Rekindling a lost love as a senior

Rekindling a romance has become trendy since the creation of web sites to find old classmates, people search engines, and now social networking websites, but it is not a new phenomenon. I have been researching rekindled romances since 1993. A ma ority of my survey participants !"" percent# chose to reunite with someone they loved when they were 1$ or younger % their first loves. And another &9 percent chose a former sweetheart from late adolescence !ages 1' to &&#. (eniors(ome individuals reported )returning* to people they considered lost loves from when they were ', 9, or 1+ years old. ,articipants older than -", especially, reunited with these )puppy loves.* .hese reunions had the same high success rate as reunions of lost loves from high school or college. .he reunited couple grew up in the same community during their formative years, went to school together, shared a peer group, and were often close to their first love/s family. 0escriptions of the rekindled romances invariably included )comfortable* and )familiar.* 1ack of se2ual involvement when these couples were teens neither increased nor diminished the adult couples/ success in the reunion. Successful senior reunions .hirty3seven percent of the participants were in their 4+s and "+s when they reunited with their lost loves, 1+ percent reconnected between the ages of si2ty to seventy, and 4 percent were in their '+s or 9+s. 1ongevity, of course, is a factor in the decreasing percentages with age. Although the number of reunions decreased with age, the success of these reunions increased. In their written comments on the 5uestionnaire, seniors attributed their success to their maturity6 improved communication skills, a new3found ability not to )sweat the small stuff,* and knowing e2actly how they wanted to spend their later years. .hey also commented that they lacked tolerance for arguments, so they avoided arguing. .hese factors have also been reported in research on relationships of seniors with their spouses and their old friends. .he couples/ love had endured through their many years apart and, in the case of widows and widowers, often through very happy intervening marriages. .hese older reunited couples were more spiritually inclined than the younger participants in the study. .hey often believed they were soul mates and that a 7igher ,ower brought them back together. 8ne man in his $+s wrote6 9here we end up after death, only :od knows. ;ut we will surely be together. Risks & stumbling blocks

.he high success rate for rekindled romances suggests that older adults who are lonely or reluctant to date strangers should consider pursuing an old flame. 7owever, seniors should be warned that there are risks and stumbling blocks. ;y &++", two3thirds of my new survey participants were in e2tramarital affairs. (eniors were no e2ception. <ost of the e2tramarital affairs started with innocent email e2changes= usually the adults who initiated the correspondence were divorced or widowed but found that their lost loves were married. >either of them planned to become involved in an affair, but the correspondence escalated 5uickly6 email led to phone calls, and the vocal reconnection led to a face to face meeting, which usually began an affair. ;ecause they were brought up in an era when premarital and e2tramarital se2 was especially stigmati?ed, members of the 9orld 9ar II generation who were involved in affairs e2pressed shame and guilt to a greater e2tent than younger participants. Affair or not, their adult children often disapproved. 9hen parents were widowed, their children saw the old flames as interlopers. .his is true in many second marriages, but rekindled romances bring special concerns6 the old flame preceded the other parent. @ven middle3aged children felt uncomfortable with that, as if the parent were telling them, ).his is the person I should have married.* In fact, some parents said this directly to their children, leaving them to wonder, )(o then, I shouldn/t have been bornA* In addition, the middle3aged children were often protective. <any believed that the lost loves came back to their parents ust to take their money. And they worried that their parents could not know this person anymore6 after all, "+ years may have passed. (ome adult children e2pressed being worried that a reunion was an indicator that their parents were senile, or at the very least, chasing a fantasy. .o make matters worse, these romances proceeded very rapidly. @lder lost loves feel they have wasted too many years without each other, that they have little time left in life, and they do not want to wait. .hey married within months % or days % of reuniting. >o wonder their middle3aged children were worried. Rekindled romances have a different history and a different pace, they follow different rules and have better outcomes, than average romances. .hese are loves that were interrupted. Bor my oldest couple, the interruption lasted $" years, and the happy marriage began on her 9"th birthday. ;y ,rof 9amba www.lostlovespell.co.?a