Читать книгу Older Women, Younger Men - Felicia Brings - Страница 10
ОглавлениеAfter being with Claudia for five years, I was ruined. I couldn’t stand talking to a young woman all night. They were all so empty compared to Claudia.
Tom (age 25, referring to Claudia, age 46)
Some empowered women have, throughout recorded history, chosen mates as well as lovers from the population of younger candidates. These women, who have practiced medicine, entered big business and the arts and sat upon the thrones of empires despite the predominating male-driven cultures of their eras, have oft times hidden such relationships.
These days, many women we think of as having money, power and the freedom to choose less than conventional paths are often in the press. Known for their success, their beauty and their talent, all aspects of their high profile lives are covered by the media and paparazzi so that their choices of younger men rather than their counterparts become public gossip fare. Some of them are very familiar—Carlos Leon, the father of Madonna’s beloved daughter, Lourdes, is a man eight years her junior. The tabloid media grotesquely repudiated Cher’s romance with the man she has publicly acknowledged to be the “love of her life,” Rob Camiletti, (the so-called “bagel boy”), because he was eighteen years younger than she, despite the fact that many male stars take much younger lovers and brides without scrutiny. There is frequent comment upon the age difference between Susan Sarandon and twelve years younger Tim Robbins.
In Hollywood, the older woman/younger man phenomenon is prevalent. Some notable couples include Jacqueline Bissett and Vincent Perez (he is twenty years younger); Juliette Mills, married to actor Maxwell Caulfield (he is eighteen years younger); Kirstie Alley and her thirteen-years-younger partner, actor James Wilder; and television favorite, Mary Tyler Moore, married to sixteen-years-younger Dr. Robert Levine. Joan Lunden recently married ten-years-younger Jeff Konigsberg and Courtney Cox has married her seven-years-younger sweetheart, David Arquette, while Joan Collins has long been happily domiciled with Robin Hurlstone, who is twenty-five years her junior. Collins has written about Hurlstone, with whom she’s been involved since 1988: “he was much younger than I, which rather bothered me, but didn’t seem to bother him at all.” Kim Novak’s husband, Robert Malloy, is seven years younger, while Raquel Welch married her fifteen-years-younger partner, Richard Palmer. Handsome Ralph Fiennes proudly shows off his significant other, seventeen-years-older Francesca Annis. Even Sly’s mother, Jackie Stallone, married her nineteen-years-younger doctor, Stephen Levine, and Olivia Newton-John had a long marriage (now ended) to the ten-years-younger Matt Latanzi. The fabulous James Bond girl, Ursula Andress, had a long-time love affair with the younger actor Harry Hamlin, which produced a son. Lucille Ball married six-years-younger Desi Arnaz in 1940, despite warnings that “He’s too young for you.”
Audrey Hepburn’s final years were spent in the company of Robert Wolders, a man seven years her junior. Of Wolders’s relationship to Hepburn, biographer Alexander Walker, author of Audrey: Her Real Story, writes, “His fidelity to her would be her greatest aid and comfort as she entered on the last and most moving stage of her life.” Before settling down with Wolders, Audrey Hepburn had been married to Dr. Andrea Dotti, who was almost ten years younger than she. The marriage lasted ten years. Prior to meeting Hepburn, Robert Wolders had been married to Merle Oberon, a woman twenty-five years his senior. Alexander Walker describes Wolder’s marriage to Oberon: “They had several years of happiness together before Oberon’s death in 1979. Though married, they behaved like lovers. They strolled hand in hand along the beach in Malibu. They sailed their yacht together off Catalina Island. They checked into small hotels along the Pacific coast of California, using assumed names, like honeymooners rather than husband and wife. When Oberon had to undergo a triple bypass operation in 1977, Wolders kept a sleepless vigil at her bedside.”
