In midlife, they're unexpectedly single
Engaged twice but never married, Carmen Morris didn't expect she would be single at midlife. Nor did Larry Alpert, who divorced more than two decades ago. Nor Karen Bolea, widowed in 1997.
``You don't grow up thinking you're going to be single in your fifties,'' says Morris, 51, of South Dade. ``You don't set out to not marry.''
Yet, Morris, who owns a house and her own business, is flying solo at a time when most people her age are paired off. She is part of a growing number of baby boomers who find themselves living la vida sola just as their children are leaving the nest.
More boomers are single -- almost 30 percent -- than any previous group of 45-to-64-year-olds, according to the U.S. Census. Thirty years ago, when many of these boomers were marrying, the unattached made up only 19 percent of this age cohort.
The details of this demographic shift are particularly telling. The percentage of divorced singles has doubled in 30 years, from 7 percent in 1980 to 15.6 percent in 2009. The never-married have also grown, from 5.3 percent to 9.6 percent. Only the category of widowed singles has dropped -- by more than half, from 8 percent in 1980 to 3.6 percent in 2009.
The steady growth in boomer singles parallels dramatic changes in society as a whole. More than 96 million Americans -- 43 percent of adult U.S. residents -- are unmarried, the highest percentage ever.
Experts say that number is not likely to change: More people are waiting to tie the knot or forgo marriage altogether. More are cohabitating. And more women are financially independent, making it less urgent for them to find a mate.
``Being single is no longer a condition to be cured,'' says Judy Ford, a Washington-based psychotherapist and author of Single: The Art of Being Satisfied, Fulfilled and Independent. ``There is more acceptance. People are finding out that being married is not the only way to have joy and love and a full life."
HAS A BUSINESS
Morris is a typical example. She runs her own marketing and public relations business, Carmen Morris & Associates. She founded a non-profit, Sanctuary of Moses Ministries, which fights child slavery in West Africa and takes her to Africa on a regular basis.
When she got pregnant in a long-term relationship, she kept the baby, though his father is no longer in the picture. Daniel is now 18, and she's moving him to Dublin to study music. She will stay there until the end of the year to settle him in -- and she didn't have to ask anybody's permission to go.
``I don't know if I could've done that if I was married,'' she adds. ``Being single has made me a very independent person.''
Alpert, 57, echoes this sentiment. Childless after a three-year marriage early in life, he has never felt the need to wed again, though he was in a long-term relationship while he lived in Brooklyn. ``I'm not planning to have children, so I really don't plan to remarry,'' he says. But he would like to have a steady woman in his life.
When he moved to Coconut Creek three years ago, he joined various singles group -- to date but also to make friends. He likes to swim, kayak and canoe and, with a new carpet-cleaning business to tend to, he has plenty to do.
When Bolea, 55, was widowed 13 years ago, she devoted herself to her two sons, now 28 and 22, and to a new home furnishings business, GK Design Center, with business partner, Gabriela Blasini. But she also realized that the tragedy was an opportunity for personal growth.
``I went to this luncheon and this guy asked me what I liked to do,'' she recalls. ``I felt like the biggest moron. What I liked to do was whatever I did with the kids. I knew that had to change. I hadn't really done what I wanted to do.''
So she dated and took up running. Now, she's training for two marathons in October.
Bella DePaulo, a social psychologist who writes the Living Single blog for Psychology Today, says older people often find that being unattached can be fulfilling. ``You develop a greater sense of self,'' she says. ``As you get older, what other people think doesn't matter as much.''
What's more, marital status no longer defines people. Social acceptance of past taboos -- sex outside marriage, children out of wedlock, women in the workplace -- has allowed singles to strike out on their own and build relationships that might have been frowned upon in the past.
``The idea that if you get married, your life will fall into place, that you're basically superior by the very act of being married, isn't what people think anymore,''DePaulo adds. ``People go on and build their lives.''
Because people are marrying later and living longer, they can expect to spend more time unattached than ever before. For some, that also means building a support network of single and married friends.
DIVORCED MAN
Alan Harris, 56, has two grown children and has been divorced for 10 years. A court reporter who owns his own business, A.J. Reporting Service, he dates and goes out with his friends. If he has a work-related concern, he bounces ideas off colleagues.
``I have friends I can talk to and we hang out,'' he says.
But he admits that he misses the intimacy of marriage. ``I like the idea of being married. I like the idea of being part of a family unit.''
Bolea also says she doesn't want for company but occasionally finds herself pining for the closeness that comes with a shared life. Her youngest son returned home after college, and she moved her 95-year-old mother into her Kendall home earlier this summer.
