Pat Taub
I’m all for love and romance but when our love options run out as we age, when dating is more frustrating than satisfying, wouldn’t we be happier if we accepted that love is no longer in the cards, seeking companionship among friends and family? I mentioned this to a friend who looked aghast as if I were delivering a death sentence!
A woman contemplating a future without a partner
Settling into a solo life style can be a mammoth challenge for older women because it means throwing out the script we were handed as the generation raised in the 1950’s. We grew up under a big neon light sign that flashed, Find Mr. Right and Happiness Will be Yours!
Following this conditioning many of us, myself included, married right after our college graduations. Anxiety often pushed us into thinking that if we didn’t land a man in college it might be hard to snare one in the outside world.
A college dorm c. 1965 during an era when many women married right after college graduation
In time we became the divorce generation, spurred on by the growing women’s movement to unshackle ourselves from husbands who held us back. Divorce was often followed by remarriage and sometimes by a second divorce.
The freedom to divorce didn’t guarantee success in love. Many women shed second and third husbands. Life resembled a love grab bag. Some women, the lucky ones, formed satisfying relationships. Others ricocheted in and out of relationships.
Today’s older woman was part of the divorce generation
When you’ve been programmed to equating a loving partner with a successful life, it’s a big deal to resist this message and not to see yourself as failure if you don’t have a partner. It becomes especially challenging for single older women where ageism and sexism come into play, compounding the efforts to develop a healthy self-image.
The writer and film critic Molly Haskell contends that the contented single woman represents a threat to the established order:
Being alone and liking it is, for a woman, an act of treachery, an infidelity far more threatening than adultery.
A confident older woman enjoying eating alone.
Lately I’ve been asking myself and my single friends: “Why do we let society define us as less valuable if we live out our lives as single old women?”
To get out from under this conditioning, it behooves us to celebrate our single status, to be role models for future generations of older women. I dream of having them look at any one of us and say, “What a cool older woman. She has a full life as a single woman. I want to be like her when I grow up.”
Single older women find companionship in their friendship circles
The more I can make peace with being single and find enjoyment in my own company, the freer my days are. I channel the energy I put into daydreaming about love into creative projects with a clear head. I have my lonely periods, which I try to frame positively as opportunities to read and reflect towards becoming my best self.
I gather strength and comfort from the Buddhist saying, “Be a lamp unto yourself.” I take this to mean I need to be my own light, to follow the path that resonates with my heart and mind.
Too many women hide their light under a bushel. Don’t let anyone force you into the darkness. Let your light shine into your twilight years!
