Get Off My Yawn!
I'm a 61-year-old guy who's been married four times. I love the security and acceptance of marriage, but after several years, either my wife du jour or I will get bored, and we'll agree to move on. Clearly, I like being a husband, but I do a poor job of remaining one. Can I change that?
--Chairman Of The Bored
So, you just want the security of marriage with all the excitement of dating somebody new -- which is kind of like wanting a latex hood and ball gag that are also a comfy old pair of slippers.
Though, no, you can't have it all, you might manage to have a good bit of it all -- the security and the excitement -- by bringing in the neurochemistry of the chase when you're in the cuddly-wuddly long-term attachment stage. This probably sounds complicated, but it's basically the brain version of how your freezer can serve as both an ice cube manufacturing area and a makeshift morgue for Squeaky the hamster, until you can give him a proper burial.
It turns out that the goo-goo-eyed "Granny and I are still so in luvvv!" and the bug-eyed "Wowee, that's new and exciting!" can have some brain parts and neurochemicals in common. Social psychologist Arthur Aron and his colleagues did a brain imaging study of couples who were still passionately in love after being married for 10 to 29 years. Surprisingly, the results looked a lot like their previous results on couples who'd just fallen madly in love, with intense activity in regions of the brain "associated with reward and motivation."
The neurotransmitter dopamine is a central player in this reward circuitry. Though dopamine is still widely known by its outdated nickname, the "pleasure chemical," current research by neuroscientist Kent Berridge suggests that it doesn't actually give you a buzz (as opioids in the brain do). It instead motivates you to do things that might -- like eating cake, smoking a doob, and making moves on that girl with the hypno-hooters.
Dopamine-secreting neurons are especially on the alert for what researchers call "novel rewards" -- any yummy, sexy, feel-good stuff you haven't tried before. Neuroscientist Wolfram Schultz finds that "unpredictable rewards" may be even three or four times as exciting to us as those we're used to.
The problem is, when there's nothing new on the horizon, there's no reason for your dopamine to get out of bed. In other words, there's a neurochemical explanation for why your marriages often go dullsville. But, there's also good news: Aron and his colleagues note that "if partners experience excitement" from, say, "novel and challenging activities" that they do together, "this shared experience can reignite relationship passion by associating the excitement with the relationship."
Obviously, these should be unanticipated good experiences -- like alternating who plans date night and surprising each other with the week's event -- not having your spouse find you in bed with the cleaning lady. You might also try to delight your spouse with small unexpected gestures every day. Ultimately, you should find bringing in surprise much more fun than simply hoping the relationship won't die -- kind of like a paramedic just staring down at a heart attack victim: "Not lookin' good, dude! Hope you didn't have any big weekend plans!"
As the old joke goes. Why not just find a woman you hate and buy her a house?
Seriously though. Unless you are looking for a nurse with a purse, why get married at all at 61?
Wouldn't a long term or a series of short term romances be less hard on the old pocketbook?
Im a 61 year old woman, in a stable financial situation. I have no interest in a scond marriage, let alone a fifth.
Im afriad the pool of sane stable woman wanting to hook up with a four time loser is vanishingly small.
Isab at March 8, 2017 5:07 AM
I would think Isab to be more correct than not but I think LW has a point that's not due to "pleasure".
With the exception of four years I've been married all of my adult life, the majority of which has been in crisis mode due to children with special/unique needs which eliminated the opportunity to correct for mistaken judgement.
Point: I am so used to being "married" that although my nature is like that of Isab, I'm not sure I could not be married after a certain point.
Example: A good family friend over 70 remarried a HS friend over 70. Both are financially wealthy (although he is the typical overall clad tractor owning smart old guy and she a former Head Nurse at the Mayo Clinic).
Why?
They both had suffered an extended period gradually losing their SO and then encountered a new significant challenge. Mutual support blossomed into "We will get married." so there's something there other than pleasure.
An underlying need for a "partner"?
Bob in Texas at March 8, 2017 5:45 AM
This is why we like to keep "tickets in the drawer." We always have something on the horizon to look forward to, whether it's travel to a place we've never been before or an outing to see a new play or concert. We enjoy meeting new people and experiencing new things. When you are exploring something new together, you are stimulating the brain and keeping your relationship alive. After 10 years of marriage and 12+ years together, my 4th husband and I are as in love or more as the day we got together.
cp_deb at March 8, 2017 8:46 AM
the pool of sane stable woman wanting to hook up with. . . anyone, seems to be pretty empty past a certain age. The two I've been with since my divorce, both 65+, turned out to be batsh*t crazy.
Rex Little at March 8, 2017 9:02 AM
"An underlying need for a "partner"?"
Sapolsky has said marriage is universal because human beings are socially monogamous. The pair bonding phenomenon is true even in polygamous cultures, when given the choice men and women prefer it.
However the expectation of sexual monogamy within a marriage is not. That doesn't mean men or women were out fucking randoms. From what I remember (and this is true of chimps and baboons) it's family friends.
In my opinion the problem for most people is that they think they're supposed to have this super love feeling for their spouse. Sure there are some couples that truly permanently feel this way but that is the exception not the rule.
Sapolsky jokingly said when they did the brain imaging studies that Alkon mentioned they found that most people after a certain period of time their brain interprets their beloved like it does a comfortable old chair. Basically the parts in your brain having to do with comfort and empathy are activated not those dopamine parts.
Ppen at March 8, 2017 2:12 PM
Here is a 1 min. video where he explains the study:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qE8NAq5VtVM
Ppen at March 8, 2017 2:17 PM
"Sapolsky jokingly said when they did the brain imaging studies that Alkon mentioned they found that most people after a certain period of time their brain interprets their beloved like it does a comfortable old chair. Basically the parts in your brain having to do with comfort and empathy are activated not those dopamine parts."
I believe this. There are short periods of time when I am passionately connected to my husband, but the reason people get married is the same reason people form extended families.
Most of the time, in a dangerous world, you are just looking for someone who has your back, and whose skill set fills in the weaknesses in yours.
However I have found having regular sex, leads to more sex, and a deeper and more loving connection to your mate.
So if sex goes, a lot of other connectedness often leaves with it.
When this happens, the loyal people, with values usually stay married, and the rest fly off looking for a new romantic fix.
I love my husband of 36 years, but more importantly I like him and respect him. He's one of those *one in a million* human beings..
If he predeceses me, I am not going to replace him with some geriatric fuck buddy that I have no history with. My loyalties stay with my children.
I have an older friend who has been married sixty years, but not to the same guy. Three different men, twenty years each. Takes all kinds I guess. You certainly can't accuse her of being impulsive.
Isab at March 8, 2017 2:57 PM
ok, what does age matter? You can fall in love at any age. So what if he's age 61 or not he's legal.
Rev Kelly-Jien Warner at March 20, 2017 10:02 AM
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