Ask Wednesday: Ask Susan

About ladies and aging and looks

By Susan C. Price

[Questions are followed by answers and then, inevitably by ADVICE...you DID expect that...didn’t you?]

I’m a man of 66 and my girlfriend is 67 and looks a lot younger than she is. She is so beautiful, and I’m madly in love with her. We first met 38 years ago, but lost touch, then she tracked me down on Facebook a few years ago and we have been seeing each other for the past six months.
    She always has a smile on her face, but she is so embarrassed about her aging body that we sleep in separate rooms. As a result of how she feels, we’ve never had sex and she’s never let me see her naked.
    What she doesn’t understand is that it’s not important to me so long as I am with her and we’re happy. We get on so well and we’re always so excited to see each other.
    At the moment we live far from each other so only see each other at weekends, although we talk every day on the phone. I’m on a pension, so I can’t afford to drive every day to see her and she is busy working as a caterer, and she also looks after her autistic grandson from 3 p.m. every day.
    She is such a lovely person, but gets so upset when she talks about her body, and her wish is to have an extreme makeover, but neither of us can afford it.
    Please help. –Senior in Love

Dear Senior in Love,
    Ah, ain’t love grand? At every age.
    And every age has its challenges. I know the challenge of being a female in your 60s and seeing the old woman in the mirror. “Yikes! I am 20…inside!!” :-) It doesn’t matter if you were once (or still are) a bit of a beauty, or nothing special in the looks department. Aging face and body can be a consuming pre-occupation. Our culture and our media support and celebrate young, slim, vibrant and YOU CAN FIX THIS, at every opportunity.
    And this assumption/focus is much more insistently directed at women. Guys look “distinguished,” chicks look “old, bumpy, and wrinkly.” So, I would suggest that her pre-occupation with changing her body is sad and annoying...but not so strange. It is also possible that she is concerned, uninterested, conflicted…about sex itself, and is using the aging body issues to avoid this area of life. A therapist (and free ones can be found via your local Public Health center....) might be a safe place to talk about this.
    Only your girlfriend can make the decision in her mind/heart to accept the inevitable...everyone changes. The insides of us (arguably) ARE “prettier” with age. The outsides are as well, if we change our reference point. And accept the great joys of older: Time (she doesn’t yet have that break from work), knowledge, memories, friendship, and. yes, love.
    What you can do? Be supportive. Continue to talk with and see her. Let her know (gently now) that you continue to be interested in her mind, heart, and body...however it appears to her. It sounds like you don’t actually mind the no-touch no-naked approach? Tell her consistently that you like/love HER, her mind, her soul, her intelligence, her sense of duty and humor. Whatever IT is...remind her. If exercise and proper healthy diet might help her body-looks issues, you could join her in pursuing those avenues. Exercise and healthy diet do support mental wellness as well.
    When she obsesses about the visuals, remind her that you don’t care and that most folks don’t care and that…everyone ages visually and physically, EVERYONE. Also remind her that she and you cannot afford extreme makeover and that it is PAINFUL. Take just a piece of the money and time and energy that that sort of surgery would require and go on a mini-vacation somewhere pretty instead (mountains, desert, beach nearby?). That would be better, and the photos would be nice too, better than any “before and after” shot.
    If she seems calmer about this, you can ask her if she expected to look like her young self until the day she died? (I have to ask myself the same question, still. I just never thought about it...not really. And now I look different. Oh well.)

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Copyright © 2015 by Susan C. Price