Seeking a partner in later life

Last week I (Suzanne) was lucky enough to be invited to a party for Substackers, where I metProf Paul Dolan who is a behavioural scientist and has his own Substack, where he examines the science behind happiness. This week he wrote a short piece about escaping narrative traps, which inspired this episode about relationships in later life.

It’s easy if you’re a single woman (or man) seeking a relationship, to desire a partnership similar to the one you may have had in your younger days because of its familiarity. These relationships often served the purpose of bringing up children, maintaining a family or working for financial reasons because splitting the rent on a one-bed apartment is cheaper than as a single person.

Later life relationships, as we discuss, can be different. You may want companionship more than sex, or sex more than companionship. Maybe you want to live apart but be together. Perhaps you want to be polyamorous. Faced with choices, we consider how this stage of our life gives us the opportunity to be more expansive in how we relate to others, rather than sticking with the same old script.

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