Life lessons anyone can learn from the current crop of women who date in their 40s and 50s
On self worth, boundaries and completing yourself
I hadn’t intended to fire shots against the film Jerry Maguire, but one of the most rotten phrases used in a romantic film is: ‘You complete me.’ That, along with so many other 90s rom-coms, it underpinned the idea that somewhere inside you was a void that could only be filled by another person. That you were unfinished like Edward Scissorhands and lo! Someone came along and transmogrified you a real person.
Like a lot of people who grew up with this ideology, I threw myself into dating, situationships and relationships, hoping they would fix this brokenness in me that I was told I had. In the search for that solution, it also meant I avoided on working on myself and asking some questions about the kind of people I was romantically attracted to. That if a pattern was emerging, particularly around behaviour, it wasn’t just ‘my type’ or who I was fated to love.
When you then layer over various intersections – I’m a woman, which means there is more pressure around achieving domestic success than there generally is for men whose equivalence is economic success, and my family is Indian, a culture which prioritises getting married above any other life goal – it can make for some poor decision-making in dating and relationships.
If you are taught that you are an empty vessel and another person will pour meaning into you, the sacrifices to your sanity and life that you may make in attaining that, can be disastrous. For me, it took three decades, a lot of failed relationships, the most excruciating grief of losing a spouse, and some more dating to realise that no one completes you.
You are not a void to be filled or a puzzle to be figured out. And while partners can support you through difficult times which may range from the financial to health issues, they should amplify and add, but they should never make up the sum of your wholeness. But that is a hard thing to know, and a hard lesson to learn, particularly in your 20s and 30s.
In my 40s, dating has become a completely different thing as a consequence of realising no one completes you. I’m not alone in this - a growing number of women particularly in this age group and in their 50s - are making better, more varied choices around who they are romantically involved with. Most importantly, tailoring their approach to what they want, versus what they are told they should have to avoid being a pitiable figure.
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