Older Couples
When couples marry at an older age, whether it is a first marriage or a second one, they may be presented with a unique set of challenges. Many people erroneously believe that couples who are marrying latter in life will have more conflicts with each other regarding monetary issues, values for living, and social predilection. The opposite is actually true.
Special Considerations
Older couples may face more potential hurdles, but older couples are often more mature and more open about what they feel, think, and need in a relationship. The ability to lay an issue out on the table and discuss how you see potential areas of conflict can nip potentially explosive conflicts in the bud.
If you are marrying at an older age it may be important to consider purchasing long-term care insurance for both of you to help guarantee that neither of you will be a burden upon the other. In fact, it can be less expensive to purchase long-term care insurance as a couple than as separate individuals.
How to spend shared assets and deciding who will inherit what if one partner has children and one does not can be sources of great tension among older couples. Additionally, if one partner is older and one is younger, children may worry about the older spouse becoming a burden finically or physically on the younger one. If this is a concern, children and parents should evaluate the available options for long-term care together.
Great love can bloom for couples in their seventies, eighties, and nineties, but sometimes children are not sure what to make of it. Some children are thrilled that their parent has found a mate, but others are not sure how to view the love and sexual desire of their parent at a significantly older age. It is important for children of older couples to realize that just because people are older does not necessarily mean there is less need and desire for intimacy and companionship.
Intimacy and Older Couples
Older couples sometimes have a better intimate life than younger couples. They may be more knowledgeable about what works and what doesn't work sexually and emotionally for themselves and for a partner. They may be wiser and more emotionally mature than younger couples. Older partners are often better at being able to view sex as the product of an intimate emotional life with each other, not just as a source of their own pleasure. In addition, older couples may finally have the time for each other that they did not have when they were younger. No matter the age, a couple must not be embarrassed to talk to each other about their intimate life, which is an important part of a healthy marriage.
Sara and Abraham, the first Jewish couple, had a child when they were both well into their golden years. Though their situation was the result of a divine miracle, the notion of older people being loving and close and having sex is not shunned in Judaism. It is considered a mitzvah as for any other couple.
Older couples must consciously realize that as we age our bodies change, not just physically, but emotionally and sexually, too. Older partners, unless they are in good physical shape, may not be as spry or as flexible. The male's penis may not get as erect and the female's vagina may not be as lubricated. As a result, it may take longer for partners to become aroused. This can sometimes have the benefit of equalizing male and female times for arousal.
