loneliness late in life

Being happily married for 50 years with nary a fight doesn't mean you won't outlive your spouse and spend another 20 years totally alone. In fact, that happens more often than most people think, because lonely old people are out of sight and out of mind and have been a forgotten part of the western world's population for at least 80 years. Having a long-term, stable marriage and children just increases the chance that you'll be pressured into taking up residence in an old folks' home for the convenience of your "busy" children (who "don't have the means to provide proper care" because they place greater value on other things and aren't motivated to try). The idea that having a mate prevents loneliness later in life is totally false. In fact, old widows and widowers who had stable, long-term relationships can feel lonelier than people who never had anyone because they still have the memory of what they've lost.

Discuss.

mickey said:

Being happily married for 50 years with nary a fight doesn't mean you won't outlive your spouse and spend another 20 years totally alone. In fact, that happens more often than most people think, because lonely old people are out of sight and out of mind and have been a forgotten part of the western world's population for at least 80 years. Having a long-term, stable marriage and children just increases the chance that you'll be pressured into taking up residence in an old folks' home for the convenience of your "busy" children (who "don't have the means to provide proper care" because they place greater value on other things and aren't motivated to try). The idea that having a mate prevents loneliness later in life is totally false. In fact, old widows and widowers who had stable, long-term relationships can feel lonelier than people who never had anyone because they still have the memory of what they've lost.

Discuss.

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That is such a profound perspective.
When death comes for those we love, young or old, whether you've had a lifetime together of a brief moment in eternity, it's such a deep loss. It's a sad testament to what we as a culture place value on. I know when my father was dying I went to see him every day, be it in the hospital or the nursing home, be it before work or after, every day. It's shameful the way people drop their parents into a nursing home and forget about them...

Orson Welles: "We're born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we're not alone."

mickey said:

Being happily married for 50 years with nary a fight doesn't mean you won't outlive your spouse and spend another 20 years totally alone.

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That's definitely true in Western cultures that are value the nuclear family - husband and wife who raise a few kids with a focus on making sure the kids learn to be independent and said kids go away when they grow up, sometimes moving many thousands of miles away.
However, there are many cultures that value extended families and you don't see elderly people left to fend for themselves in those cultures. I have many Latin American friends here (that I consider to be like family to me) and they take care of their relatives, sometimes with multiple generations living under one roof. Of course, it's still possible to be lonely in that scenario but certainly not alone.

-Teresa

Hi, Jenna,

My condolences on your loss and a tip of the cap on the fact that you hung in there with your dad. My mother died in November 2011 and it was a similar experience. My parents were married for 49 years and my father still misses her. Even though my father, my brother and I live in the same apartment, sons cannot supply the same companionship as a nearly lifelong spouse. I've also discovered a brand new respect for my brother, who sacrifices his personal happiness in order to stay with our father in his last years. I am unable to take care of myself and have nowhere else to go, but my brother is a professional with extensive experience and could very easily live in his own house with his own wife and kids if he weren't all about duty and obligation. I used to have contempt for him for being "Kantian" but no longer do.

But my post was more intended to reassure the lonely people on this forum who are afraid that they'll be alone in their last days if they don't find a mate. I tried to point out that having had and then lost a mate can actually be worse than never having had one, and that a mate rarely prevents end-of-life loneliness. The post is a bit vitriolic but constructively intended.

Teresa,

Sorry if my post was ethnocentric. See my second paragraph above. And you're right that it's possible to be lonely even when in a crowded subway car with someone's elbow in your ear. In fact, that latter is the rule rather than the exception.

I don't think that having a mate and then losing then can be worse than not having had one, as at least you have a happy and emotionally fulfilled life to look back on. Many of us here don't have this. We just have years of deep loneliness to look back on.

mickey said:

Being happily married for 50 years with nary a fight doesn't mean you won't outlive your spouse and spend another 20 years totally alone.

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Yet another reason I skipped the whole marriage thing. I don't know if you had this experience but my mom ended up the caregiver to my dad for 10 years at the end of her life. Then promptly got ill herself so never got to live.

That said, from the kiddies perspective, I think it is selfish for elders to expect too much out of them. The kids have to work and live and their life. My mom refused to go to a "old age home" even thought that would have cost us a TON of money (so it wouldn't have been great for us) and then chose to get drunk and go outside at night on zero degree night. Where she fell and was very lucky she could make it back inside to call me. But yet, refused to go into such a home. In the end I lost my 20s and 30s caring for them when I wasn't working and that is probably why I am alone and will be for good. I just had no chance in my prime years.