The attraction between older women and younger men leading to satisfying relationships may be found outside of Hollywood as well. The writer Anais Nin was involved with Henry Miller and was forty-one years old when she became lovers with Bill Pinckard, age seventeen. At the age of forty-four, she became involved with Rupert Pole, age twenty-eight. They were together until her death thirty years later. Jacqueline Mitchard, author of the best-seller, The Deep End of the Ocean, is twelve years older than her husband. Writer Terry McMillan’s man is twenty-four years younger. The playwright Garson Kanin married the considerably older actress Ruth Gordon. Dorothy Parker, famous wit of the Algonquin roundtable, married Alan Campbell, eleven years her junior. Comedic monologist and actress, Ruth Draper, met the love of her life, Lauro de Bosis, when he was twenty-six and she was forty-three. And then there is Colette, whose many younger lovers included her thirty-one-years-younger stepson, Bertrand de Jouvenal. Not that she was alone in favoring a family affair. Back in the sixteenth century, Queen Elizabeth I, at the age of fifty-three, took up with the twenty-year-old Earl of Essex who was the son of her former favorite, Robert Dudley.
Another historic figure, Catherine the Great, had frequent liaisons with younger men. When her son, Paul, was born, it was unknown whether he was the offspring of her husband, Peter of Holstein Gottorp or of her young lover, Sergey Saltykov. After Paul’s birth, Saltykov went abroad, and Catherine took on a new young consort, Stanislas Poniaowski. Later, she embarked on a third relationship with a younger lover, Grigory Orlov, by whom she also bore a son. The relationship lasted twelve years. In 1773, Catherine began an affair with the great love of her life, Grigory Potemkin, a man ten years her junior. But he was far from the last. Biographer Isabel de Madariaga, author of Catherine the Great, A Short History, writes, “As the Empress grew older, her favorites became younger.” Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, the most powerful woman of the twelfth century, married the eleven years younger Henry Plantagenet. Lest we jump to the seemingly obvious conclusion that only powerful women can opt for such an unusual and socially unsanctioned union, keep in mind that in his youth French King Louis XIV kept the significantly older Madame de Beauvais as his mistress. We know, too, that Mrs. Christabella Wyndham, the mistress of King Charles II of England, had been his wet-nurse when he was an infant.
In more recent times, notable women from all walks of life are known to have engaged in relationships with significantly younger men. Helena Rubinstein married Prince Artchil Gourelli-Tchkonia, who was twenty years younger than she. Adelaide Johnson, a well-known and much-admired American sculptress, married Alexander Frederick Jenkins, thirteen years her junior. Tobacco heiress Doris Duke had a long-term affair with jazz musician Joey Castro, fifteen years her junior. Margaret Eaton, the wife of a member of President Andrew Jackson’s cabinet, married at the age of fifty-nine a nineteen year-old Italian dance instructor.
Another woman who chose a younger lover, Aline Frankau Bernstein, was the first American woman to achieve professional renown in the field of theatrical design. Starting with the design and creation of the costumes for numerous productions at the Neighborhood Playhouse, she went on to make her mark at the Civic Repertory Theater, the Theater Guild and in several plays by Lillian Hellman. Though her successful career spanned almost three decades, she became better known for her lengthy affair with the writer Thomas Wolfe, twenty years her junior. She was his lover and she was also his muse. The character, Esther Jack, who appears in Wolfe’s novels, The Web and The Rock and You Can’t Go Home Again, was based on Aline Bernstein.
Still another to choose a younger man, Adelle Davis was a very popular writer and lecturer on issues concerning public health and nutrition. Her most popular books, Let’s Cook It Right (1947), Let’s Have Healthy Children (1951), Let’s Eat Right To Keep Fit (1954) and Let’s Get Well (1965), sold ten million copies during her lifetime. Time Magazine, in 1972, called her “the high priestess of a new nutrition religion.” A major contributor to the popularity of the modern health food movement, Davis was an early public advocate of regular exercise and balanced nutrition. In 1946, Adelle Davis married her first husband, George Edward Leisey, ten years her junior.
Dorothy Katherine Wright Liebes, a textile designer and businesswoman, has been called “the mother of modern weaving.” Director of the Decorative Arts Exhibition of the 1939 San Francisco World’s Fair, Liebes was the winner of numerous design awards for her revolutionary approach to woven textile designs. Hugely successful, Liebes’ designs were used for everything from industrial application to upholstery, clothing and furnishings for homes, hotels, ocean liners, airplanes and theaters. In 1948, Dorothy Liebes married Relman Morin, an author and two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for journalism. He was ten years her junior.
