Tag: Middle Aged and Dating

Senior marriage-Think it Through

On Life and Love after 50 eNewsletterFebruary 14, 2025
By Columnist Tom Blake

Remarry? Take time to think it through 

Like many of you, I’m busy trying to downsize. My biggest challenge is to get rid of 31 years of writing files, boxed mainly in my garage (the first column was published on July 7, 1994).

Back in 1994, the newspaper listed my articles under the Middle Age and Dating category. Now they are under the On Life and Love after 50 category. And what often happens while downsizing in the garage, I come across an article written years ago and ask myself, does the message still apply in 2025? 

For example, today’s column was first published in the San Clemente Sun Post on August 15, 2009, and was titled Remarry? Take time to think it through. Here is that article in its entirety. 

“Many older singles tell me they would like to marry again. Widows and widowers in particular remember the wonderful times they had and want to recapture similar feelings. Some rush into marriage in a matter of months after meeting a new love. 

Eventually, most divorced people get over their bitterness and some decide they like married life better than being single. If you are one of those who want to tie the knot again, and you are in a rush to do so, take a deep breath. 
(A reminder, this is was written in 2009)

In response to last week’s column about Karen, who met a guy on Singlesnet.com, one woman said, “Thank God you did NOT marry this man. I met a guy…4 months engaged…married after knowing him 6 months. He turned out to be a very jealous, controlling, verbally abusive man after 6 years of marriage. 

“You (Karen) are a free bird to fly away from this dysfunctional person and find a great man who will bring out the best in you and love you unconditionally.” 

However, still seeking the taste of marriage, Karen has reconnected with her ex-husband, but promises she is ‘going slow.’ 
In another case that took place in Oakmont, a Santa Rosa, California retirement community, where single men are rare, a widow accepted a widower’s proposal to marry after five months of dating, fearing that if she didn’t accept, he’d move on to the next widow. (That’s known as settling) She moved in with him. He was a cantankerous old man and from the get-go she had that sinking feeling in her stomach that she’d made a mistake. He ordered new carpeting. After the carpet was laid and he‘d signed off on it, he decided he didn’t like the color. The carpet store said tough luck. He then cut a piece out of it and blamed the store for the hole. They told him to take an even bigger hike. 

Shortly thereafter, his new wife, tired of that kind of behavior, moved back to her home, grateful that she had kept it. Of course, divorce followed. 

In a third situation, a woman met a man online on a religious site. They lived on opposite coasts. She moved to be near where he lived. A few weeks later, they met in person. Within months, they married. A couple of years later she realized he wasn’t ‘as advertised.’ He had little money and didn’t have a job and had become a financial burden on her. They are going through a divorce. 

Let me say this in defense of marriage later in life. Many work out so I’d be out of line to pooh-pooh all later-in-life marriages. Besides, to do that, I’d be shooting myself in the foot. In my new book, How 50 Couples Found Love After 50, which is being released at the end of this month and is now available to purchase online, 60 percent of the couples featured in the book went on to marry. I’m simply suggesting taking it slow before making a later-in-life marriage decision.” So that was from 2009.

And frankly, not much has changed about senior marriage 15 years later. Two months ago, I wrote about Ray and Libby, a couple who knew each other when they were young, and they got reacquainted at Laguna Woods Village, in Orange County, California and what a beautiful marriage they had. My advice remains the same. Take time to think marriage through. I was sharing today’s column with my sister Christine Blake, and she had one piece of advice to add about senior marriage: “Pray it will work.” Good idea Sis!

P.S. now in 2025, I still have a limited supply of How 50 Couples Found Love After 50. No tariffs on the book. Deeply discounted. Seven bucks plus shipping. Email me at tompblake@gmail.com and we will negotiate a deal.

Has the senior dating scene changed in 28 years?

On Life and Love After 50 eNewsletter April 8, 2022

By Columnist Tom Blake

Has the senior dating scene changed in 28 years?

This week, I was rummaging around my computer desktop when I came upon the first newspaper article I wrote. It was published July 8, 1994, in the Laguna Niguel News and the Dana Point News. Those newspapers created a new category called “Middle Aged and Dating.”

