Understanding what’s important … and what’s not. Love after 50

Francine Russo is a widely recognised journalist who covered the Boomer beat for Time for over a decade as well as writing for Scientific American, The Atlantic, and other major publications. 

Over the last two decades the number of divorces in the over 50-age group has rocketed and there are a lot of people looking for new partners. Francine herself was widowed twice before she found her current partner and was asked by many people for advice on meeting people and building new relationships. She realised that over the years she learned a lot about herself, about dating and about resilience as well as the more practical tools such as online dating so Francine her latest book Love After 50: How to find it, enjoy it and keep it, is designed to be both practical and psychologically helpful.

Studies have shown that love after 50 is more satisfying than at any other stage in life. Francine feels that people are more emotionally stable, more focused on the present and know not only what they have to have, but also what they can live without. Partnering is no longer about building a family, career and fortune. It’s about sharing intimacy as grounded individuals. And sex isn’t a pass or fail anymore, but about becoming erotic friends.

Dating brings the opportunity to reconnect with people but before reconnecting with the active world and meeting new people, it’s essential to get over previous relationships. If people start dating when they’re bitter, angry or lack confidence it will never work. People need to be OK with themselves – to be comfortable with themselves and their life as a single person before they can start to build new relationships.

Using social media and online dating sites can be a good way to ‘try’ a relationship, and ‘catch and release’ so, if after a couple of months things aren’t working, it’s time to move on. Some people can tap into any neediness they perceive so it’s important to be sensible when judging potential partners and to remember that there may be feelings of rejection in some instances.

Francine feels that time negates relationships and that when we’re older there is a different structure to a relationship. The rest of life element can be more bittersweet. There may be more day-to-day time to share but the years together are limited so people often feel grateful for the time together and just let small annoyances go. 

Because they aren’t raising children or building a career, people tend to come together for love, companionship and mutual support. Some people choose to marry, others live together or live apart. Some see their children and friends together and build a joint social life whilst others keep their lives separate and simply spend the time they want to together. There can be some problems if children are unhappy or unsure about a parent building a new relationship so it’s better to start with limited expectations about blending families. It’s not essential to work as a unit, just decide what to do together and what to do apart and to understand what’s important and what’s not

 You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information about Francine here. Our previous podcasts, upcoming guest list and previous blogs are also available.

Francine’s book Love after 50 is available here.

Moving on from gambling addiction. The importance of love and support.

Patrick Chester started gambling in his late 20s. It was something he grew up with and it was portrayed as something that was commonplace. Initially it was a fun activity, something he did with his with friends. He was in his early 30’s when he got married to Erica in 2006 and it was after this that his gambling led him to start making bad choices, hide things from Erica and lie to cover up his gambling.

Over the first nine years of their marriage there was a slow progression of the lies and deception. Patrick was working for himself as a contractor and he started using the money he made and also borrowed more money to feed his gambling habit. In 2015 Erica’s family found out what was going on and got involved by arranging an intervention with a moderator. Patrick then went into treatment for a month and shortly afterwards had to go to jail for some crimes he had committed to feed his addiction.

Erica feels she has learned a lot the last six years. She had no idea gambling was an addiction and was not willing to give up when she learned how sick Patrick was and how he wanted to get better. She couldn't throw the towel in knowing it was addiction that was causing him to be sick and not reckless behaviour.

Often it is not just the addict who carries guilt or shame. It is only recently that Erica learnt to let go of a lot of this – should she have asked more questions, investigated more or not believed his stories. When they first met they had a lot of things in common - sports and the outdoors and she had no reason not to trust him. When she found out about the gambling she felt duped and angry but when she looked back she realised there were some missed red flags – some times her debit card didn’t work but Patrick would always have a reason for it and she believed him. The problem would be fixed but should she have demanded proof or better answers?

Patrick never came clean with Erica, rather he sent an email to another family member. Erica had a call from her Dad saying he needed to see her urgently because he had found out that Patrick had a really bad gambling addiction, they weren’t sure how bad it was but they were leaving now and meeting an interventionist. Erica had no control over anything as everything she knew came from a third party.

Her family put an intervention in place in 24 hours and the family met with the interventionist the day prior to the intervention. Erica doesn’t remember very much about it. She was in complete shock and very emotional. The interventionist explained about addictions, what it does to the body and brain and what would happen the next day. They all had to write a letter to Patrick saying that if you don't choose this lifeline, there is no place for you. It was a massive ultimatum. When he arrived Patrick realised what was going to happen. Once he got over his initial reaction he felt a huge sense of relief that things where coming to a head – he was ready for it.

Erica is indebted to her family. It was very surreal with everyone coming together. They were angry but they put that to one side and focused on fixing Patrick even without knowing the full extent of the problem. The focus was ‘lets get this figured out and get him fixed’. Once he had gone into treatment everything started to come out which for Erica was terrifying. She didn’t know the extent of what Patrick had done and he had used her social security number for fraudulent purposes and she was left to deal with everything. All her family were involved along with three different lawyers but it still took weeks to sort things out.

