Renouncing traditional expectations, many seniors are redefining love relationships, whether they’re aging in place or in a senior community. Seniors Guide writer Terri L. Jones explores the changes.
In the past several decades, the relationship landscape has changed dramatically for older adults. When seniors fall in love and decide to have a committed relationship, they don’t always walk down the aisle, combine finances and households, or even sleep in the same bed or live in the same city. Some don’t even find it necessary to stick to just one partner.
Why is love at this stage of life so different now?
Ways seniors are redefining love relationships
Most seniors have “been there, done that” with prior spouses or have lived independently all their adult lives. While they desire emotional and/or physical intimacy, they also want to live their lives the way they choose and are finding new ways to do that.
Foregoing marriage
In the past, living together often served as a test ground for couples before they moved on to marriage. But since the recent increase in gray divorce (late-life divorce after years of marriage), cohabitation has become the end rather than the means for many of these newly minted singles. In fact, new data from the National Center for Family and Marriage Research shows that the number of cohabitating couples over age 50 more than quadrupled from 2000 to 2022 and continues to be on the rise.
When older adults aren’t raising kids or dependent on each other financially, their need for marriage isn’t as strong anymore. These seniors are redefining love relationships by committing to each other emotionally, just not to tying the knot. Plus, they may not want anyone else laying claim to their hard-earned money and property, with some collecting Social Security benefits from deceased spouses or alimony from exes that they’re reluctant to give up.
Some of these couples feel less obligation to do everything together. For example, while Rochelle vacations in Cuba with girlfriends, her live-in love, Phil, will be hiking with a group of buddies in South Dakota. One partner might not be crazy about a friend or family member with whom their other half is spending time. Instead of just grinning and bearing it, that person can opt out of the social engagement while giving their partner the freedom to go anyway.
Living apart together (LAT)
Other old adults, even those who tie the knot, choose to maintain their own spaces when they couple up. These seniors are redefining love relationships by committing emotionally but not to sharing a residence. That could mean living in different apartments in the same building or occasionally in separate homes across the country from one another.
Called living apart together (LAT), these couples might spend every evening together or just a week or two a month and then return to their respective homes. This arrangement is especially appealing for seniors who don’t want to make changes to their homes, pets, or lifestyles to fit the needs of anyone, including their new partner. LAT also gives them the time and freedom to pursue hobbies and goals that may not be possible while maintaining a full-time relationship.
One caller into NPR explained how it works for her and her partner: “My husband lives in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and I live in Florida in my RV in the winter. We do this because I’m really tired of shoveling snow and being cold. He flies down now and then so we can be together and then he goes home. It gives me independence and self-confidence and yet I know that I’m loved.”
LAT also allows couples to avoid conflicts over annoying habits or division of household responsibilities, focusing instead on what they love about their partner. Also, some women who have been caregivers for aging or ill parents or former husbands prefer to keep their living arrangements separate to avoid having to provide care again, reported a TIME article.
Sleep divorce
Starting around middle age, people’s sleep quality tends to suffer. Most seniors sleep for fewer hours and not as deeply, while factors like sleep apnea, insomnia, and getting up repeatedly to use the bathroom can make it even more difficult to get a good night’s sleep. Therefore, when their bed partner snores, tosses and turns, or steals the covers, it can compound the issue and result in irritability and eventually being angry at the offender, sometimes to the point that it impacts their relationship.
Not as drastic as living apart is sleeping apart. To create an environment that’s more conducive to slumber, one partner will move to a different bed in the same room or another bedroom altogether, which is also known as a sleep divorce.
“For us to maintain separate rooms for sleep just makes for a healthier relationship and a better relationship,” reported 66-year-old Michael Solender. He’s slept apart from his wife for the past 32 years. “There’s no shame attached to that. There’s no stigma.”
Dr. Seema Khosla, a pulmonologist and spokesperson for the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, agreed. “I have had patients who have been married like 60 years, and they swear that separate bedrooms is a reason.”
Consensual nonmonogamy
While “open relationship” might still draw whispers and a few raised eyebrows, a 2016 study found that at some point in their lives one-fifth of American men and women have engaged in some form of consensual nonmonogamy (CNM), defined as by Psychology Today as “any relationship agreement in which the partners openly agree to have more than one sexual or romantic relationships.”
And seniors are no exception. Kathy Labriola, a counselor, nurse, hypnotherapist, and author of the book “Polyamorous Elders: Aging in Open Relationships,” has found that when people seek a lover outside of their primary relationships, they are often looking for more of something, such as time, attention, affection, or sex, or something different from what their current partner can offer. However, seniors also want a relationship that makes them feel comfortable and emotionally safe rather than just a one-night stand, according to Labriola.
While CNM often involves a couple who acquires other partners who are also married or in committed relationships, these secondary partners can also be single. This role can be particularly appealing for older women coming out of long-term monogamous relationships, where they didn’t have the opportunity to pursue hobbies, education, life experiences, etc. Not only does being in one of these relationships give these women companionship and sex – if and when they want it – but because they are no longer the primary partner, they also have more time for themselves.
Another perk of CNMs is an increase in resources, including financial, emotional, and even help with caregiving when the need arises.
In senior living communities
These days, retirement communities offer singles a variety of opportunities to meet a mate, including dances, plays, happy hours, and other social events and outings. As a result, there are plenty of sparks flying and people coupling up in these communities. And if seniors meet someone with whom they want to build a life (but not marry), most independent livingand assisted living communities allow unmarried couples to live together in the same unit (usually with a second-person fee).
But not all seniors in these communities who enter a relationship feel the need to set up housekeeping. Take Lucy and Jim, for instance. Living down the hall from one another, Jim makes the short trek to Lucy’s apartment for dinner every afternoon at 5 o’clock and heads back to his own apartment at around 9. “Then I have two hours by myself – my private time,” Lucy told TIME. “We really like our space, our time alone, and we don’t need to be together 24 hours a day.”
There are seniors who practice consensual nonmonogamy in these communities, but because of the stigma attached, most have chosen to remain closeted, says Gabriola.
Bottom line
These new relationships are unlike the old marriage stereotypes of being “tied down” or another person’s “ball and chain.” At this stage, seniors know who they are and what they need and want from life, and their equal and autonomous unions help them get it. That’s a true meaning of “love, honor, and cherish.”
