Alone But Not Lonely

My friend, I'll call her Amy, lives in Vancouver. John, from Victoria, on Vancouver Island, was a work colleague who often travelled to Vancouver for business. Their relationship blossomed from drinks, to dinner, to weekends together. They had many common interests and loved travelling together. This was Amy’s perfect relationship, independence, solitude, sex, and love. Three years into their relationship, John began talking about retirement. He assumed Amy would move to Victoria. But Amy refused. He offered to move to Vancouver. That was not an option either. Amy realized she valued her independence too much to move in with John. The relationship soon fizzled out; within a year, John had met and moved in with another woman. Amy continues to live alone, even though it is financially challenging for her. She does not regret her decision. “Even after all this time,” she says, “I cannot imagine sharing space with a man.”

Amy is not the only older woman wanting to live her own life on her own terms. For a generation of older men, traditional, live-in relationships remain important because female partners meet many of their social, emotional, health and domestic needs, says Sharon Hyman, a Montreal filmmaker who interviewed hundreds of couples for her documentary, Apartners: Living Happily Ever Apart. “Women have wider circles of friends. Men don’t so they are relying on women for more,” Hyman said. “For men, often we hear it’s not as easy for them to be on their own.”

Older women are forging the kind of partnerships they want because society now allows different types of relationships, said Dr Helen Fisher, a senior research fellow at Indiana’s Kinsey Institute. Fisher, 74, lives separately from her partner of five years, and calls it a blessing.

“I’ve got a whole social network. I like to go to the theatre, the symphony and to various lectures with friends," Fisher said. "He’s welcome to come if he wants to.”

Fisher spends three nights at her apartment in New York and the rest at her partner’s home. By this stage of their lives they have both accumulated too much stuff to cram into one residence. She has an office at his house, he gets half a closet at her apartment. “It’s almost like a continual courtship," Fisher said. "The little things don’t bother you because you can go home.”

These days more older women are rejecting the downsides of the live-in relationship. Many have been primary caregivers to their husbands, children, and elderly parents. They have also taken on most of the domestic responsibilities. More older women have had careers, providing some with financial independence. Women also tend to have strong social networks and are interested in personal pursuits beyond the traditional roles marriage once offered. No wonder an increasing number of older women are opting to live alone or for living apart together (LAT), in which partners in committed relationships choose to keep separate residences.

The phenomenon of women over 65 are choosing to live alone and loving it, says psychologist and author, Susan Pinker has a good deal to do with the tight-knit friendships women sustain throughout their lives. "Women, much more than men, tend to have … more intimate, more tightly connected networks of friends and relatives that they keep connected with.” While being socially isolated can negatively impact our health, there are an increasing number of older women who happily living alone and thriving, and they want to keep it that way, Pinker says.

According to Statistics Canada, 72 per cent of senior women who live alone say they're highly satisfied with their lives, compared to 62 per cent of men in the same age group.

"Some women have looked after ailing husbands to the very end," says Pinker. "And at some point, after they deal with their grief of losing a partner this way, they say, 'Never again. I'm not doing that. I'm not doing anybody else's dishes. I'm not doing his laundry. I'm not picking up anybody's socks.’”

My own experience? My husband and I have been married for almost 37 years. Have the traditional roles of marriage been a heavy load to bear? Yes, at times, particularly in the early years of our marriage. But that was all self-imposed, me fulfilling duties I felt obliged to take on. Our relationship is one of equals, sharing responsibilities and supporting each other to follow our passions, live up to our potential, and meet our needs; independently and as a couple. I have a deep need for solitude which my husband has always understood. I love solo travel and will head off for a weekend, a week, and sometimes for a couple of months - always with the support of my husband, even though I know he misses me, and would rather have me sleeping by his side every night.

Would I consider another live-together relationship if I ended up alone? No, I don’t think I’ll ever live with anyone again. Mainly because I cherish my solitude and independence, but also because I cannot imagine ever meeting another man who understands me as completely as my husband, and who would be willing to negotiate that ‘me’ and ‘we’ relationship so both our needs would be fulfilled.

It’s been a busy week, leaving little time for writing! Much of this blog post is paraphrased from The new reality of dating over 65: Men want to live together; women don’t, an article written by Zosia Bielski for the Globe and Mail.