’ve cheated, according to research from The Institute for Family Studies. And while consequences can include everything from STDs (see above) to divorce (see below), a growing number of seniors have found an affair to be exactly what they needed.
Some, like Illinois’ Meredith Thompson*, 55 and married 30 years, don’t want to end their marriage but are looking for more sexual variety. To find it, she went on dating app Ashley Madison, which focuses on married individuals looking for sexual partners. She’s far from alone: Ashley Madison recently reached 80 million members.
Thompson describes herself as “discreet but unashamed.” While she’s not sure if her husband is aware that she is cheating —“We have a sort of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ philosophy,” she says — she does believe that she is a much happier person for having sought outside sexual relationships. “I can’t imagine having sex with just one person,” she says. “So I see Ashley Madison as a way to stay married. Ultimately, I’m looking for the cherry on top, not the whole sundae.”
Kristie Baker* of Texas, age 59, married 23 years and also having an affair, feels similarly. “I’ve found that sex gets better with age,” she says. “If you and your secondary partner are upfront with everything and you can handle it, you would be amazed; it is the best thing that ever happened to me.”
Studies show that older generations are cheating more than younger ones.
Glasshouse Images//Getty Images
Thompson and Baker are not atypical when it comes to seniors who engage in extramarital affairs. “Often the feeling is that the marriage has been dead for a long time and, as I’ve heard several times, ‘What they don’t know won’t hurt them,’” Langley says. “Or it’s, ‘I can keep my family, home, money and still have new sex on the side.’”
Other factors contributing to the rise in seniors looking for sex outside marriage include retirement and COVID. “These two phenomena are real game changers, with the couple suddenly together 24/7 and thus looking for variety,” says Dr. Ellen Klausner, a New York psychologist with extensive experience in working with older adults. Failing health may also cause a married partner to look elsewhere, she adds. “The reality is that as we age, there is greater disability, illness and cognitive decline. Some people do not want to divorce but rather are content to have a variety of sexual liaisons.”
“Gray Divorce” Has More Than Doubled
A few months after her 50th birthday, Amy Rogers of North Carolina “just connected the dots and saw there was not a future being married” to her husband of 17 years. “There was no cataclysmic event,” says Rogers, now 67, but they differed on their financial philosophy, with him spending way beyond their means. “I didn’t want to divorce in my 50s but I was not wired in such a way that I could live like that. I didn’t want to spend the next phase of my life trying to put our Humpty Dumpty finances back together again.”
Rogers was not alone in deciding to divorce later in life. According to research cited by Kiplinger, in the past quarter-century the divorce rate for couples over 50 (so-called “gray divorce”) has more than doubled. While divorce rates for other age groups have leveled or even fallen off, one out of every four people now going through a divorce in the US is 50 or older.
While the reasons driving divorce in later life vary, says Dr. Klausner, with a longer, healthier life span, there can be a change in perception about marital satisfaction. “Some people are unwilling to settle as they get older and want more stimulation in the marriage,” she says. With increased life expectancy, she adds, a 50+ individual may have 20 to 40 years left. By this time, most children are on their own, too, and the glue that kept the marriage together — raising kids — may have dissolved. “In many cases, these marriages have lasted more than 20 years and have lost their spark,” Langley adds. “Couples may feel like different people than when they got married.”
This was partly the case with Janet Miller* of California, who ended a 22-year-marriage at age 58. “While he always had anger management issues, things got worse over time,” she says. “I married one man and divorced another.” Miller, who waited until her daughters were out of college to “minimize the trauma and drama,” does not regret her decision, even though her financial circumstances were greatly diminished; a former stay-at-home mom, she had to take an hourly wage job and go on Medicare for health insurance.
Would she have made the same decision again? “Yes, but I would have done it differently,” she explains. “I would have kept a career and been more closely involved in finances.” She also “would not have tipped my hat” about getting divorced because when her husband found out her plans, he drained their joint accounts. “If you’re not happy in your marriage, do your homework and make your move in a calculated way,” she suggests.