These past examples attest to the fact that older women and younger men have been pairing up for a very long time, well before such relationships came to be perceived as modern. The women we have told of in this chapter have in some large or small way made history or achieved a certain level of fame, whereas many of the women we have interviewed for this book have no particular claim to fame. Few are especially wealthy or powerful. Sometimes they are not even physically very attractive. The voices that speak in this book are those of homemakers, policewomen, secretaries, insurance saleswomen, therapists and others. They lead normal lives, surviving both happy and not-so-happy relationships with their mates as well as their families, neighbors and employers. They come from every socio-economic level and every part of the world.
What has changed, however, and in some quarters, radically, is the status of women overall in our society. Whereas prior to the modern women’s movement, empowered women were the exceptions—the anomalies among the general population—today they are becoming the norm. No longer does a woman have to be a movie star, a high-powered artist or artisan or ruler of an empire to qualify as being empowered and independent. Today, it is the woman in Arizona who runs her ranch after her husband’s death, and it is the woman in Pennsylvania who, having left a long-term dead marriage, has gone back to school, completed her education and is working for an accounting firm, supporting herself and helping to put her son through college, or it is the woman in rural Texas who owns her own beauty shop, or the woman in northern California who operates her own consulting business, or the woman in Michigan who teaches in her local school system—having already raised her children and paid off the mortgage on her house—who fits the description.
Nor are these women out looking for—or accepting—a man who is not capable of meeting anything other than their sexual needs. These are not women looking for boy-toys. They are not swingers and they are not seekers of cheap thrills. Today’s mature, empowered woman has worked very hard to develop her professional skills so that she and her children—and often her parents as well—can enjoy the comfort and security that thirty years ago she looked to a husband to provide. These are women who have learned later in life about being self-sufficient and solely responsible for their own and their children’s well-being. These are women who have had to work on themselves, develop themselves and work harder than they ever expected to, just to survive. Unlike most of the men of their generation, they have had to develop extra inner as well as outer resources in order to be competitive in today’s marketplace. Their jobs are not just additional paychecks to help cover the costs of luxuries, but instead provide incomes that can house and feed their families.
Today’s independent and empowered woman wants a substantive relationship with a man. She is frequently an active participant in her community and sensitive to the general standards of behavior within society. She may have very traditional values and is not out looking for an opportunity to rebel and flaunt her freedom in any way that might antagonize her community. She would, in most cases, have preferred to find a mate in later life from among the pool of so-called “age appropriate” men—men who share her cultural references, men she feels she can “relate to.” But a societal shift has occurred which makes that option simply not available for many, many older women.
No longer the sole province of the rich and beautiful, the recognition that new and different choices can be made is moving into the minds of women in the modern mainstream of life. The history that is repeating itself is the fact that women—with the confidence, wisdom, insight and sensitivity that accrue with age—remain as attractive and desirable to younger men as they always have been.
Approximately 85 percent of the women we interviewed had been previously involved in marriages or relationships with men who were, to some degree, emotionally and/or physically abusive. Having experienced neglect and unloving behavior, these women had the insight to recognize and appreciate a good thing when they found it. Interestingly, however, virtually all of them stated that they had initially resisted the overtures of their younger mates in the belief that relationships with them could never last. Patriarchal society may be responsible for this perception, but women have certainly bought into it. Older women/younger men couplings are much mistrusted and misunderstood—many people believe these relationships cannot possibly be anything more than sexual flings, for why on earth would young men (who could attract more nubile young women) choose women who have lost their only valuable attributes, those of youth and beauty? It’s a mystery, but only until one finds the key with which to unlock this puzzle. Could it be that perhaps mature women have something to offer that is even better than youth and beauty? It’s a hard notion to swallow for those of us raised under Madison Avenue’s value-shaping influence.