Basically I am a little scared about what I can expect when I get older. I only pray that I am in pretty good shape. I plan on having a dog for company and before I am 55 purchasing a 1 floor home.

Tiina63 said:

I don't think that having a mate and then losing then can be worse than not having had one, as at least you have a happy and emotionally fulfilled life to look back on. Many of us here don't have this. We just have years of deep loneliness to look back on.

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I would have to agree with you.

Losing someone can bring on a chilling loneliness quite unlike the constant drone of this lonely existence and while there is a tendency for every horse to think their pack is the heaviest, I do have something vaguely like an appreciation, that I can look back and see what once was. I can see that at one time I did feel like I had a place in this world. To me that seems better than being convinced that such a thing could never be.

I'm the personal caregiver in my family and always have been. I never married and always dreaded bringing a lady home to meet the family....they loathed my 2 older brothers' wives. Mom was always descending into and out of depression and elation and I had to manage many things in the home as a result. Dad had his career, his hobbies and his cronies......and made use of me, doing the family obligations he should have done.....and he seemed to resent me for it and made sure I knew that.

Well Dad's dead and good riddance, the 2 brothers live a few time zones away and are out of the picture and here I am, 62 years old still managing the home with my 91 year old, mood disordered mother whom I took to the emergency room last night (in a raging thunderstorm) and there's no one to look after me and never has been......

When she's gone I'll be aging alone, which I'm accustomed to, and this was my life?

On the positive side, we have a comfy home on 12 rural acres and own a farm with a good operator, but still....really! I could have managed my own life better.......

Tiina63 said:

I don't think that having a mate and then losing then can be worse than not having had one, as at least you have a happy and emotionally fulfilled life to look back on. Many of us here don't have this. We just have years of deep loneliness to look back on.

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Spot on. Can't be more accurate than this. Having cheerful memories is one of the best things old people have.

This is just another reason to understand and accept yourself and to understand how to be happy when you're entirely alone. To enjoy that loneliness rather than to resent it.
If you can't do that then finding someone is only going to temporarily dismiss the feeling of loneliness... unless you die first. Obviously that happens just as much as often as the times when one person is left alone. It's kind of just how the math works out. So I guess some people just play with their odds.

The input from active caregivers is valuable, so thank you. There really are no good options when you become unviable and others have to care for you.

I cared for my parents for several years when they became frail and old. I do worry who will look after me if I ever need it as I have absolutely no one. Hope I go suddenly one day, before needing care.

Tiina63 said:

I don't think that having a mate and then losing then can be worse than not having had one, as at least you have a happy and emotionally fulfilled life to look back on. Many of us here don't have this. We just have years of deep loneliness to look back on.

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I have to agree with you, Tiina63.

I'd rather have a girlfriend or a wife, whom I know that I have spent time with during the majority of my lifetime.

After she passes away, yes, it's sad. But at least you had somebody to spend time with, and you weren't living a lonely life.
At least an elderly widowed person who was married with children can look back on life and acknowledge the times where he or she spent time with children, or heck, even grandchildren, before they enter the stage of having to live a shittier life in a care home or an assisted living facility (although the more expensive ones are very nice to live in!!!).

TheLonelyNomad said:

Tiina63 said:

I don't think that having a mate and then losing then can be worse than not having had one, as at least you have a happy and emotionally fulfilled life to look back on. Many of us here don't have this. We just have years of deep loneliness to look back on.

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I have to agree with you, Tiina63.

I'd rather have a girlfriend or a wife, whom I know that I have spent time with during the majority of my lifetime.

After she passes away, yes, it's sad. But at least you had somebody to spend time with, and you weren't living a lonely life.
At least an elderly widowed person who was married with children can look back on life and acknowledge the times where he or she spent time with children, or heck, even grandchildren, before they enter the stage of having to live a shittier life in a care home or an assisted living facility (although the more expensive ones are very nice to live in!!!).

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I have to agree with you both.

But having a mate does not by any means guarantee that you have had an emotionally fulfilled life to look back on. My relationship provides many things but emotional fulfilment is not one of them. And at the end of that, comes the deep loneliness. Still, even a mediocre relationship would supply some happy memories to look back upon.

I haven't generally been a look-back kind of person - more of a plow-forward kind. I've been trying to build my look-back muscles, because if I am not the first to go, I'm going to be badly in need of them. So I've been practicing looking back and being grateful right now, in preparation.

Then, when I'm good and ready, maybe I can feed myself to the stoats.