Happy Thursday, everyone!

As a single person now in my 50’s I have been pondering relationships of older single people and the purpose of marriage for the over 40 crowd.

It is no secret among those who know me well I have always been a big supporter of the institute of marriage. It has always seemed obvious to me that if  you love someone enough you will want to spend your life together as a married couple whether you are 22 or 82. Recently, I have been entertaining the thought  that marriage is not the only way to show  lifelong commitment. This thought is becoming more relevant as we live in a time when a growing number of people are finding themselves single later in life..

My legal name change several months ago was the fuel that sparked my thought process. ( If you are new to my blog or missed the post, I legally changed my last name to Kelly several months ago.) I still do not have everything changed over to my new name. It is a very long and cumbersome process. Well worth it, but cumbersome nonetheless. Social bias makes it easier for married and divorced women to change their names in comparison to those of use wishing to change for personal reasons, but even then, the older we are the more legal and binding  documents we have  associated with our names.

The hassle of a name change is no reason not to get married but it did make me realize the completeness and complexity of my life and the documents attached to my identity and my identity alone. At 51,  if I were to get married tomorrow  my partner and I would not be building a life together, we would be combining lives already built. Two complete lives with properties, finances, furnishings that each have been accumulating for a half of a century.There is no need to create a sanctuary for the fostering of young children and the traditional family structure, those days are long behind me. That leaves love, deep true committed love as a the reason to get married late in life and that is a beautiful reason. But…does having that kind of love mean a person needs to get married if building a future and raising children is not a part of the picture?

I do not have a straight yes or no answer to that question. However, I am starting to believe that for those of us ‘of a certain age’ who are single, being single may not mean being without a deep committed love. As single people we own our own property, pay our own bills, and make our own decisions about our futures, but there may still be a person in our lives who loves us deeply and is faithful to us in every way. I would like also to believe that person would marry us in a heartbeat if we stated that was our desire.

Marriage much more complex that we imagine in our youth. When we are young we naturally want get married because we are in love and everyone knows when you are in love you get married, right?  In reality, a mature love is the glue and foundation that holds a marriage together but marriage is also a business partnership and a social structure that is the foundation of family life as we know it. At a certain point we move past age of needing a partnership to build a household fit for raising a family.

I am a romantic through and through. I believe that true love can come at any time and show itself in many different ways.I firmly believe no single person has to fear being alone or not being loved and is free to flirt and find romance every day.  Because of my faith and upbringing, when push comes to shove I would probably opt for marriage no matter how late in life if I were to  find myself head over heels in love. Well, if there were no more name changes involved, that is! 🙂

I would love to hear from you! If you are over 40, would you want to get married at this point in your life? If you are in your 20’s or 30’s, do you see marriage as necessary for older singles in love ?

Thanks for stopping by the blog!

Until next time,

Laura