Making Friends . . . . Again

Making friends is something that some people seem to do in spite of themselves and other of us have to work at.


If you are a woman in the over 50 set and you want to make friends with men, you have an especially higher bar. The fact is that us guys don't live as long. I know that the gap is closing, but if you don't believe it is still there, just visit a seniors' apartment complex and look around.


Like everything else there are e-books on just how to do it. Like everything else, some are better than others. One you might want to check out can be found Here.


Looked usable to me, but then I'm not a woman. If you get it, let me know how it was for you.

Mindfulness Practice: . . Vital For Us Seniors' Relationships .

Mindfulness practice could arguably be called vital for seniors' relationships.


Relationships thrive when we focus on the here and now, but what do you do when you have so much "there and then?" The baggage has a way of getting heavier and heavier as the trip goes on. At some point lugging all that stuff becomes just too much.


How many times hav you heard someone recount a slight or a hurt from their partner that sounds like it happened yesterday,only tolearn it was 11 or 18 or 27 years ago? How many times have we done the same thing ourselves? Never? Good.


Having some mindfulness practice that we daily can keep us in the present, a great place to be when relating to our loved ones. Things are so much easier when we can let our memories of the past and our worries about the future stay out of our experience of right now.

Strength-building Exercise - How Are You Doing?

The more reading I do to support and add to my website, on relationships over 50, positive aging, etc., the more I cannot get away from the fact that strength building exercise is extremely important as we get older and I'm not doing it and neither are most of my friends.

The stronger and more flexible we are, the more we are likely to move around and do things, and the less likely we are to fall and hurt ourselves. That in itself is convincing to me, but I still don't do it.

How are you doing with regard to exercise? What has made it work?

Divorce Is A Tough Deal At Best

No matter how you slice it or dice it, divorce is hard on everyone involved. Maybe it is the best that you can do, but don't get the idea that it is easy or a positive step forward as some divorce lawyers' webites would have you believe.

Before you talk to divorce lawyers or mediators, get yourself a course in the realities of getting divorced

• financial
  
• emotional
  
• children
  
• odds of getting right the second time.
  

Remember that they are in the business of getting you divorced, not saving marriages. Don't expect them to be able to answer questions that are rightly only answered by you. Should you divorce? Yours/What will it cost? Theirs/How will it affect your children? Yours/ etc.

It is a lot cheaper financially and emotionally to do everything you can to
save your marriage before you head for the lawyer's office.

And, let's not forget both the spiritual costs and opportunities afforded by this intensely personally challenging situation. There are excellent resources available to save your Christian marriage.

In one of my favorite quotes that is usually misquoted, Grantland Rice (a great sports writer from the 1930's) said: "When you meet that great scorekeeper in the sky, he will ask you not if you won or lost, but how you played the game."

Also, for those of you in the AARP age range, I have a growing website that talks about these kinds of things too www.Better-Relationships-Over-50.com/divorce.html. I don't purport to have all the answers (or even all the questions), but it is an honest attempt to put out some good stuff.

Are You a Lover?

In his book about sex and relationships in the last third or so of our lives Dr. Bernie Zilbergeld found that there is a lot more sex going on in this age group than our children and grandchildren care to know about. That was good. That was a relief. That makes sense.

But Zilbergeld is a renowned expert on the subject of sex NOT on relationships. And, as it turns out, not that great at doing relationships himself by his own admission. So what did he find there?

He found a lot as it turns out and he describes details of relationships that are great and getting better in site of age, illness, and all that. The key, according to Dr. Zilbergeld is being a "lover". And it sounds great to be a lover. These are the folks who regularly turn lemons into lemonade in their relationships. Great to hear.

What the good doctor does NOT tell us, to my being able to understand and take action at least, is how us admitted non-lovers can make the necessary moves to join the ranks of the lovers. Perhaps that void has to be filled from elsewhere (especially since Bernie Zilbergeld died shortly after finishing the book.)

While there are no panaceas I have been looking at sources like 50 Secrets of Blissful Relationships and to my surprise and relief finding some helpful stuff. Give it a look. Maybe you will too.

Stages In Relationships Over 50

Stages in relationships in third last third or so of our lives? Are you kidding me? The concrete set more than a couple of years ago. We know what the other one is going to say or do on any given topic before they do.

Or, so it might seem at times, but equilibria are made to be upset and "I know what you're going to say" is just waiting to be surprised.

The thing is that many changes start small and slow. Sort of like the first little sprout that comes up out of the dirt when a seed first sprouts.

In the case of relationships, that little new sprout is often a trial balloon of sorts. It's put up there just a little bit to see if anyone notices. When we are finishing each other's sentences and filling in each other's thoughts we may feel close and comfortable, but we are also missing chances to keep new things happening.

Know each other so well that things are boring? Try listening and noticing for a change.

Beware of Communication in Relationships

Conventional wisdom would have us think that good communication is what it takes to have good relationships. That's partly right, but it depends.

What it depends on is what we communicate. If we are effective at letting our partners know that we appreciate them, support them, feel good when we are around them, then that builds the relationship.

Actually, couples who are having problems are often very good at communicating how bad they feel to each other.

Communication, then, isn't usually the problem, it's what we choose to communicate that either builds or tears down to feelings of closeness and safety necessary for a good relationship.

Unlike many lifestyle changes, keeping what we communicate to our partners positive and supportive changes things right away. As seniors it seems like we're deluged with things we should be doing, the results of which we may not feel for weeks or months or perhaps never. It's nice to find one that kicks in right away.

I Am Clearly Older, But the "Wiser" Part Seems To Be Coming Along A Bit Slower

At about the same time I became eligible to join AARP I got married. Building a new relationship sounded like a great idea at the time, though I must admit that I really wasn't considering that I was going to have to do anything in particular to make it happen.


"Older but wiser." Isn't that the saying?


"Everywhere you go, there you are" would have been more like it.


Since I have been missing the most basic social cues and managing to offend all sorts of people in all sorts of situations all of my life, that's not a good place to start.


So, I have embarked on a journey to treat this third and final act of my life's play as the place where it all comes together, finally, making all the mis-steps, errors, and sins worthwhile. Finding out what it is that people who have long-lasting relationships that they describe as great and getting better are actually doing that I'm not and doing it.


With a little research I have found that I am in good company with such famous names in the field of psychology and relationships as Aaron Beck, Bernie Zilbergeld, and John Gottman admitting in their books on the subject that one of the reasons they got into researching the topic of relationships was that they wanted to get better. Actually, they may even have said that they were lousy at relationships, but I don't remember exactly and, anyway, being guys, it's a reasonable guess that they were.


One thing that I find all the experts in agreement on is that good relationships take effort. You don't set them and forget them.


Coming from the "if you have to talk about what's wrong with it all the time it's probably not going to work out anyway" school, I realize now that reworking that belief is the first order of business. This blog and a website on the topic are reflections of my commitment to take that quest public.


I hope you will join in.