And we all have, to greater or lesser extents, bought into such myths. We, too, came to our subject in the belief that long-term, loving, successful marriages and relationships between older women and younger men probably existed because the women in these unions had worked to maintain well preserved outer appearances. Sure, a woman who dieted religiously, dyed her hair, worked out with a trainer, invested in a nip here and a tuck there and endured ongoing injections of everything from her own body fat to substances derived from food-poisoning botulism, cows and human remains, could perhaps attract and hold a younger man, one of the prerequisites being she looked really great for her age. So, we have to admit, it was startling to us when we came across older women who looked their age, did not possess the most toned and athletic bodies and often went no further than having occasional haircuts to alter their natural appearance…AND were happily married or in committed relationships with significantly younger (and often very cute) men. What does this mean, we wondered?
What we learned was that it was about love, respect, appreciation and devotion, which these women were fortunate enough to find in younger men who recognized their more enduring attributes. It was the men in these relationships who felt lucky to have found such special women and they were perfectly comfortable showing this in a multitude of ways. Lou Ellen, a hardworking, forty-two-year-old police detective, told us about her thirty-year-old husband, Jay:
There are days that I come home from work so tired I can hardly stand up, and my husband will just lift my legs up on his lap and sit there rubbing my feet until I feel like I’m back among the living. Then he’ll go out and bring home Chinese food so I don’t have to cook or do anything. In the six years that we’ve been married, he has never once not brought me flowers every week. He just treats me like a queen, something no one else has ever done for me before. How did I get so lucky? I don’t know, but I say a prayer of thanks every day for us having found each other.
What exactly is it that these older women embody which keeps their young men attracted, passionate and devoted? From celebrities and queens to computer programmers and sales representatives, the older women we’ve observed have one thing in common—they know who they are and are comfortable with themselves.
Knowing one’s self, having inner confidence and being fully developed as a human being are very attractive and alluring qualities. Over and over again, the younger men in our research reiterated, as if it were a mantra, “They know who they are.” We knew this was an important part of self-discovery and personal fulfillment, but didn’t realize until we were fully into our research just what a powerful tool for attraction these women possess.
If knowing who you are is a dominant quality in these attractions, older women mated to younger, admiring men are in wonderful positions in life. While much of society asks us to focus, consciously or unconsciously, on what women lose (our youth and beauty), the active recognition on the part of younger men of the real qualities mature woman possess is refreshing. While a young woman may have diverse interests, hobbies and a bright inquisitive mind, she is still in the formation process and may or may not become interesting and complex as her life advances in years. She is an unknown—still in the process of becoming her complete self. With an older woman, you know what you are getting. She has had time to formulate her opinions, experience the buffet table of life and draw conclusions based on wisdom and insight.
One of the more interesting couples we met through our research was Claudia and Tom. They met when Tom was eighteen and Claudia was thirty-nine. Their relationship began as a friendship. Like most of the women in our study, Claudia had no idea that Tom was attracted to her at first. She saw him as a charming, sweet and engaging young man. But Tom saw much more. It didn’t matter to him that Claudia was twenty-one years older. He saw the beauty of who she really was and found himself inventing excuses to see her, visit with her and spend time with her in whatever way he could.
At Tom’s very young age, he had his share of emotional problems adjusting to what, a year later, became a romance. Although Tom clearly loved Claudia and wanted to be with her, he was in conflict regarding what he saw as the normal things young guys his age “should” be doing. There were fights, adjustments and many ups-and-downs. According to Tom:
I knew I wanted Claudia in my life and not just as a friend. But so much of what she wanted was beyond what I could give her. I tried to do it, but I couldn’t. She tried to give me my freedom, but it was difficult for both of us. Still, our relationship was like a magnet. We would try to break up, and something would always happen to bring us back into each other’s lives.
Seven years later, they are still together. Both of them are obviously in love with each other and it was clear to us that no matter what problems they encountered they had a greater desire to be together than to be apart.
Claudia explained that early in the relationship she had tried to leave numerous times and had, by her own admission, over ninety dates with older, age appropriate men. In their times of separation, both Tom and Claudia had actively tried to find other mates from the pool of potential partners in their respective age groups. Both had repeatedly come to the same frustrating conclusion—they enjoyed each other’s company more than anyone else they met. Claudia told how difficult this period was:
I really tried to get over Tom. I knew it would be in my best interest to be with someone who could be where I was in life—more financially secure and established. I did look and even tried dating services and the personal ads. The men I met were, for the most part, great people, and they were definitely into having a committed relationship, but something always fell short. They would have only a portion of what I wanted and that was it.
