Late-Life Love: Romance and New Relationships in Later Years
By Connie Goldman
Fairview Press
Paperback 192 pp $14.95

When my friend Wendy turned 60, she celebrated by riding her bicycle through Vietnam. She also treated herself to a massage here in the United States. Lying on the table, she told the young masseuse that it was her 60th birthday. "Oh, wow," gushed the twenty-something, "and you got onto the table all by yourself. You are really spry."

"Spry?" howled my friend, who couldn't stop laughing when she repeated this conversation to a bunch of her contemporaries. No question, as the T-shirt says, "Growing Old Is Not for Sissies." Yet the 60-year-olds I know are not about to go gentle into that good night. They're not trading in their bikes or dancing shoes for bedroom slippers just yet. A look at the local bookstore shelves show they have plenty of encouragement. The so-called "golden years" present all kinds of new possibilities, no matter what's going on with one's health, wealth, or other circumstances. That's the recurring theme that comes through in Connie Goldman's book Late-Life Love: Romance and New Relationships in Later Years.

As the '60s generation hits its chronological 60s, there's been a boom in books aimed at exploring ways to stay healthy and active -- in all ways possible, including romantically and sexually. This focus on intimacy and fulfillment for older people is hardly surprising, considering this generation's general inclination to want it all. Jane Juska took out an ad, looking for sex after 60, and wrote a book about it, A Round-Heeled Woman: My Late-Life Adventures in Sex and Romance. Columnist and commentator Bob Morris wrote Assisted Loving: True Tales of Double Dating with My Dad, noting how much his octogenarian father taught him about relationships, because the older man was so much more open-minded and accepting of the romantic partners he met than was his son. The author of the best-selling book Passages, Gail Sheehy, came out with Sex and the Seasoned Woman:Pursuing the Passionate Life, applying her trademark trendiness to the subject: "A seasoned woman is spicy. She has been marinated in life experiences. Like a complex wine, she can be alternately sweet, tart, sparkling, mellow." And so forth. There's a trend here, no question, yet Goldman's book is refreshingly untrendy.

A veteran reporter on matters of aging, Goldman is the author of five other books --including The Gifts of Caregivingand The Ageless Spirit -- all centered on making meaning out of later life. For more than 25 years, she has collected stories from people growing older. Late-Life Lovefocuses not on the boomers but on a slightly older crowd, people now in their 70s and beyond. The book presents personal stories by nearly two dozen couples (identified by first name only, or disguised altogether), describing their journeys through what the author terms "elder love." Goldman's philosophy is much like that of poet Muriel Rukeyser, whose words she quotes at the beginning of her book: "The world isn't made of atoms, it's made of stories." And the stories of people growing older, says Goldman, "quickly affirm that love, intimacy, sex, and meaningful relationships are not the exclusive domain of the young."

In fact, Goldman found a surprising amount of both freedom and joie de vivre among the older couples she interviewed and whose stories she presents. As one woman put it, "Why would I, in my 70s, give a hoot about what people think?" The accounts are not just of ways that older people make romance and sexuality work for them, but ways that they navigate the structure of relationship -- the challenges of children, grandchildren, finances, illness, ingrained personal habits, and the question of who moves in with whom (or chooses not to).

Almost all the people represented here have been in previous relationships, and having been divorced or widowed, are starting over. There are couples who've met through personal ads and those who have known each other from high school and lately reconnected. Some relationships came about when neither party was looking for one; they just found each other. One couple, both in their 70s, climbed Machu Picchu as part of their late-life romance. Less adventurous, plain old companionship is also high on the list of benefits of late-life love.

And sex? Unseemly? Impossible? Unlikely? Sex, yes, and lots of touching "You can see that our hands are hardly ever off each other. We're very physical," said a man named Mike. When sex capability changes or wanes, the people Goldman interviewed seem to make do. As one man explained, "We laugh a lot and make adjustments." Or as another said, "I've never felt so loving in all my life. Tell that to the young folks...!"

Other couples admit to still learning how to negotiate a relationship. One man, for instance, said he was finally learning to open up emotionally. "It's been one of the greatest lessons of my life." The profiles include couples with big differences in age between the two partners, people of color, gay couples, couples who marry, couples who don't, couples who live together, couples who don't.

A lot of the experience that comes through here seems to be just about working it out: One collects clutter, the other doesn't. How to share the expenses, compromise on this and that. But it seems apparent that older people -- at least as indicated by this sampling -- might have a better grip on these things. A number of the couples continue to maintain their own homes but spend time at each other's. They consider themselves a couple, but find they need their own space.

What can we learn from those farther down the road? The people here seem able to look mortality in the face and to enjoy the blessings of the day. As one of Goldman's interviewees sums it up: "Obviously we live in the midst of tragedies. Yet I look at how life is for us right now, and I'm grateful for every day."

Another woman said, "We know our lives aren't going to go on forever, so we go to bed at night and say the things that you want to say to the person you love the most. We listen to each other." There's plenty of acceptance and flexibility apparent among those interviewed. It's heartening to learn that some perspective and laid-back ease does come with age, and that part of wisdom is learning not to sweat the small stuff. As a woman named Sadie observed, "We both figure that when you get to our stage of life, there isn't a whole lot left to argue about. When you don't have to argue about money or kids, what's left? We just want to love each other and be happy."

-- Karin Evans is a writer based in Berkeley, California. She is the author of The Lost Daughters of China: Adopted Girls, Their Journey to America, and the Search for a Missing Past, to be released in a new revised edition by Penguin Putnam in fall 2008.

First published August 25, 2008
Last updated July 29, 2009
Copyright © 2008 Consumer Health Interactive

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