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Good news! Many seniors report they experience more joy, greater affection, and better sex now, in their later years, than they had earlier in their lives.  

This finding comes to us courtesy of OLDER COUPLES: NEW COUPLINGS, Finding and Keeping Love in Later Life, by local authors Edith Ankersmit Kemp, L.C.S.W. and Jerrold E. Kemp, Ed.D. 

They say the lessons learned during a long life can result in maturity and a heightened appreciation for the importance of spending time with and enjoying romantic partners. Age is not a barrier to sexual satisfaction. 

The authors frankly discuss disadvantages of senior romances as well. As partners age, there is an increasing probability one will end up being the other’s long-term caretaker. If elders marry, they could well be headed for a short amount of romantic time together, followed by a long, painful, difficult and expensive caretaking responsibility. Additionally, it is hard to be sure which potential elder partners would even be willing take on that role.  

The 15 relationships showcased in OLDER COUPLES: NEW COUPLINGS demonstrate that romantic opportunities can offer either bliss or pain at any age.  

The authors describe one senior couple who begin sleeping together. Then the man goes on a short trip, meets a wealthy woman, and he jumps at the chance to dump his lover and marry the wealthy woman. This man then betrays the wealthy wife with his former lover. (Sounds like a catch, doesn’t he?) So then, there’s the divorce, and the man returns to the first woman, and now he wants to marry her. (She goes for it!)  

The Kemps don’t make many value judgments. They point out hasty marriages are more common in later years.  

Personally, I like my self-help books to make value judgements, give advice, be the result of thorough and well-thought-out statistical studies and research…and then I want to be offered constructive conclusions about human nature and patterns of experience. 

Plenty of people, though, might prefer the Kemps’ anecdotal approach, which basically reads like a report on 15 couples, filled in with what feels like journal entries and generic commentary. When addressing the plight of senior women for whom the chances of finding a mate are downright depressing – there are 20 eligible bachelorettes for every bachelor – the authors describe their own experience rather than providing a specific targeted course of action an “outnumbered” woman can take.  

The authors do offer useful general advice on various ways to meet romantic senior partners, however, along with some supplemental information, such as the USDA Daily Food Guide Pyramid.  

It is a pleasure to read descriptions such as “her pleasantly wrinkled face” even if grammatical errors, redundancies and word imprecision do mar the reading experience. 

The strength of OLDER COUPLES: NEW COUPLINGS lies in its emphasis on the senior romantic experience – a subject area largely neglected by most popular relationship gurus.