Tom described virtually the same scenario in his attempts to date young women. He would find one aspect of the many qualities Claudia had—her physical attractiveness, her wit, her success, her warmth, her brilliance—but he was convinced, after much hunting, that none of the girls had the whole package. He explained how being with Claudia had “ruined him for other women”:
After being with Claudia for five years, I was ruined. I couldn’t stand talking to a young woman all night no matter how cute she was. My head hurt. They were all so empty compared to Claudia. I knew I shouldn’t compare them to her, but I couldn’t help it. It was like having the whole pie and then only getting one little piece at a time.
We couldn’t help but notice this couple that had fought being together was as close as any of our married couples and just as devoted to one another.
The depth of an older woman and the many qualities she has developed over her years are a powerful draw. While this very interesting example of a couple clearly in love yet fighting their relationship fascinated us, we saw with great clarity the intrigue and complexity Claudia had to offer Tom, how very proud he was of her and how proud he was to be with her. Tom truly “saw” Claudia in her totality and, in his eyes, no other woman could compare.
The mystery of romantic connection is one that defies all logic. We have seen couples that visibly appear unsuited for each other yet bask in the light of each other’s reflection. We have seen examples of what most people would describe as a physically unattractive woman, whose younger husband is oblivious to everything external, even bragging to us about her beauty. We have witnessed couples so diverse that their age differences seem the least of their concerns. Somehow, for these couples, their relationships work.
Another story of enduring love was told to us by Bobbie. She recalled the experiences she had as a young girl growing up in Long Island, New York in a very conservative Jewish Orthodox home. The emotional impact of her Aunt Sylvia’s marriage to a man twenty years her junior was felt by Bobbie and her whole family. Although she was only a child at the time, Bobbie saw and felt a strange type of reaction, a reaction that wasn’t adequately identifiable until she became much older. Bobbie vividly recalled this time in her life:
I remember when Aunt Sylvia first brought Allen to Passover. I was very young…maybe four or five, something like that. Allen seemed very nice and I remember he took a lot of time to talk to me and my brother. But I also remember this strange atmosphere in the house. Mom and Dad didn’t really speak to him. They were polite and all, but it was just a very odd feeling. I remembered thinking they must have been mad at Aunt Sylvia about something, but I just couldn’t get it at the time. We had always loved Aunt Sylvia—she’s my mom’s older stepsister. But, from that day on, when Allen showed up, things were different.
Subsequent visits from Aunt Sylvia to Bobbie’s family’s home became fewer and further between. When her name was brought up in conversation, there was an odd silence, then a sudden change of topic. Sylvia and Allen married a couple of years after that first family presentation and slowly crept into a life of isolation. Too young to fully understand her family’s feelings, Bobbie described her feelings of admiration for her Aunt Sylvia and Uncle Allen’s relationship:
When I got into high school, I would go down to Florida to visit them. They moved there shortly after they got married. I loved staying with Allen and my aunt. I knew he was younger—it was pretty obvious just to look at them together—but to me, they were just my aunt and uncle. They took me all over—shopping, the beach. We always had a great time and even way back then, I remember thinking that I wanted to have that kind of relationship when I got married. It was so easy to see they were in love…and they always laughed a lot. They played like kids, then they would get more serious and you just knew they really liked each other and they were totally in love.
Bobbie finally learned the truth when she was having an argument with her mother during her high school years. She was experiencing the first flush of puppy love with a gentile boy named Eric. When Bobbie told her mother she could see them getting married and being just as happy as Aunt Sylvia and Uncle Allen, her mother unloaded with a litany of shame and accusations about Sylvia and Allen’s “sick and disgusting relationship.” Bobbie finally heard her family’s true feelings loud and clear: Aunt Sylvia was a horrible embarrassment; thank God she moved to Florida; she was obviously mentally deranged and not a good influence on the children. From that point on, the Florida vacations stopped, but Bobbie continued to write and call Sylvia and Allen throughout college and her early twenties.
