Power In Relationships Over 50:What does "Fifty Shades of Gray" Say To Us of the Graying Set?

Power in relationships can be an incendiary topic whether it is conscious, unconscious, overt or covert.  It has a tendency to make people nervous.  So, what's with the recent popularity of "Fifty Shades of Gray" and the other two books of its trilogy that tell the story of a young woman who signs on to be the slave of  a man several years her senior.

To hear it described by the news media, Fifty Shades of Gray, is either hot mommy porn, or tiresome repetitive porn.  Evidently it isn't billed as the best written erotic novel to come down the pike, but it is still selling like hotcakes, so it must be a story with inherent attraction to readers.

Consensual, cooperative allocation of power in relationships with respect to all kinds of issues definitely makes them work better.

Tilting the power in one direction or the other because it turns the participants on apparently can make relationships more interesting and more exciting too.  As long as the way it's done has been worked out between the two people in advance, it is safe, sane, and consensual, and it works for them, who else's business is it?

Relationship Power Anyone?

The topic of power in relationships isn't a comfortable one for most people. Can you really have a conscious relationship if you aren't conscious of the power trade offs, the power plays, the power allocation, the power sharing in yours?

Do couples start behind the relationship 8-ball because there are two people in each?

What might couples learn if for one weekend, one week, one month, one year, one of them was the openly and agreed to be the dominant one the other submissive and then they reversed it?

Which role would be harder to really get into? Which do you think would be harder for you? . . . . for your partner? Which one do you think your partner would be harder for you? Which do you think would be harder for her or him to completely take on?

How do you envision yourself taking total or near total control of how things run with the two of you? . . . . and your partner? If you had visions of black leather and complete obedience, would you be able to admit it? If you had visions of Ozzie and Harriet, would you own up to that?

Would you really do it? Or, would you fudge? Would you be afraid of what might happen if you really were in charge? (Within previously agreed on limits of course.) What would it be like to be totally submissive?

If you saw an ad for a two part/two weekend workshop led by a licensed mental health professional, would you go? Would your partner? Do you wish they would? What do you think that you might learn about yourself? About your partner? What are you afraid you might learn? What do youl hope you'd learn?

Power in Relationships Over 50

I suspect that allocation of power in relationships over 50 is a bigger issue than many people realize. No matter how the equilibrium was for much of its duration, it is likely that this will change dramatically as children leave, work schedules change, and along with it finances.


In spite of the fact that change brings new opportunities, not many of us seem to really like it. Not only don' we like it, we fight it.


Whether it is about having run the homefront as you like and now having a spouse around putting toilet paper rolls on backward or worse, or it is about choosing where and how you'll eat lunch or any of a number of similar freedoms/powers/responsibiities, it is hard not to feel intruded on.


Of course we can and would gain by just stepping up and working these things out,too often we don't. So, what's to be done?


What has worked for you?

Power in Relationships

How we allocate the power in our relationships is one of the central factors in how well those relationships work.

The power to decide what we'll do, how we'll do it, and who will do it, can be parcelled out in an almost infinite number of ways, but couples who get along and prosper generally feel good about how they do it.

Now, this is not to say that any particular mix works best. No, totally egalitarian/shared relationships, traditional male head of family, or any other particular style does not win out. What does is having they participants comfortable with the way they do it.

So, especially in this time of so many changes with retirements, grandchildren, etc, we need to reconsider this from time to time.

When you decide it's time to do this a structured approach can keep you focus on the issues and off the people. The best one I have come across can be found HERE.

Money & Power in Relationships Over-50

It has been opined that sex really isn't the hardest subject for people to talk about and that what really is hardest for the most people to talk about is money. Afterall, money and power go hand in hand and the subject of power makes lots of people squirm when it is too out in the open.

Since talking is our main conflict management tool in relationships and money is so often involved in how we interact whether we are conscious of it or not, this is an important topic.


The NY Times had an eye-opening article on the state of money and relationships in the younger set in big cities where women are doing very well for themselves in terms of making money and finding it is not necessarily helpful in making friends.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/fashion/23whopays.html?ex=1348200000&en=6e7e1ec5c4d2a26d&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink


Once we enter into the senior-years zone, whatever that is, it can get even trickier. It's not just "what I earn/what you earn", "my beliefs about spending and saving/your beliefs about spending and saving". Now you can add in "what I have inherited/what you have inherited", "what my kids are afraid I am going to blow/what your kids are afraid you are going to blow", etc. etc.

And the old one size fits all advice that you have to talk about it is right, but how the heck do you really do that?

Twenty or more years ago a psychologist named Richard Stuart applied cognitive social learning theory to the problem and came up with some very specific suggestions, steps, forms to fill out, etc. that can still be very helpful when it comes to actually talking about money in the relationship (and lots of other issues too).

A description of Stuart's work in this area and some specific ideas for applying it to typical "over-50's" issues can be found at: http://www.better-relationships-over-50.com/power-in-relationships.html