For Those Considering Gray Divorce
Try to maintain your own career and/or source of income and build up your own nest egg.Before any discussions with your spouse, research divorce attorneys and see what information they will need from you.Consult experts — attorney, accountants, therapists, etc. — to get your own legal, financial, and family affairs in order. Consider personal and family therapy to work on issues so they don’t impact subsequent relationships.
More Seniors Say “I Do” to Living Together Without Marriage
It’s not all just affairs and breakups — there’s a fair number of happy couples, too. But not all of them feel the need to get married. After two marriages that ended in divorce, Florida’s Adrianne Spiegel, 62, decided to skip another walk down the aisle the third time around. She and her significant other have been living together without being married for about 12 years and she sees no reason to make it legal. “He brought up marriage pretty soon,” she says. “But I was enjoying our relationship as it was and we don’t have kids together so I didn’t see any reason to get married.” Spiegel says she has no regrets, and “living together without marrying might make you work harder at the relationship because it’s easier to walk away from it.”
Many Boomers remember a time when they had to hide the fact that they were living with a significant other without being married from their own parents. Fast forward to the 21st century, and many wouldn’t advise their own kids to get married to anyone they hadn’t lived with first. Yes, times have changed and there is often little stigma about cohabitating without a marriage license. Not surprisingly, the increase in seniors 65+ living together has climbed steadily. Forbes reports that in 2006, 1.8 million individuals in the US over 50 lived in unmarried heterosexual households, a 50 percent increase from the previous 2000 figure.
Increasingly, seniors are choosing to share expenses and live as lovers and friends. Then, too, with the increase in both partners working, there’s less fear that women need a legal piece of paper to protect themselves. In fact, in some instances, says Langley, “marriage might be financially impractical. Will you lose survivor’s benefits, military or other pensions or alimony?” Indeed, she adds, not getting married might protect one’s credit rating or keep one partner’s debts separate from their own. “The legal separation can protect children’s inheritances or other individual assets.”
The reality is also that many people have had a negative experience when it comes to marriage. “They found that the marriage contract didn’t keep their partner from cheating and the divorce was nasty and traumatizing,” Langley says. “Seniors might not want to get stuck in a bad relationship or have to unravel the legal bonds of a marriage.” With living together, adds Spiegel, “you get the companionship and benefits without the negatives of being married. People should be together because they are happy together and make each other happy.”
How to Say “I Do” to Living Together Without Getting Married
Communicate with your partner in detail beforehand. Discuss how the finances will work. Who pays for what? Will you be buying a home together? Who will pay for any grandchildren’s expenses? Will any combined families live or vacation together? The more uncomfortable you feel about discussing a topic, the more important it is that you do so before moving in together.Consider scheduling a family meeting to address everyone’s questions and concerns while also establishing boundaries. A discussion about why the decision to live together rather than marry was made might help alleviate concerns and disapproval from children or religious communities.Meet with financial and legal advisers to make sure you and any children are protected.Take it slow. Living together can be a good trial of your relationship but it’s not something you want to jump into. Give yourself an out — maybe keep your own residence — if things don’t work out as anticipated.Want to solve the problem of what to call your boyfriend/significant other/partner forever? Consider getting (indefinitely) engaged with an engagement ring.
*Names and identifying details have been changed for privacy
Freelance journalist and essayist Laurie Yarnell created the popular “Embedded in the ‘Burbs” for NBC’s iVillage. Her work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Journal News, MSN, Yahoo, Merriam-Webster, Maria Shriver’s Sunday Paper, Town & Country, Esquire, Westchester Magazine, Hudson Valley Magazine, Grown and Flown, Magzter and Have Faith Will Parent, among others. Yarnell has been interviewed on Today, WNBC-TV’s News 4 U, Channel 12 News, and the nationally syndicated ChickChat radio show. She lives in a formerly empty nest in suburban NY with her husband, some of their kids (it depends), two Labs and assorted fragile fish.
Discovered on: 2023-06-17 04:00:00
Source: The Surprising Romantic Lives of Seniors in America
