On Life and Love after 50 eNewsletter July 21, 2023 A man ignored senior relationship warning signals By Columnist Tom Blake |
| Shame on the Moon A man ignored senior relationship warning signals (Note from Tom: the photo above is Tom negotiating a pre-nuptial agreement for two seniors thinking of getting married. It’s a joke of course.) A man we’ll call Jack emailed this week: “Tom, I’ve enjoyed reading your posts and thought I’d share another episode in the senior arena of relationships. “I’m 73 and a well-educated guy with a doctorate after a 45-year successful career. About 12 years ago (at age 61) I met a very attractive woman, 15 years younger, in my same profession. We fell in love quickly. “After a year of dating, we decided to move in together, on the condition as she said, “We should be getting married or engaged before moving in together.” Signal #1. “I/we bought a townhome on the premise we would marry and then we moved in together. Her name went on the title based on the prospect of marrying, per my attorney and hers. Signal #2. (Senior dating – moving in together) “We continued to live together for the next 10 years, traveling, dining out, and enjoying life. We attempted to prepare a pre-nuptial agreement but could not come to terms. Signal #3. Our relationship was mostly peaceful and intertwined but with challenging personalities. I paid 100% of everything over a 10-year period. Signal #4 (in senior dating who pays?) It was not a perfect relationship. I’ve taken responsibility for what I contributed to the challenges along the way. I won’t go into the messy details. “I became seriously ill in December 2022, requiring a week hospital stay. Two weeks after the hospital release, my companion announced she had purchased a condo elsewhere and was moving out in a month. Final Signal. “I was devastated and fell into all the grief stages at once. I felt the worst pain ever. It’s now been six months; lawyers are involved with trying to have her name removed from the deed so I can move on. It’s getting messy. I’m an unmarried man (thankfully) but feel like a divorced man. “I’ve been in therapy to understand what happened and why it happened, and to better know myself. Therapy has been a grateful help and I’m getting better with time. My former companion has a new partner, but how long it has been going on I don’t know. I was loyal. “What I’ll pass along from what I’ve learned…and I’m still learning…. Do not take your partner for granted. Express your love continuously. Think straight about the legal ramifications of relationships and protect yourself. “Take personal responsibility for your errors and apologize in a way that enables your partner to feel your remorse. As Ted Lasso said, your gut and your heart are closely aligned … trust your gut while listening to your heart.” Tom’s comments Thankfully, Jack found a good therapist to help him through his difficult time of grieving. Therapists can be very helpful in a time of need. In a way, Jack’s situation sounds eerily like my third marriage. It ended differently but in a similar way. It’s easy for me and Champs to find fault in Jack’s behavior. He should have done this, he should have done that, etc., So, I don’t want to rant on him or make him feel worse than he already does. But I must say this: 1 Moving in together was ok for Jack, but not under the premise of getting married. And putting her on the title was unwise. For me, after wife number three (also 15 years younger) and I had been married for two years and she was not on the title, she lobbied for us to move to a new home about a half mile away, “To be closer to the beach,” is how she put it, but now I think it was also to be put on the title. I bought a new home and foolishly put her on the title, thinking we were in the marriage together for the long haul. The mortgage interest rate was around 13 percent. I didn’t pay for everything in our marriage, but probably 80%. 2 Why did Jack pay 100 percent for everything for 10 years? Ridiculous. Perhaps that was the price of being with a woman 15 years younger. Maybe she had planned that all along. He was foolish for allowing that arrangement. 3 Jack said his relationship wasn’t perfect. None are. Don’t go into any relationship thinking it will be perfect. He didn’t explain the “messy” details. 4 Jack says to express your love to her continuously; he seems to think she might not have bailed out on him if he had. Regardless of how he treated her, and how much love he expressed, she would have bailed anyway. He said he was loyal, but it didn’t seem to matter to her. 5 When adversity hit in the form of his illness, Jack’s companion coldly and ruthlessly moved on. A similar situation happened to me in my third marriage. In the early 1990s, when a recession hit Southern California, I told my wife we needed to tighten our financial belt. I didn’t realize it, but I believe she decided at that very moment to start planning her exit. Less than two years later, at Christmas time, I went to Northern California to visit my 83-year-old mom. My wife and her two boys didn’t want to go with me, which was okay with me as I enjoyed alone time with Mom and my sisters and brother-in-law. That was the opening my wife had waited for. On Christmas Eve, 1993, she and her two boys cleaned out the house, taking what furniture and belongings they wanted, and moved out of my life. There was no warning, no notice, just a sneaky clean-out. Shortly thereafter, she filed for divorce. In my opinion, she felt she had squeezed every drop of dinero out of me and it was time for her to seek greener pastures. Having her on title cost me a bundle of bucks in the divorce settlement. She used me, just as Jack’s woman used him. Both Jack and I allowed that to happen. Shame on us, but hindsight is always easier. Of course, this reminds me of Bob Seger’s song, “Shame on the Moon.” See the link below. 5 Because Jack’s companion bailed, he’s suffering enormous grief. Most of us who have lost mates, in one way or another—spouses, mates, animals, friends–understand the pain of Jack’s grief. Perhaps he was kidding himself all along that she loved and cared for him. It’s still painful for him. Hopefully, that therapist will get him aimed in the right direction. A pre-move-in agreement should have been prepared and signed. Since he paid for everything, why did he also put her on the title? Good luck to Jack with getting her name off the document. Let’s hope Jack has learned to think with his brain and not just with his heart. And me too. Link to Bob Seger’s “Shame on the Moon.” Shame on the Moon by Bob Seger |
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