Vibrant Nation

love & sex

Suzanne Braun Levine's avatar
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Suzanne B…
How do we love today? Help me count the ways
posted 06/30/2009, 03:20PM new!

Do you have someone in your life who moves you deeply? Someone you trust totally? Have you heard yourself use the word "love" in circumstances you hadn't before? Do you connect love with sex? If you feel you are missing love in your life, what is it you miss?

The reason I ask is that everywhere I go, I hear from women who are experiencing love, intense love, in new ways. We are finding love - and sometimes sex - in circumstances we would never have dreamed of earlier in our lives. I want to know more about this expanded and enriched love life.

"I have fallen in love for real and for the first time in my life," a 52-year-old bride tells me with a tinge of disbelief. Would she have fallen for the same guy thirty years ago or would she have dismissed him as uncool or inappropriate? I wonder. Why now?

"I have fallen in love with my husband all over again," exults a woman who has been married over forty years. "There were times where I thought we would never make it, but this was worth hanging in for!" What happens in a long term relationship that refires the engine?

"I was happily married for forty years," says another woman, "but when my husband died, I found myself becoming increasingly drawn to other women. I just found the intimacy so easy." What is it like to make this kind of transfer of eroticism and intimacy? And what is it like for the women who never felt satisfied in their heterosexual relationships who are discovering their true sexuality now?

"You may be shocked," says a very serious-looking doctor, "but I have discovered the joys of sex for its own sake." I am not shocked; I have spoken to countless women who are experimenting with separating sex from "meaningful relationships" or long-term commitments, and countless others who are experimenting with sex with their same old partners. Does reaching the "fuck-you fifties" set us free to literally go there?

As diverse as these expressions of love are, I see certain ingredients that they have in common. For one thing, by now we know who we are, which makes it easier to know what we want. At the same time our expectations are more realistic than back when love was what dreams were made of. We don’t expect to change anyone (very much) and we are ready to take some risks. In my next book I will try to describe how love is changing for us. Please help by telling me how it is for you.

responses (4)

Christine Crosby's avatar Christine…
Christine Crosby said to Suzanne Braun Levine 06/30/2009, 03:20PM new!

I fell in love all over again with a man I met 15 years earlier, but I broke it off quickly as our lives were "too different" to even consider trying to make it work then. We got back together after 15 years and now here we are married 11 years and I feel like we are still on our honeymoon. Every morning he greets me with, "good morning beautiful." It must be love...cause I'm sure not beautiful, especially in the morning. When I was married the first time, I didn't have a clue what real love was. I stuck it out for 12 years (for the children primarily), but just couldn't do it any longer. Stayed single by absolute choice so I could focus on me and become who I wanted to be...not what my mother, teachers, family or husband wanted me to be. Later life love is THE best!

wizewomen@aol.com

 

 

SuzanneWA's avatar SuzanneWA
SuzanneWA said to Suzanne Braun Levine 06/30/2009, 03:20PM new!

I married for the second time at 55 to a man 19 years older, who died 3 months later. We were together for 6 years, and the sex life was GREAT.  Since then, I have met several men on on-line dating.  I have had mind-blowing sex with 3 of them; one for love (who has an extremely LOW libido); and the other ones are sex-only.  I find that foreplay is more important than the act itself.  My sensuality is just an extension of what it has been all my life; I'm NOT slowing down!  I'm 61 now, and enjoy a highly active sex life.

CBW's avatar CBW
CBW said to Suzanne Braun Levine 06/30/2009, 03:20PM new!

After divorce ended a 39 yr marriage, I was "found" by my first college boyfriend and we became friends and lovers over a rocky three years when he couldn't quite make the last steps to falling in love and committing, and I also held back because I wasn't getting the total package.  In this third go-round (4th if you count the two college years), we have both fallen in love deeply and are totally committed to each other.  So wonderful, so grand, such mind-blowing sex!  Sometimes we make love all night or for a few hours in the morning.  I never knew love and sex could be so wonderful, and this after my ex had termed me "frigid" the last several years of marriage!  We are married in our hearts and minds and will take that real step when the real estate market turns around and we can sell our separate houses to buy one together.  We spend half the week together and half apart. which certainly keeps the passion and chemistry sparking.  I never had any idea that deep love and the resultant terrific sex could be this way in my 60's, but it is beyond description.  He tells me that I'm the one he should've held on to and calls me beautiful.  I tell him I want to walk hand-in-hand into the sunset with him.  I am the older woman by a whole ten months which tickles both of us.  I never would have believed all this was true if it hadn't happened to me, but I encouage other women "north of 60" to start search for "the one that got away" and consider hooking up.

TJKR's avatar TJKR
TJKR said to Suzanne Braun Levine 06/30/2009, 03:20PM new!

I stayed single after my last divorce for almost 17 years. (And much as it makes me cringe to admit it...it was my second divorce. 2 before I was 34. Pretty bad track record for sure. Ugh!) I dated...a lot! And mostly the men who asked me out were younger...some times a whole lot younger. It was fun...but I didn't find anyone that I wanted to spend even a weekend with much less live with full time. (Yes, dearie...Paul McCartney was in a group before Wings...you might have heard of them..they were called the Beatles. I didn't want to raise a man...just date him and I needed to be able to talk with him as well.) I was the happiest single lady around...and I had no desire to change that. NONE!!! Husband #2 cured me of the whole marriage thing. And then...I ran into a man that I had known in High School...notice that I said "had known" not dated...we were friends but never dated way back "before the flood". He came into the bank where I worked at the time...we chatted and he left.  A couple of months later, he came back in and we chatted again. Over the next 6 months or so he would come in every now and then, we'd talk and then he would leave.  Just before Thanksgiving he called to make sure that I would not be spending the holiday alone. From Thanksgiving until Christmas we talked on the phone at night while paint for a print he was doing for the family was drying and we wrote letters back and forth. Christmas night he came by the house to show me the print that he had been working on while we chatted...and I could have told you that night that he would be a permanent part of my life. It just felt RIGHT!!!! We married a year and a half later...and there were no qualms...no fears...no hesitations...just pure JOY.  Grandmother was right...it just felt right all the way to the soles of my feet. It's a quieter kind of thing than you feel in your 20s or so...but it's so much nicer. There isn't all that pain and angst that you have when you are younger. I still get a little shiver when my husband walks into the room, and I can't wait to cuddle up next to him when it's time to settle in for the evening in front of the tv or to read a book. He just makes me feel good, special. It's in the little things...a touch or a look. We aren't rich in $$$ but I can't imagine that anyone is happier than we are. We have such fun together...and we spend a lot of our time just laughing over nothing. He loves me thin or fat...blonde or gray...well or not so well. I have never felt so loved or cared for.  We both figure that we had to make a couple of mistakes a piece to get ready to love each other...so we are both appropriately appreciative of our 2 former spouses. Life is good. And FYI-Sex is even better when you are secure enough to laugh while engaging in play.

Pure and Natural