Our guest bloggers today are Ann, Pat & Tish, authors of “Love for Grown-Ups: The Garter Brides’ Guide to Marrying for Life When You’ve Already Got a Life” (Harlequin Non-Fiction), a relationship guide for women over 35 on how to meet Mr. Right, marry and find life-long happiness. They talk about why they’re happy they got married later than the storybooks predict.
None of us was kidnapped by a terrorist, nor were all the women we interviewed for our book, but they all are very happily married and very happy they waited to find the man of their dreams, because when you choose to marry later in life, that’s just who you marry. You’re wise to the relationship hazards that used to snag you and know what’s important in a partner and you’re ready to meet a man as an equal on every level.
Who were the men we connected with in our twenties? Pat says, “I always sabotaged myself and went with the bad boy who didn’t want a committed relationship.” Tish says ,“I spent years with a man I didn’t realize didn’t want to get married again.” Or like Ann, we married them and after too much wasted time, got divorced! Not happy times for any of us, and we all had to do some real soul-searching to be able to move on and make the happy rewarding lives we treasure. As Ann says, “I never thought I could be this happy.”
Each of us had done a lot of dating, established ourselves in our careers, and we’ve all been in situations that could have used Sigmund Freud and Emily Post to finesse. We’ve learned to “think on our feet” and that’s given us the ability to be flexible and handle situations with grace. When you’re in your twenties, you tend to be overly concerned with other people’s expectations of what your life should be. As one bride we spoke to said, “When I got married for the first time my mother picked everything – including the groom.” When you’re more mature, you make a life that suits you, not the life other people think you should have.
We’ve found that women who waited a bit were more mature in understanding what they needed and wanted in a relationship. A Garter Bride described her relationship this way, “Being a mature bride has its advantages. My husband and I knew what we needed as individuals. We don’t look to each other to fill some emotional gap. We are able to look to each other for companionship and fun.” You’re both looking for someone you can respect, have a good time with, have great sex with, and know that you can rely on.”
The joy of being a grown-up bride is that you can make the life you want together. You create your own expectations; you don’t have to live up to anyone else’s idea of what your life should be. Also, finding love later in life has an anti-aging benefit. Happiness does that!
Learn more about the book here — Love for Grown-Ups: The Garter Brides’ Guide to Marrying for Life When You’ve Already Got a Life!
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This is a great post. I have read the book and really enjoyed it.
This is an important concept. I believe that everyone perceives “maturity” differently. Maturity in each person stems from their experiences in life. We develop beliefs and moral standards that guide our values, priorities, and decision making. I think it is important to find a partner who is in line with your beliefs and moral standards. In this way, as partners you can better plan and spend your precious time in life working toward more common goals and ways to grow with each other in the same direction. This is so important in child bearing and family raising. Children can thrive, I believe, with parents who aren’t always in conflict and disagreement regarding the core morals and beliefs that a household together drives for and to which all members try to and continually work to stay true.
While it’s true that relationship flourish when both parties are more mature, the solution is not to wait until you ‘grow up,’ but rather to grow up sooner. Generations used to do it before us, what’s the problem now?
The problem with growing up slowly is that our lives pass us by. The previous poster mentioned children thrive when they have mature parents. This is true but keep in mind how quickly fertility drops and how quickly fetal mutation/malformation rates go up for women by the time they reach 35.
That’s just bogus. I am so sick of people suggesting that a woman over 35 is not going to have a healthy pregnancy. Fact is there are plenty of people who abuse their bodies and are overweight that are having babies in their twenties. And no one writes as much about them. I think women over 30 are healthier and care more about themselves emotionally and physically. Thus making them prime candidates for motherhood. My body is healthier than any 20 year olds. I run marathons, eat vegetarian and have a positive outlook on life. So, Dr. Jones, while you may be a doctor, you might want to consider ways to be more supportive of bright, healthy women who choose to have a stable life to bring a child into and praise them. I would say it is much better than some of our younger women bringing children into the world when they are still learning about themselves and may have no education, little money and a lack of self esteem.
Michele, I agree with you on the aspect of there are older woman who are more healthy than their youngers. A woman in her 20s who is unhealthy could just as easily have a difficult pregnancy as a woman in her 30s, and even have a hard time getting pregnant to begin with. It is also my understanding, that in the majority of circumstances, it has been proven that biologically the older a woman gets, the higher risk of a difficult pregnancy and/or birth defects. Some of the factors you brought up are important to know and I am sure that the doctor agrees with you. I would say that he/she was only responding directly to this article, not just pregnancy ages in general.
Great point, Dr. Jones. I agree that marrying later in life may not be the solution as much as becoming more mature and wise to relationships.
As I was reading this blog what was going through my mind was exactly what Dr.Jones in the comments section(what a nice name for a Dr.!!) had to say.
I think young men and women (esp. with their new found financial freedom together with the influence of media) today are focusing more on having fun and personal gratification at the cost of having an emotionally fulfilling life. I guess the guys are happy because it works for them (??)
Anyway the bottom line is for girls and boys to realize that they need to be grown-up in their 20′s, not learn by 30′s by making mistakes. This is especially true if you desire kids.