It has taken a very long time for Erica to forgive Patrick. Through counselling, Gam anon and researching the subject she managed to separate the person from the addiction – the person she married was not the person who did those things – but there was so much anger and hurt sometimes she thought it was all too difficult.

In the beginning she was very vigilant and almost paranoid but the more Patrick showed he was on the right path the more trust there was. They improved their communication style and she took charge of all their finances. Now she thinks that Patrick has done so many good things through his recovery that there is too much to risk. Patrick felt that the first couple of years were very difficult and frustrating at times but if he took a step back he realised that he had a chance to regain Erica’s trust. Now he feels they have built trust and transparency in life.

Erica feels that Gam anon was really helpful. She needed to know she was not the only one and relate to people going through the same things. This along with the specialist addiction therapist she worked with formed the basis of the team she built around her. She feels the most important ways of supporting someone with a gambling addiction is to educate yourself, don’t give up, to surround yourself with people who love and support you and not to make judgments. Patrick feels that when someone is in a gambling frenzy the most important thing is to tell someone that you are struggling - the disease will progress and won’t go away on its own. You need help and talking about it is the first step.

He also recommends that anyone who feels they has a problem gets in touch with Gamblers Anonymous and the National Suicide Prevention line in US or the Samaritans in UK.

You may also be able to access help in the UK at https://www.okrehab.org/

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information about Erica and Patrick here. Our previous podcast episodes, upcoming guest list and previous blogs are also available.

Pulling the gems from adversity. Mindsets and tools to rebuild, inspire and dream bigger.

The latest episode in our Resilience Unravelled series has now been released, Resilience Unravelled - Pulling the gems from adversity. Mindsets and tools to rebuild, inspire and dream bigger.

Susan De Lorenzo is an author, speaker and certified transformational life coach who focuses on helping women who are emerging from life-altering adversities. As a survivor of invasive breast cancer whose marriage dissolved as treatment ended, Susan draws on her personal journey as well as her training as a life coach to give clients, readers and listeners the mindsets and tools to rebuild their lives in alignment with their deepest desires.

Susan works with her clients to build a mindset where, no matter what has happened, you believe you can create something even greater through a higher platform of awareness to give inspiration to dream bigger and go for more.

Although her mother was a breast cancer survivor, when Susan had her breast cancer diagnosis she was shocked.  She never imagined it would happen to her and the diagnosis unravelled her. The first diagnosis was not the most serious. During a check up her oncologist asked if anyone had spoken to her about the lump in her other breast. At the time Susan was working full-time, had an 18-month old son and a new house that needed a lot of work and she found that she was very angry. The diagnosis was very hard to digest and she was very resistant to it and didn’t even want to do chemo.

People sometimes describe cancer as a battle but Susan thinks we need to develop the relationship we have with ourselves which is what gets us through. When adversity hits us we need to ask what can I do with myself to make it OK - I know it’s not going to be great but how can I keep my awareness that I’m not alone and am connected to life. Knowing that can be the strength by making it real for ourselves and our centre or eye of the storm. We are the centre of our own experience. Families often don’t know what to do to help and we end up comforting them. They don't have the skills to help or they have their own thoughts and feelings about what you’re going through. We need to remember that's their experience, I have mine.  

In the US divorces relating to couples where one is going through cancer are higher than the national average. Susan knew her marriage was going to be problematic but was determined to get married and have a family. She grew up with a parent who suffered with depression and this was something Susan’s partner suffered from as well.

Susan had 4 surgeries and 6 months of chemo and radiation but was then told she was cancer free. She found she had a new love of life. She wasn't going to play small anymore and was at a higher level but her partner was in depression. Susan felt they should work at their relationship but her partner wanted to be alone – he couldn’t deal with how happy Susan was.

When we go through adversity and start to come out the other side we sometimes find that we are going at a different speed to our partner. The other person is still where they were and unless you move together it becomes a challenge

The model of marriage is very romantic but the idea of staying together is impossible unless both people are growing. We need to remember it’s OK to let go if the other person doesn't grow at the same level. People move ahead and change. It takes something fundamental to change. We need to re-engineer relationships and remain interested in growth and what’s going to be next. We need to have something to look forward and to stay real by talking about the elements of life, what’s happening in the world and what’s happening to friends.

Susan works with clients coming out of life altering adversities.  The first thing they learn is to understand is that it’s not just other people who overcome adversity and that they can too. They need to be open to the idea that this is for me too so how can I design my life so it gets me to a place where I love my life.  This needs building and learning to overcome beliefs and conditioning – the not good enough syndrome.

Susan now spends her time between Rhode Island and Florida. Later this year Balboa Press will be publishing her new book Pulling the Gems from Adversity where she shares the five stages of working through adversity to come back even stronger.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information about Susan here. Our previous podcast episodes and upcoming guest list are also available.

Our full blog archive is also available.

You can get in touch with Susan at https://SusanDeLorenzo.com or at her Facebook page