``I have a lot of good girlfriends to bounce things off,'' Bolea says. ``And I date. If the right person comes along, I'm open to remarrying.''
Like Harris and Bolea, many boomer singles date, some more avidly than others. There's been a proliferation of online dating sites aimed at mature singles, including meetcha.com , founded by Jeff Taylor, the man who started the jobs site Monster.com and eons.com, a social networking site aimed at boomers.
DATING SITES
People who reach midlife unattached are ``a growing market. You may not want to get married, but you definitely want to have someone to share your life with,'' Taylor says.
Meetcha, the new dating website, seeks to bring people together in big cities through an idea Taylor has labeled PODS -- people out doing stuff. In other words, hanging out with others who share your interests.
Socializing in the safety of a group, Taylor adds, is less intimidating for singles, who re-enter the dating world with trepidation.
``If the last time you dated you were 21, you're going to face certain shocks when you go out there again,'' says Pepper Schwartz, University of Washington sociologist and AARP's love and relationship expert. She will be speaking about this subject at AARP's national conference in Orlando on Oct. 2.
``There are a lot of spoken rules and unspoken rules they have to familiarize themselves with. After the first coffee, do you split the expenses on the second coffee? The third? At what point does sexuality enter the picture? Who calls back?''
Psychotherapist Ford says newbie singles often come to her with a variety of worries. ``Women say they're afraid to take their clothes off and men worry that they don't function as they did when they were younger,'' she adds.
And though they're older, not all singles are wiser. An AARP report released in May, shows that only 12 percent of single men and 33 percent of single women use condoms to protect against sexually transmitted disease.
Some boomers have opted out of dating completely. Maria Lopez's last date was in 1997, when she was 40. Divorced and the mother of two grown children, she lives in Hialeah with her mother and her youngest son, who recently moved back after separating from his wife.
``I do miss male companionship and sometimes when I get melancholic, I ask myself, `when will a good man hold me?' '' she admits.
But she's grown used to her freedom: ``I can do whatever I want to whenever I want to.''
In many ways, finding a partner later in life can be more difficult than a youthful pairing. Though children may be grown, some might object to having a stranger take up a parent's time -- or potential inheritance. There are also ex-spouses to contend with, and many boomers serve as caregivers to elderly parents.
``When people get older, they settle into a way of life that is important to them,'' Schwartz says. ``It's not that they don't want a partner, but they're not willing to change some things. They've gotten into a comfortable groove.''
``You don't grow up thinking you're going to be single in your fifties,'' says Morris, 51, of South Dade. ``You don't set out to not marry.''
Yet, Morris, who owns a house and her own business, is flying solo at a time when most people her age are paired off. She is part of a growing number of baby boomers who find themselves living la vida sola just as their children are leaving the nest.
More boomers are single -- almost 30 percent -- than any previous group of 45-to-64-year-olds, according to the U.S. Census. Thirty years ago, when many of these boomers were marrying, the unattached made up only 19 percent of this age cohort.
The details of this demographic shift are particularly telling. The percentage of divorced singles has doubled in 30 years, from 7 percent in 1980 to 15.6 percent in 2009. The never-married have also grown, from 5.3 percent to 9.6 percent. Only the category of widowed singles has dropped -- by more than half, from 8 percent in 1980 to 3.6 percent in 2009.
The steady growth in boomer singles parallels dramatic changes in society as a whole. More than 96 million Americans -- 43 percent of adult U.S. residents -- are unmarried, the highest percentage ever.
Experts say that number is not likely to change: More people are waiting to tie the knot or forgo marriage altogether. More are cohabitating. And more women are financially independent, making it less urgent for them to find a mate.
``Being single is no longer a condition to be cured,'' says Judy Ford, a Washington-based psychotherapist and author of Single: The Art of Being Satisfied, Fulfilled and Independent. ``There is more acceptance. People are finding out that being married is not the only way to have joy and love and a full life."
HAS A BUSINESS
Morris is a typical example. She runs her own marketing and public relations business, Carmen Morris & Associates. She founded a non-profit, Sanctuary of Moses Ministries, which fights child slavery in West Africa and takes her to Africa on a regular basis.
When she got pregnant in a long-term relationship, she kept the baby, though his father is no longer in the picture. Daniel is now 18, and she's moving him to Dublin to study music. She will stay there until the end of the year to settle him in -- and she didn't have to ask anybody's permission to go.
``I don't know if I could've done that if I was married,'' she adds. ``Being single has made me a very independent person.''
Alpert, 57, echoes this sentiment. Childless after a three-year marriage early in life, he has never felt the need to wed again, though he was in a long-term relationship while he lived in Brooklyn. ``I'm not planning to have children, so I really don't plan to remarry,'' he says. But he would like to have a steady woman in his life.
