A question I received recently went something like this: "I would like to know what you think about the challenges that...
age poses to the institution of marriage.
" I love this question as I believe age poses a whole set of different issues for couples though none any less surmountable than those presenting to younger couples.
So many couples these days are entering into second, third and sometimes four or more relationships in their lifetime.
This is for many reasons.
For one, we're living longer and sometimes outliving our partners.
Secondly the divorce rate is certainly higher as more countries turn to a more democratic way of thinking about marriage.
And while I say this I heard a statistic the other day that stated that more than 60% of marriages around the world are still arranged, and sometimes even enforced, by parents or other members of the community in which couples live.
Thirdly people are discovering that we are principally social beings and are happiest in relationship.
Research indicates that when we are part of a couple we are not only happier but will be healthier and may even extend our life expectancy by up to ten years, These are all the good things about marrying when we are older so what are some of the challenges? I guess one of the greatest challenges is that when we enter into relationships when we are older we often come with "baggage".
This may be in the form of children from another relationship as well as from unfinished business from the past with families of origin.
These will all need to be sorted out as part of the forming of any new relationship.
Another challenge of age is that most people have already established themselves financially.
They may even already own assets such as their own home and all that goes with that re furniture and furnishings.
The challenge then is when you come to live together what do you do with all those possessions? Does it just end up in the attic as has happened to some of our possessions at our place? Yet another challenge for marriage at an older age is based on the fact that we will have each lived so much of our lives already.
We have had our experiences, good and bad, and we have our opinions, good and bad, based on those experiences.
The challenge is still to stay open to learning something new as we share ourselves with someone else.
And of course the great thing about this is that we are no longer so concerned with material possessions and whether we have still the physical attributes of a twenty year old.
We now have the confidence, and hopefully the wisdom, to know there are more important things in life and more important things to learn and to share with the person we now choose to be our partner.
Finally yet one more challenge regarding age and the institution of marriage is that we simply won't have as much time to do all the things together of a lifetime.
For some couples their opportunities may even be less than a decade, a year or even a month.
Maybe the challenge here is, as it should be for all of us, live it all out one day at a time as if there is going to ever be no tomorrow.
Say what you need to say today.
Don't wait until tomorrow.
It might not come.