Dating and the Middle-Aged Woman

I want to start this piece by acknowledging my dear friend Stefanie Krasnow who encouraged me to write this in the first place. She has been in my life for ten years and has been there through some of the darkest and most confusing times in my life. She is an amazing therapist, colleague and friend.

I have been pondering the experiences of middle-aged heterosexual women who are either newly single, never married or in non-traditional relationships. As a therapist, I have these conversations professionally. As a middle-aged woman myself with friends and relatives navigating this phase of life, a few key differences stand out to me between where we are in life now vs where we were in our twenties and thirties especially in regard to our romantic lives and what we want. Middle-aged women are by no means past our “prime”.

When I was researching this post, I started looking at the number of single people by age and sex in Canada. Although information by age is readily available, the breakdown by sex, previous marital status, and sexual orientation is a bit harder to come by. What we do know is that approximately 70% of divorces are initiated by women in the US and it has been assumed this is also true for Canada, (obviously we cannot disaggregate this data here to isolate heterosexual relationships). This ties to the ongoing discussion about dating in the 2020’s and the changing expectations of middle-aged women toward their romantic partners.

As someone in my late 40’s, I can completely understand this shift in women over 45. By this point, most of us have had at least one long-term relationship, are established in our careers and have some degree of financial independence. This is evident especially in places like Jamaica which boasts one of the highest rates of females in management positions. In Jamaica, it has been seen historically where women pursue higher education in much larger numbers than men (see here). This trend is also apparent in Canada (see here). Higher education means greater economic power and since women have higher rates of both, it means that there is no longer a reliance on men for our survival.

By our mid-forties, most of us have already had our children or are childless by choice. Therefore, when we are looking for romantic partners, we are no longer looking for a father for our children to provide economic stability. A cursory glance through social media confirms this. Many women are revelling in the fact that they are either “childless Aunties”, or “high maintenance” with the ability to maintain themselves or both. We are able to go on the trips with our friends, pay our mortgages and car payments on our own, have dinners and drinks on our own tabs and wear whatever we want purchased with our own money. This unfortunately means that a lot of men are struggling to hold on to traditional roles while women tell them that those roles are irrelevant. Men could consider that what women in this age bracket want instead is partnership and companionship, fun, better sexual experiences, and intellectual stimulation.

As Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs teaches us, once our lower order needs are met, (physiological, safety and security, belonging), higher order needs like psychological well-being, self-esteem, purpose etc. take precedence. For most women in mid-life, as our reproductive years draw to a close, (dramatic and frustrating as perimenopause may be), having or avoiding a pregnancy is not front of mind. Instead we are looking to fulfill some sort of personal “purpose” for our lives. The roles we carried, (daughter, wife, mother), are far less important and now, we want to meet the “me” on the inside. This is the actualizing tendency Maslow referred to at the top of his hierarchy of needs.

What we want from men is emotional availability and egalitarian approaches to relationships. Heterosexual women in mid-life want a partner who is also able to lean into an underlying friendship with them. Emotional availability is comfort with the emotions of self and others, the ability to be present for others and the capacity to experience and express one’s own emotions in a healthy and connecting way. Vulnerability with another person is essential in a meaningful relationship. When this is absent, the relationship will always be lacking in emotional and psychological safety. (To check your own emotional availability, you can do the quiz here).

An egalitarian relationship is one in which there is a practice of equal contribution to the day-to-day operations that make a life together run smoothly. Chores and mental load are equally divided and no one person is putting in more emotional or mental labour than the other. This means understanding that taking out the trash once a week, washing the car once a week and mowing the lawn once a week is by no means equivalent to cooking dinner 5-7 days a week, getting homework done with children every day, planning meals, handling doctors and teachers, making sure the house is clean, laundry is done etc. What the research has shown is that in people in egalitarian relationships reported greater relationship satisfaction, more frequent and satisfying sex, satisfaction about division of labour, and a general sense of fairness in relationships.

Women who work outside the home value a partner who does the work to keep a relationship balanced and fair. Indeed, among clients, this is a primary concern raised as they contemplate leaving their long-term relationships. They express frustration about being a “partnered single parent” or a woman with an “adult child masquerading at being a partner” at home. Middle-aged women are finished with this dynamic contributing to many of them ending long-term relationships.

In midlife, women are interested in having fun with our partners. We have done the work of building careers, raising children and being responsible adults for decades. We learned from watching the mistakes of our mothers and grandmothers that quality of life is even more important than length of life. We want to take the trips, sip the Mai Tai’s, eat the expensive dinner knowing that we can provide all this for ourselves. What we definitely don’t want is anyone shaming us and trying to make us feel bad for our life choices.

This is especially true for childless women who chose to be childless. As a childless woman by choice in my late forties, I am used to people with no children generally – and men particularly – feeling that they should comment on how I spend money they did not help me earn on things they did not help me acquire using a career they did not help me build. The middle-aged woman of the 2020’s wants a travelling companion, someone with whom to binge watch a show while sipping wine, go to concerts with her etc. If she cannot find that with a heterosexual, male partner, she is going to choose to stay single and go with her friends or take the trip alone, (80% of solo travellers are women). The last thing she wants is someone who cramps her style. Women at this phase of life don’t necessarily need someone who out earns her, (if she has a profession, that is hard to find anyway). What she wants is someone who adds value to her already amazing life.

Our relationship with our bodies changes over our lifespan and often, we start to become more rooted in who we are once we hit 45. It also means that we are more likely to be willing to end relationships that no longer serve us. The research has consistently found that women in heterosexual relationships report fewer orgasms and less satisfying sex than heterosexual men. However, this does not apply to women in homosexual relationships. This is known as the orgasm gap. This means that women will soldier on for years with an unfulfilling sexual partner to have other needs, (often material around child rearing) met. However, in mid-life when children are now adults, women are no longer willing to do heavy emotional labour with low sexual satisfaction for what remains of their lives.

I have had to explain this gently to men in relationships with women that the problem their partners are disclosing to me is not that they do not enjoy sex, it is that they do not enjoy sex with THEM. Those men who want to hold on to their partnerships will then ask me to help them navigate the shifting sexual landscape of the relationship. Others simply crumble and the relationship stagnates.

Women are a significant demographic when it comes to the production of pornographic material. PornHub’s data in 2023 showed that in the Philippines, (a more conservative society) six in 10 users of their site were women. (See the full table here) There are several content creators of pornography which are created for the female gaze. (As a budding sex therapist, I would be remiss if I did not furnish a list here). As Esther Perel, one of the stalwarts of sex and couple’s therapy, has stated, women get bored of monogamy much faster than men do, (clip here). Women do not want to settle for mediocre sexual experiences in midlife and why would they?

Finally, if more women than men are tertiary educated it would follow that they seek greater intellectual compatibility in long term partners. They will absolutely engage in sex with a “hot” man with not much intellectually to offer. When it is time to really invest in a relationship, she will want someone she can talk to. This does not necessarily mean he has to have multiple degrees and be “book bright”. Critical thinking skills, curiosity about the world, and the ability to see systemic issues are all very important issues for her.

As I continue in my own journey through midlife, I am grateful for all the other wonderful souls who walk along with me. What I hope for is simply greater understanding of our current priorities in our intimate relationships.