There is staggering medical evidence connecting maternal and paternal age to a child’s health esp for conditions such as down’s syndrome, autism etc. No wonder that these conditions are on the rise in our society.
I like this article, women in my mother’s and grandmother’s generation were all married before 25 or were considered an “old maid”. I am so thankful things are changing. I just turned 31 and while I would love to someday marry a wonderful man to make a life with, I am in certainly no rush to marry just anyone and get divorced. Plenty of my high school and college friends are divorced or remarried or single moms. I have no pets or children and come and go as I please and travel whenever I want and I have the money to spend on myself. I think that getting married young when you barely know who you are and what you want is silly. In my 20s I was going out on plenty of dates and having a blast so I know what I do want as a life partner now and hopefully we will have some kids too.
I married late (38) after finishing all my schooling. I met a woman 14 years my junior who saw the daily stresses my job placed upon me. For 3 years, I felt totally mature and self-aware and empathetic. For 3 years, I discussed with her our differences in age ,religion, life experiences. We were married for 15 years, now with 4 beautiful children. When problems arose, it was I who always suggested counseling. Now, after divorce, I see all the times how she spent more time on emotionally distancing herself from me than working on the marriage. I was going through age related life changes, financial hardships and living with a spouse who withdrew or overreacted to every bad news situation. I felt no support, so I too withdrew emotionally. After 2-3 years of severe emotional separation and loneliness, I had to take a job 100 miles away from our home and children for financial solvency. I came home every other wkend. Within 8 weeks, I was told, “I don’t love you anymore. I want a divorce”. 2 months later she had a “friend” the kids told me about. They are still together after almost 3 years. He is 10 years older than she.
I am sure she went through some tough emotional times, post partum depression, absent husband (a doctor) and perhaps in her early 40s rebelled against the idea of aging, wanted an independent new life, not as a spouse, mother, middling aged woman.
I am still in love with her, yes a lot of things I don’t like, but still in love even though she has a new life and relationship. I was always devoted to the family and faithful to her. Now I feel punished, my children and the dream of a loving traditional family unit ripped away from me. No discussion, just unilateral “See ya”.
She was unable to open up and discuss for many years. She projected all kinds of control issues, unfaithfulness thoughts, lack of trust, ???mental abuse???.
Typically, I brood over all the things i “could have done” to recognize the problems at the time and try to intervene to sustain our marriage. I know that is wasted emotional self blame, but I can’t let go.
The only time she communicates with me, even though we both agree that a strong mutual sharing of the kids occur, (gotta give her credit for that), is when she wants money. Otherwise she NEVER contacts me for news of the kids or anything else. Intellectually, I understand she has “moved on”. My problem…..no closure.
MY POINT. No matter how mature we think we are, no matter how open and communicative we are, Life and Love is a crap shoot. Sorry to be so cynical. I am still in love.
Asking someone to grow up (emotionally) sooner is pretty much the same as asking them to grow up physically sooner. It takes what it takes. Saying anything else is pretty condescending and unreasonable.
Comparing it to the past is also far too simplistic. Delaying marriage to 35 was unthinkable when your lifespan was 40 and infant mortality meant most children died. In other words there was no choice. If you waited that long your children wouldn’t expect to have their parents live past their fifth or tenth birthday. Only recently has delaying children even been a choice.
Now taking your assertion in todays environment. There are advantages to both sides. Obviously with two healthy people a woman between the ages of 20-29 is likely to have less problems than one 30-39. Still I think that is more than offset by the improvement in medicine with the emotional and financial stability of an older parent.
I completely agree with what Michael has to say. Saying people need to “grow up sooner” is absurd. Also, why? What is the point? Not to mention, Dr. Jones and co, you’re forgetting that natural conception is not the only option. There are a whole lot of children who need homes out there- adoption is a healthy maternal option at any age.
I just turned 30. I’ve travelled and worked all over the world and I’ve always been considered extremely “mature for my age”- but at 24, I got into a relationship for the wrong reasons (“all of my friends are in serious relationships or getting engaged- i guess I should too… and this hot guy wants me, so I should probably go for it.”) and it was an emotionally abusive, miserable few years.
Now, I’m the healthiest, happiest, and most emotionally stable I’ve ever been. My parents had my brother at 36 and he is the healthy, smart and charming. My godmother had her kids after 37 and they are both beautiful, delightful, intelligent girls… Yes, fertility declines at 35 and yes there are risks, but there are also risks to taking an aspirin. It doesn’t mean it’s a guaranteed outcome that happens to everyone.
I am 34 now, and have been ready to get married for about 7 years now. I have a steady job, have almost paid off my house. The issue I see is the most men aren’t serious about relationships or marriage. I’ve been dating the same guy for 3 years and he is very kind and a wonderful guy, but has no ambition, and earns just a little over minimum wage. He does not want to get married until he has a better job and can support kids. It breaks my heart to think about breaking up with him over money, but has no plans to get a better job- it’s just not his personality. He’s very slow, easy going, kind, etc. I’m the ambitious one.
The guys I dated before him were pretty much just out to screw around, regardless of what they said; so I’m not looking forward to dating again. But I feel like I have to go for it now or I will just end up dating him for another 10 years, and we will still be in the same place.