Finding Love after 50: The Wrong Way

©Tom Blake – The Dating After 50 Expert - June 1, 2009

I receive between 40 and 50 emails a day from people searching for love after age 50. Often they find me by doing a Google Search on the words “finding love after 50” or “love after 50,” which leads them to my website. Out of 40,000,000 results that Google produces for those words, my website is number one in the world.

One recent flurry of emails from a divorced woman left my head spinning.

Melinda,53, wrote that five weeks ago (May, 2009) she met a 58-year-old widower of seven months on Match.com and had dated him “full-time” since then. They live in the same small town. He had been married 38 years; she was the first woman he had dated—other than his deceased wife— in 39 years. Melinda says she never would have met him—even in her small town—if she hadn’t been Internet searching for a mate.

When they met, the widower told her he was seeking a lover and a woman to move in with him.

Melinda commented on that, “I want to get married again; I told him so in our first few days of dating. I told him I wanted to wait to have sex too. He thought I was a bit old-fashioned, but agreed, saying I was worth the wait.

“His daughter and family told him over and over he was going too fast and they did not like that I had been married five times. She told her dad I was probably a gold digger. His brother says he should date several women before settling into a relationship so soon after losing his wife. They didn’t think he had healed properly either.”

Melinda reported that she felt five weeks to have sex was enough time to wait. So, on a Saturday night, she jumped in the sack with him. She went into explicit details that detract from the main point of this story.

Two days later, he dumped her, telling he had to test the waters by dating at least four other women before making a commitment to her.

She said, “I am so hurt. I’m not sure he will ever realize how great we could be together.” She asked for my opinion on what to do.

Seldom--in the 16 years I’ve been writing newspaper columns--have I been at a loss for words. But what was I to tell her? Five marriages? Gold digger? Sex after five weeks? Who knows why he left?

Perhaps he didn’t like the sex. Perhaps he listened to his family’s warnings. Perhaps he hadn’t healed yet.

I emailed her back and said that since the relationship had been for only five weeks, she’d likely recover soon, and asked her for more information, including why she had been married so often.

She replied, “I didn’t want to ‘live in sin’ while raising my son.” So, she got married to enjoy the sex and used her belief that the sanctity of marriage would make the romps in the sack acceptable.

Melinda said, “He is back on match.com searching for love after 50 and I have had maybe seven hours of sleep in the past 5 days. I decided today to go back on match to find my love after 50 mate. I have no clue how long it will be before he dates these four women and when he intends to let me know if he has found whatever he is searching for.”

She emailed this update the next morning: “We got back together. We spent the entire day and resolved all of the issues. I feel better and am planning on living with him soon.”

I thought, ah, another “love after 50” couple works out the differences through effective communication, moves in together, and lives happily ever after. But it didn’t exactly turn out that way.

A week later she wrote,“We broke up again. This time for good. I believe his drinking was a factor.”

Scratching my head, I had nothing left to say—not that I had said anything of value in the email exchange with her—other than that it was best she found these things out before investing too much more time or emotion.

Can you imagine if she had moved in with him? And they had married? It would have been divorce number six.

To comment: mailto:tpblake@aol.com" tpblake@aol.com

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