The new reality of dating over 65: Men want to live together; women don't [View all]

[Mme. Defarge]

Antonio D’Alfonso, 66, is a believer in marriage: He wed three times and was hoping for a fourth go.

For more than a decade, D’Alfonso, a Montreal writer, has been dating a Toronto widow. The two see each other every couple of months. D’Alfonso wanted more: He proposed five times, only to be rebuffed with every try. The older woman refused to live with him, D’Alfonso said, because she wanted to travel and be free. “I have to ask, and I always ask, so what do you want from me?” he said.

The pair took a two-year hiatus, during which D’Alfonso tried dating other senior-age women only to find that they, too, were reluctant to share a home – this even as D’Alfonso said he cooks and keeps a tidy house.

“I really believe that women no longer need men, whatsoever,” D’Alfonso said. “I’m totally irrelevant.”

D’Alfonso’s push-and-pull with his partners reflects a rift emerging between single women older than 65 and the men they date. Increasingly, these men are encountering resistance from older women who want their own lives, not a full-time relationship. While many in this generation of heterosexual, divorced or widowed women want male companionship, they don’t necessarily relish the thought of moving in with a man. Today, say researchers studying this cohort, more older women are rejecting the downsides of the live-in relationship: the co-dependence, the daily tension within close quarters and the sacrifices made keeping a home, caregiving and doing the emotional legwork to keep their unions humming. Some of these women completely forego dating while others opt for “living apart together” (LAT) arrangements, in which partners in committed relationships choose to keep separate residences.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/relationships/article-women-older-than-65-dont-want-to-live-with-their-partners/?fbclid=IwAR08AJG2MXj4xY52snJlBJphYny3QUBw6V-_y1-Nj5JDd_6dOS5z-FguQww