A friend tells me I shouldn’t say “I’m not marriage material.” He says having been married one time to one man isn’t enough data for such a statement. The idea that I should try many marriages to many people before I draw a conclusion appalls me. I know you don’t succeed if you don’t try, but one failed marriage feels like enough experimenting for me.
I’ll be 55 years old in July. I recently tried yet another dating app, this time one for people age 50 and over. It yielded no more success for me than past ones I’ve also used: Bumble, Tinder, OK Cupid, Plenty of Fish. Those felt like they were full of young people, which is why I tried this one which is called “Our Time.” I should have known it wouldn’t be good from the name. It sounds like it has a rocking chair in its logo. But it was the first and only dating app for old people I had heard of, so I gave it a shot.
Dating apps are probably not the way to go for people my age. The image-centered swiping culture is for photogenic people and in our culture middle-age and old age do not make for photogenic faces/necks/chests. I mostly got attention from people whose profiles didn’t have photos or any information, and from scammers, trying to milk me for money (how to recognize dating scammers here).
Today I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts (Hidden Brain) and heard the following words from one of Shankar’s guests: “My then-boyfriend, now husband…” And I started crying. I was once able to say those words, but now I’d have to say “My then-boyfriend, now ex-husband” and it hurts.
My expectation was to meet a man in my 30s, marry him, and enter middle age comfortably partnered. I did all that. But the story went wrong when he told me he didn’t want to be married to me any more, and by my late 40s I was divorced. To make it worse, part of my response to realizing my marriage was going down the toilet was to swell from a size 10 to a size 18 in space of about eight months. I”ve become stuck at this obese size and have spent the past eight years feeling completely unprepared for another relationship.
There’s a version of my life that died back in 2013 and I haven’t grieved it. It’s time to grieve it.
I accepted long ago that there were roles I would never play: the young bride, the young wife, the mom, the mother-in-law. Some of these unplayed roles stung, others felt like a relief. But there’s another one I’m now turning over in my mind: the aging wife who can remember her partner with dark hair and less of a gut, whose partner can remember her slim and without the double chin. Not everyone gets to play all th0se roles, but I was at least counting on that last one. Even if old age was unavoidable, I anticipated heading into it with someone who remembered our younger selves.
Instead, I’m single and flipping through photos of grandpa-looking men who probably see me as a grandma-looking (or abuelita-looking) woman. I wasn’t able to avoid looking like a mom by not becoming one, and now I’m not even a wife. Many women have lost much more: children, husbands who died, parents they adored, marriage to someone they were still in love with. I didn’t want children and was no longer in love with my husband when he ended things, but there’s still loss here. I’m over the loss of the marriage itself, but I’m uncovering unreleased grief about the loss of the gracefully aging partner I expected to be. I have to find a different way to age gracefully at a point in my life when I don’t feel graceful at all.
4 April 2021
Very good post. I absolutely appreciate this website. Continue the good work!
Hello Regina, I just watched your fabulous review on ‘American Dirt’ – yikes! I’d be nervous if you were reviewing any future novels of mine :)) Incisive and humorous all at once. I was surprised to see it’s the only book review – do more!! What are you reading at the moment?
I felt so sad watching your video after the release of the thoughtless government rules on households celebrating holidays – completely ignoring the painful isolation of single households. I have been blessed to have my parents for company through this strange and rather terrible year.
Sending love across the oceans from Cambridge to you in Chicago xxx Shaista
(p.s. I am a fellow blogger and fellow literature graduate – my blog is called Lupus in Flight…)
Thanks for visiting, Shaista. I like your blog. I could tear apart Stephen King’s Mr. Mercedes for you. Never expected to start vlogging as a side hustle to my blog, but maybe I will.