Have you noticed how tender elderly couples are to one another. I see it among my friends and acquaintances. Not all the time, of course, but generally, and more than I would have expected. I’ve begun to think that it’s a distinctive quality for those who have been together over many years. That’s what struck me when I joined a gathering to mourn the death of my friend’s brother.
It could be that we are privileged in retirement, which allows us to weather the medical storms with a little less fear and struggle than others. It could be that we’ve lived through the illnesses and the death of our parents, our siblings, and our friends, which reminds us just how fragile—and precious—are the lives that remain. It could be that we’ve lived up close to the deep humanity that our partners have shown in the face of their own strivings, illnesses, and losses. So we cut them some slack when they falter.
We’ve not asked for this education. It has simply come our way, and it has softened us, often through stormy weather, through fights that we have survived and differences we have unexpectedly learned to accept.
As a result, our love seems steadier, simpler, less conditional, and, I would have to say, tender. Tenderness, in particular, is what I observe among the couples I have come to know in my old age.
According to the Oxford Dictionary, “tenderness is a feeling of concern, gentle affection, or warmth.” It’s the quality of a person who is moved when they see someone get hurt. It’s empathy, offered gently, with affection and warmth.
And it’s very different than the passions that rush through the veins of youth. It is quieter and calls less attention to itself.
Much of young love only appears to focus outward. You hear it in songs and poems, paeans to the beauty of the beloved. But so often, these songs are reflexive. They lead back to the lover, not the beloved. They celebrate our capacity to love another at least as much as the qualities of our lovers.
I don’t see as much of this narcissism in older couples. Over the years, they’ve gotten to know one another. That includes the limitations and flaws they see, the disappointments they’ve known. They’ve learned how to defend against narcissistic injuries, such as feelings of disrespect or limited respect, and being only so beautiful in our lover’s eyes. They pretty much know—and accept—what they bring to the party and what their partners bring, as well.
In the best of older couples, this acceptance of self, other, and relationship is at the heart of things. It brings a profound relaxation, a relaxation, that was nearly impossible in youth, when we are still forming ourselves, writing and defending our narratives, and easy to hurt.
For the most part, we look at one another as finished products, not ones we have to mold—or to beat into form. Nor are we asking others to form us. We are as we are.
And there’s a figure/ground quality to our gaze. In the Gestalt Psychology of the 1950’s and 1960’s, we learned that some qualities of people and objects would, at times, come sharply into view, as others faded into the background. While, at other times, the background would become figural.
The older couples I know have, for the most part, have learned to keep the most loveable qualities of their partners foremost in their minds. Yes, they acknowledge the qualities that are less desirable, but, but … who needs to focus there?
This capacity to focus, combined with a realism about what we can and cannot accept, grows in “strategic” importance with successful, that is, satisfied older couples. It is this ability to sustain this focus, without denying what’s in the periphery of our vision, without being unrealistic, that holds the tenderness steady.
When I step back, I know that tenderness is hardly the only outcome of decades’ long negotiations, fights that persist over years, differences that never resolve. You’d expect to see distance, resignation, and bitterness of the sort Joanne Greenberg described in I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, a book that chilled my anticipation of marriage in old age.
So I have to admit that I’ve been surprised—and grateful—to discover how precious Franny is to me, to discover over and again, how the simple acts of our ordinary days have become among the great, reassuring pleasures of my life.
Barry Dym 