Don’t bond over your baggage. Baggage bonding is when an early date shifts into deep conversation. Romance After 60. Seniors, when it comes to sex, use it or lose it, says a noted sex educator. 'You should continue to have good sex for the same reason you should continue to get good exercise.

• Christian Dating After 60 Years
• Christian Dating After 40
• Christian Dating After 60 Men
• Christian Dating After 60

‘A nice Christian man is keen to start a relationship with me, and I like him too,’ said the email. ‘However, his wife, to whom he was happily married, only died a few months ago. I’m worried I’d just be a substitute for her. HopefulGirl, how soon do you think is too soon to start dating after being widowed?’

Once, when I was bemoaning my single status, someone tried to reassure me that ‘the widowers are now starting to come back on the market’. I wasn’t exactly thrilled by this prospect. However, as we get older, people increasingly find themselves single again after the death of a spouse – and, in fact, I ended up dating a lovely man who’d lost his wife to breast cancer four years earlier. That showed me!

It’s dangerous to start making rules about when a widow or widower will be ready for a new relationship, as every situation is unique. If a loved one is ill for a long time, we sometimes do much of our grieving before they die, and may be ready to move on more quickly. It’s harsh to judge someone for finding happiness with a new partner ‘too quickly’, and not trust them to know their own mind.

However, it can also take a long time to process grief, and it can be disastrous to start a new relationship when still in the depths of bereavement – although very understandable, when someone is desperately craving the affection and company they’ve lost.

If I’d met my widower within a year or two of him losing his wife, I think I’d have concentrated on developing a friendship with him, and would have been very cautious of anything more until I felt confident he was ready. In fact, he did start dating someone just three months after his wife died. The relationship only compounded his depression and confusion, and he now sees it as an act of desperation and loneliness. Of course, he still carries the wounds of his heartbreaking loss, but by the time I met him, he seemed genuinely open and ready for new love. He never made me feel like second prize.

It’s natural to worry that you’ll be compared unfavourably to a widow or widower’s late spouse and, sadly, this does sometimes happen. I’ve heard of cases where the new partner feels like an intruder in the deceased person’s home and isn’t allowed to change a thing, even decades later. I know of one women who slept with her husband while his late wife’s picture stared down at them from the bedroom wall. It didn’t end well.

Someone who’s been widowed will never forget their spouse, and neither should they – that person will always be a part of them, and a new partner must be able to embrace that fact without jealousy or resentment. But just because someone has loved one person deeply, it doesn’t mean they can’t love another person just as much. Plus you know they’re capable of sustaining a committed relationship.

In some cases, of course, the marriage won’t have been a happy one, which gives the surviving spouse a whole other set of issues to work through, which may make their recovery shorter or longer, depending on the circumstances.

Christian Dating After 60 Years

If you’ve ever lost someone you love, you’ll know that grief is a gruelling journey that often involves two steps forward and one step back. The bereaved person needs to reach a level of acceptance to be able to truly open their heart to new love, and that takes time. And yet… love often arrives at inconvenient times, and sometimes we just have to grasp the gifts we’re offered.

Faced with this situation, my suggestion would be to move forward slowly and prayerfully, handling your bereaved friend’s feelings with the greatest care, as they’ll be very vulnerable – and guarding your own feelings, too. Keep asking yourself if they seem to have room in their heart for you, and are ready to focus their time, energy and attention on a new relationship. Most important of all, keep listening – to your friend, to your gut instinct, and to God.

Do you have wisdom to share from your own experiences – either of dating a widowed person, or of finding yourself single again through bereavement? We’d love to hear your thoughts.

Christian Dating After 40

Continuing in the vein I started the other day while we are in the Season of Lent of offering specific tips for Christian Singles (applicable for Catholic Singles as well), yes, it can really be a HUGE challenge to find a mate of your faith.

They may already be a member of your church.

However, quite often that is not the case.

Yes, what that means is you will need to take action yourself. You can’t just be a faithful church attender, read your Bible (or Book of Common Prayer or Prayer Book), and expect that God will just “magically” send your Christian or Catholic Soul Mate to you there. When you are a single who is over 40, 50, and 60 or so, you will need to make even more concerted efforts to meet other eligible Christian Singles.

Of course, you want to be careful about going to lots of services at a different church than your own because you’ll be missing out on the very reason you joined your church. You’ll miss the preaching, the messages which might be part of a series, as well as the ministries of your own church will be missing you and your involvement from your absence.

Christian Dating Tip: Pick the Day and Time Bible Study Strategically

So what can you? Of course, as I already suggested, you can attend a Bible Study or Adult Study which is special for this time of year, Lent. There are other times of year when there are special studies. Just keep your eyes open and look for a study which you would be genuinely interested in. (It helps to be sincere…)

Here I am a Baptist and I’m attending an Episcopal Church’s study featuring a Biblical scholar from the Church of England. And thoroughly enjoying it.

Yes, after I made the recommendation the other day, I did make a point to “eat my own dog food” as we would say at Oracle. I made a point of going to an Adult Study group that I normally really would not have gone to. I can get snobby about Adult Studies finding a lot of them to be sortah too light, like eating junk food. And wouldn’t yah know it? Drat. I REALLY liked it. It was really meaty. I’ll be, yes, going back.

Well, what I have noticed is that there are definite age group tendencies to groups. So, to find people of around your own age, do make sure to attend a few different days and times of the Adult Study options at another church.

If you’re over 40, 50, or 60 you’ll want to avoid the Bible Study group that all the 20 somethings are in. Look for the groups where there are at least a few people around your age.

When you attend this group, yes, it would be fabulous and amazing if you met “THE ONE” there at this study. It did for Beatrice and Andrew…. However, that may not quite happen every time that you implement this Christian Dating tip.

If you don’t meet your Soul Mate here this time, is this somehow a waste of your time? Nope! Of course not! What can you do? You can expand your social circle every time you go visit another church! The over 40 year olds especially can get into social circle ruts. Anyone you meet there as you attend and participate in the Bible Study over the period of weeks, weave them into your social circle at least a little bit.

Invite them to join you for coffee. Cluster the people. As you expand your social circle, you expand your chances for find and attract lasting love!

Happy Dating and Relationships,

April Braswell

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