“Home alone, with only dogs for company,” was the title of that first article. When I re-read it this week, I thought to myself, “Oh my, age 50-plus dating has changed in many ways in 28 years, but, in some ways, it hasn’t.

Why did I start writing about dating after 50 in 1994? An unexpected divorce was the triggering event. I had been happily married for six years. I spent Christmas 1993 visiting my 83-year-old mom in Northern California. Simultaneously, my wife was taking what furniture and belongings she wanted and moved out. The catch? She hadn’t informed me of her plan.

I wasn’t a writer back then, but I’ve always kept a diary. That move-out event started an entirely new diary chapter. I wrote about the move out, the subsequent divorce, and the rather unsuccessful attempts at trying to date in the first few months after the divorce. I had blind dates, first dates, expensive dates, frigid dates, frustrating dates, and last dates. After each date, I wrote the woe-is-me details in the diary.

Five months later, I converted those diary notes into a 70-page short story. I thought perhaps that some newspaper or magazine might be interested in my hard-luck story, written from the man’s point of view. Luckily, the Laguna Niguel News and Dana Point News editors gave me a chance. They thought my articles would agitate but attract women readers.

At that time, the Internet was just in its infancy, so responses from readers were either faxed to me or left on the newspaper’s telephone InfoLine. There were no Internet dating sites.

As predicted by my editors, that first article struck a chord with women readers. The first message I received on the InfoLine was: “Who is this sniveling puke?” The second message was, “Get the boy a crying towel.” My editors loved those comments.

Tom’s first article July 7, 1994

In that article, I described the middle-aged dating scene as a “jungle.” Not much has changed in that regard, senior dating is still a jungle.

The biggest change: the Internet and online dating. Seniors are able to cast their nets far and wide to try to find a potential mate, which can dramatically improve their chances of meeting someone. However, with the good comes the bad; scammers prey on vulnerable older singles and are a menace to internet dating.

And then, for the last two years, we’ve had this thing called the pandemic, which has made meeting people face-to-face challenging at best.

The terminology has changed. In those days, there were terms like “breaking up” or “petting.” Now, words like ghosting, catfishing, cupcaking, cuffing, breadcrumbing, phishing, and LATs (living apart together) are now tossed around.  

One of the biggest changes in the last 28 years is the ratio of single women to single men. Back when the column began in 1994, the ratio of single women to single men was very close to being equal—one-to-one.

But now, as we seniors reach 70, 80 and beyond, that ratio has reached 4-to-1 or 5-to-1, or even larger, making dating more difficult for women.

Some things haven’t changed: networking through friends to meet potential mates is still an important way for singles to meet. And single people are still lonely, in many cases, even more so. Frustration with dating is still an issue.

And most of us are not with the same partners we were with 28 years ago.

So, yes, things have changed since the middle-aged dating era. We aren’t middle-aged anymore, we’re seniors. To keep up with the times, I’ve changed my column name from Middle Aged and Dating, to Finding Love After 50, to On Life and Love After 50, to Senior Dating. I haven’t figured out what the next term will be. Hopefully, my readers will make suggestions.

In 2013, I changed newspapers from the Orange County Register to the three newspapers that make up Picket Fence Media in South Orange County: the Dana Point Times, San Clemente Times and The Capistrano Dispatch. It was the smartest journalism move I’ve ever made. I’m blessed to still be writing for printed newspapers.

I look back and am grateful for the 28 years of writing columns. There have been nearly 4,430 columns and eNewsletters combined and five printed books published. Some of my readers have been with me for nearly the entire time. I appreciate their friendship and support.

And speaking of appreciating Champs, as I was composing this article on Monday, I received an email from Champ Larry L. in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He sent me a video of Glen Campbell singing the song, “Yesterday When I Was Young.” I hadn’t thought about that song but always enjoyed it. And it seemed to summarize today’s topic of what has changed in 28 years. I also liked Roy Clark’s version.

Here’s the link Larry sent of Glen Campbell singing “Yesterday When I Was Young.”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZVm-vHeG9Q