When Bobbie married at the age of twenty-six a man her family approved and admired, she received a call from Uncle Allen wishing them well. Aunt Sylvia had been diagnosed with cancer some months earlier and Allen, as always, was by her side.
The touching part of this story was revealed when Bobbie and her “perfect” husband divorced three years later. Though contact with Allen and Sylvia had been less and less frequent, Bobbie told us how she received another letter with a photograph of the couple:
I remember looking at this photograph of Aunt Sylvia. She looked so old…so tired. And she had a scarf around her head from the hair loss in her treatments. And I saw how Allen was holding her hand, so proud, so in love with her, and I just started crying. All I could think was, why hadn’t my own husband loved me that much? We never had to go through the problems they did and he left me anyway. I just looked at their picture and it made me feel so empty. Allen loved Sylvia through everything…and I knew if I ever found love again, I wanted it to be like what they had.
We very much wanted to include Sylvia and Allen in our interviews, but when Bobbie contacted them on our behalf, they declined. Allen was working out of his home on a more frequent basis in order to take care of his wife, as her health was rapidly deteriorating. In Allen’s own words to Bobbie, “Living through this once is enough.” It was obvious that the pain of their families’ censure and disapproval was still so intense that to recount their story would only once again open the emotional wounds.
Allen and Sylvia’s censure by their families is similar to other stories we have heard of long-term committed relationships by ordinary, not celebrity, figures beginning twenty-some years ago. Although the climate is much more tolerant now, for those early pioneers the price was very high. They did not have the advantage of being outside of society’s rules thanks to celebrity status or royal birth. They were regular people who came from ordinary homes and backgrounds and were viewed as social lepers for the choices they made. Their lives together were hard and the repercussions of the paths they chose had quite a cost.
Allen and Sylvia’s story of devotion reminded us of Merle Oberon and her adoring husband. Through sickness and health, he was always there for her. These couples disprove the theory, “He will leave you for a younger woman.” When there is a deep connection between two individuals, we have seen their willingness to go to any lengths to be together. That true, deep connection allows people to overcome obstacles that partners of convenience or conformity would not be equipped to transcend.
The average length of long-term relationships in the couples we surveyed was sixteen years. While a small number of our respondents had been together five to ten years, there were also a number of couples who had been together more than twenty years. Given today’s existing divorce rates, where seven years is considered a “long-term” relationship, we reflected on the possibility that external forces in opposition to these couples may have actually proved beneficial to their commitment to each other.
In fact, looking at the social and familial climates many of our couples had to endure made us wonder: Could it be possible that the hostility expressed by our survey-couples’ communities and families actually worked in their favor? Perhaps the feeling, “it’s us against them,” creates a powerful bond, strengthening already existing love and devotion.
External factors alone cannot create a long and enduring romance. The couple must feel deeply bonded through their own loving sense of connection and that serves as the centerpiece of the commitment. While external factors can create a tribal mentality of cohesion, if the couple is not truly bonded through deep love and intimacy, eventually the outside influences only serve as one of many reasons to separate.
The couples in our research clearly love each other. They express joy and devotion to their mates. In our opinion, society’s disapproval could have just as easily flushed out the faint of heart. These couples exemplify a level of intimacy that has not only stood the test of time, but deepened in spite of obstacles beyond their control. In Bobbie’s own words, “At least now I know what real love looks like…and I won’t settle for less.”
Clearly, the older woman/younger man alliance is not just a passing phenomenon nor does a woman have to be the ruler of an empire to attract or be deserving of the love of a younger partner. It seems only to be the scorn, rebuke, derision and ridicule that is heaped on this type of coupling by a male dominant (older male dominant) society that makes such relationships appear to be so shameful and worthy of reproach, even in these modern times. Particularly today, more and more young and middle-aged women are embracing their power. Mature women, having earned their status and their financial freedom, now can choose and take advantage of more life options. The good news is that they actually are available, if only we’re willing to see and be courageous enough to accept such options.