When he moved to Coconut Creek three years ago, he joined various singles group -- to date but also to make friends. He likes to swim, kayak and canoe and, with a new carpet-cleaning business to tend to, he has plenty to do.
When Bolea, 55, was widowed 13 years ago, she devoted herself to her two sons, now 28 and 22, and to a new home furnishings business, GK Design Center, with business partner, Gabriela Blasini. But she also realized that the tragedy was an opportunity for personal growth.
``I went to this luncheon and this guy asked me what I liked to do,'' she recalls. ``I felt like the biggest moron. What I liked to do was whatever I did with the kids. I knew that had to change. I hadn't really done what I wanted to do.''
So she dated and took up running. Now, she's training for two marathons in October.
Bella DePaulo, a social psychologist who writes the Living Single blog for Psychology Today, says older people often find that being unattached can be fulfilling. ``You develop a greater sense of self,'' she says. ``As you get older, what other people think doesn't matter as much.''
What's more, marital status no longer defines people. Social acceptance of past taboos -- sex outside marriage, children out of wedlock, women in the workplace -- has allowed singles to strike out on their own and build relationships that might have been frowned upon in the past.
``The idea that if you get married, your life will fall into place, that you're basically superior by the very act of being married, isn't what people think anymore,''DePaulo adds. ``People go on and build their lives.''
Because people are marrying later and living longer, they can expect to spend more time unattached than ever before. For some, that also means building a support network of single and married friends.
DIVORCED MAN
Alan Harris, 56, has two grown children and has been divorced for 10 years. A court reporter who owns his own business, A.J. Reporting Service, he dates and goes out with his friends. If he has a work-related concern, he bounces ideas off colleagues.
``I have friends I can talk to and we hang out,'' he says.
But he admits that he misses the intimacy of marriage. ``I like the idea of being married. I like the idea of being part of a family unit.''
Bolea also says she doesn't want for company but occasionally finds herself pining for the closeness that comes with a shared life. Her youngest son returned home after college, and she moved her 95-year-old mother into her Kendall home earlier this summer.
``I have a lot of good girlfriends to bounce things off,'' Bolea says. ``And I date. If the right person comes along, I'm open to remarrying.''
Like Harris and Bolea, many boomer singles date, some more avidly than others. There's been a proliferation of online dating sites aimed at mature singles, including meetcha.com , founded by Jeff Taylor, the man who started the jobs site Monster.com and eons.com, a social networking site aimed at boomers.
DATING SITES
People who reach midlife unattached are ``a growing market. You may not want to get married, but you definitely want to have someone to share your life with,'' Taylor says.
Meetcha, the new dating website, seeks to bring people together in big cities through an idea Taylor has labeled PODS -- people out doing stuff. In other words, hanging out with others who share your interests.
Socializing in the safety of a group, Taylor adds, is less intimidating for singles, who re-enter the dating world with trepidation.
``If the last time you dated you were 21, you're going to face certain shocks when you go out there again,'' says Pepper Schwartz, University of Washington sociologist and AARP's love and relationship expert. She will be speaking about this subject at AARP's national conference in Orlando on Oct. 2.
``There are a lot of spoken rules and unspoken rules they have to familiarize themselves with. After the first coffee, do you split the expenses on the second coffee? The third? At what point does sexuality enter the picture? Who calls back?''
Psychotherapist Ford says newbie singles often come to her with a variety of worries. ``Women say they're afraid to take their clothes off and men worry that they don't function as they did when they were younger,'' she adds.
And though they're older, not all singles are wiser. An AARP report released in May, shows that only 12 percent of single men and 33 percent of single women use condoms to protect against sexually transmitted disease.
Some boomers have opted out of dating completely. Maria Lopez's last date was in 1997, when she was 40. Divorced and the mother of two grown children, she lives in Hialeah with her mother and her youngest son, who recently moved back after separating from his wife.
``I do miss male companionship and sometimes when I get melancholic, I ask myself, `when will a good man hold me?' '' she admits.
But she's grown used to her freedom: ``I can do whatever I want to whenever I want to.''
In many ways, finding a partner later in life can be more difficult than a youthful pairing. Though children may be grown, some might object to having a stranger take up a parent's time -- or potential inheritance. There are also ex-spouses to contend with, and many boomers serve as caregivers to elderly parents.
``When people get older, they settle into a way of life that is important to them,'' Schwartz says. ``It's not that they don't want a partner, but they're not willing to change some things. They've gotten into a comfortable groove.''
