Retiree desires a full life

By KENT S. COLLINS

Q.Taking stock at age 63, I appreciate my life has been good. My childhood was good and average. My adult years were full with a happy marriage and fine children. I am healthy, and I have some mutual funds and a pension.

The only bruise was the happy marriage began to turn sour at age 54 and ended in divorce at age 57. I conveniently blame it on my ex- husband's late mid-life crisis, since before then things were generally good.

But I face retirement wanting more. The good things in the past make me hungry for more good things. What the heck, I have another 10 or 20 years to enjoy. I believe I need the companionship --- maybe sex? --- of a man to enjoy those years ahead of me. But I am confused about such things at this stage in life. Can you advise? --- NO NAME GIVEN

A. Retirement should be a time of renaissance. You have free time, those mutual funds and great experience. You can pursue a little adventure. You can explore yourself. You aren't "set in your ways," unless you want to be.

Love and sex late in life can be part --- or even the focus --- of that exploration. A great book is "Love and Sex After 60" by Robert N. Butler and Myrna I. Lewis (Ballentine Books).

Here are some of the book's ideas that might be part of your process of relationship-making:

- The opportunity for expression of passion, affection, admiration, loyalty and other positive emotions.

- An affirmation of one's body and its functioning.

- A strong sense of self.

- A means of self-assertion.

And my favorite ...

- Protection from anxiety. "An older couple we know," the authors write, "described the warmth of their sexual life as 'a port in the storm,' a place to escape from worry and trouble."

Go explore such ideas to learn about yourself and to size up the qualities you want in a relationship. Go slowly. There is plenty of time. You are still quite young.

Los Angeles Times Syndicate

Copyright 1999
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