Are Senior Relationships Mostly Chickens Coming Home To Roost?

Are most senior relationships either monuments to "settling" or just plain awful . . . or is it just the crowd I am aware of? Or, . . . . do we just not care as much about anything as we get older? As a group are we a stable boring bunch or cynical cheaters, adulterers, backroom porn customers, lonely drinkers . . . . or is there something better somewhere else that everyone knows about that I missed when I last looked around?

I certainly do not claim to know the answers to this, but I do know that people look at me kind of funny when I say that I prefer to do things with my wife, that I don't have side conversations about which I don't tell her, that we are as involved in all aspects of our lives as we were when we first met.

Over a quarter century ago now a favorite aunt was waxing eloquent one evening about how one settles into a relationship in such a way that sex and love are assumed and don't need to be affirmed all the time. To which her husband, arguably as perfect a gentleman as I have ever met, spoke up saying "If that is your idea of marriage then I say that your idea of marriage is a crock of shit." That really got my attention especially since I had never heard him talk that way.

I recounted the story to another aunt who smiled and said "Yes. He is and always has been a genuine romantic." I already knew that she and her husband were real romantics too. They both assured me that they had their share of arguments and didn't agree on everything, that they just did it behind closed doors, but I never saw a hint of that. Just genuine affection and mutual respect. If they said they kept that even when they were angry with each other, I believed it. I still do.

I chose to pursue the latter. Truthfully it has been quite a challenge, but not one I intend to back away from. And that's where it stands now.

Coping With Infidelity

Infidelity happens . . . a lot (if published statistics can be trusted.)

Even if you cut the estimates that are thrown about in half, it's still a lot. Too much for something that is so corrosive to everyone involved.

So, once you know it has happened, how do you cope? You do have to cope whether--

• it is still going on right now
• it has just ended
• it was 23 years ago and it never quite goes away.

There is quite good information on the things you have to accomplish to cope with infidelity.

The problem that I see is that even when you have determined what you need to do, you still are left with how to do it.

And, the "how to" part is the sticking point. Each of us steps into these emotionally charged situations with our own baggage (our own history, our own beliefs, and our own type of social support.) That means that while knowing that we have to accomplish "a", "b", and "c" to come out the other side back on our feet, reasonably sane, the actual path that we walk in doing it has to be fit to us.

One size does not fit all.

Financial Infidelity?

Financial infidelity is an idea that I had never heard before, but it made perfect sense after I thought about it a while. It also really brought home just how high the bar is when it comes to really being true to a relationship.

The concept of financial of infidelity was spelled out recently in a book by the same title which was reviewed well in the Huffington Post blog. This doesn't involve another person as in the case of a man having a secret bank account to pay for prostitutes or hotel rooms, it is less clear cut.

Basically, the idea is that when one partner spends money and hides the fact that they have in one way or another, they are being untrue to the relationship. They aren't really working as a team at that point and it is corrosive. In this case I think cheating describes what's going on better than infidelity.

In an example in the Huffington article, a woman considers buying a new bicycle and keeping it in the nighbor's garage so her husband won't find out. Sounds kind of goofy at first, but think about it in terms of the relationship. They apparently don't respectfully confer and agree on expenditures, which is a red flag whether she buys the bike or not. She is also thinking about keeping a secret and enlisting the aid of her friend in doing it, which is a sure fire way of drifting further apart.

The end result, at best, is likely to be that they increasingly run on parallel tracks, a sad but apparently stable situation that many couples view as relationship success. The problem is that it doesn't take much to de-stabilize one of these. It can be something as simple as getting to know a couple whose relationship is closer, more respectful, and . . . . well, happier, and then it is only a matter of time before it falls apart.

Actually, it might be looked upon as a material manifestation of emotional infidelity, the tricky little relationship time bomb that I discussed before here.

More Infidelity: now it's John Edwards

Now it's John Edwards who we hear has been having an affair. What the heck is with these guys?

On the one hand, one might think that what politicians do in their private lives is just that, private. Or maybe that line of thinking starts with an assumption that it should be. I have found this view quite attractive and apparently logical for many years, but I am starting to wonder.

All moral, ethical, and pragmatic relationship reasons not to cheat on your spouse aside, . . . if you are a public figure you are going to get caught.

And, if you have taken on a public trust, if you have said you were willing to take a leadership position in championing the interests of groups of people, then you had better not do obviously dumb things to lessen your ability to do that. It isn't a breach of trust just with your partner, but also with all the people who supported you.

So here's Edwards, who was arguably one of the most articulate and effective spokesman for groups of people who aren't doing so well in society today, going out and making it easy to devalue not just him as a person, but also the issues, ideas, and ideals that he expressed.

Does this apply to all the rest of us who walk around in relative anonymity? Does it matter less if we do stupid, destructive things?

I used to think that it didn't, at least not in the same way, but giving our trial lawyer-millionaire-friend of the disadvantaged bad example of the week, John Edwards, some more thought I have changed my mind.

The only thing that is different in the size of the circle of damage. And, to each individual within the circle of that influence affairs, cheating, infidelity is just as hurtful. In fact, the smaller that circle, the more concentrated the hurt.

If your level of moral development hasn't progressed far enough to consider the interests and needs of others, for crying out loud be smart and keep yourself out of trouble!

ps - and if you think you can just not get caught and stay out of trouble that way . . . WAKE UP!! and while you're smelling the coffee notice all the cell phones with cameras built in, the IP addresses with your web activities, the reverse phone number services. Even without all that stuff your odds of not getting caught were never that good, but now the deck is stacked against you even more.

For more consideration and resources on this topic, check out the infidelity section of my website, www.better-relationships-over-50.com