I was thinking about this recently, and I was curious what insights people have to share. I’ve noticed that when people marry in middle age, specifically when it’s their second or third marriage, there’s just a totally different thing going on between them than a standard marriage between two younger people, or even a second marriage or blended family between two younger people.
The problem, of course, is that I can’t really articulate what this ineffable difference is, so I’m curious to see if people can share some insights as to what it is and how the dynamic is just different for two people married in middle age, with their own adult children and so on.
For starters, for me, it seems significantly more casual and almost like they’re more friends or “companions” rather than passionate people “in love,” like there’s just a sort of “we’re old enough to just accept that this is about companionship more than anything else” vibe, or a sort of commiseration rather than passion.
Anyone know what I’m talking about and care to share?
I’ll admit it. I didn’t even bother to read the OP. I’m responding to the title.
Anyone stupid enough to get married *a second time *deserves what they get.
How about someone marrying a guy and being his third wife…
While I don’t consider myself quite middle-aged, my husband certainly is, and we’re both on our second and final marriage. (I’m pushing 38, and he’s pushing 45). It’s far more fun and passionate than our first marriages were. We’re mature enough to know what we like and dislike, and we’re not shy about telling each other. The sex is better, and the love is better, because we both knew more about what we wanted in a marriage than we did in our mid-20s.
We don’t really consider what other people think, just about having fun with each other and our kids. He has adult kids, and we have smallish kids, and he’s about to be a Grandpa.
We’re best friends, and my heart still pounds when he walks into the room, after 5 years. If that’s just companionship, it’s fine with me, but it feels like mad, crazy, passionate love to me, more so than any other relationship I’ve ever had.
I’m more or less with Gatopescado. A marriage contract becomes pretty irrelevant for people in middle age. Those who chose to do it are probably motivated by entirely different impulses than youngsters who are thinking about starting a family.
I don’t know that it’s necessarily about when the marriage started so much as where people are in their lives. Even people who got married young and stayed married are more companionable than openly passionate by the time they hit middle age. It doesn’t mean the feelings are any less intense, it’s just…not as flagrant. It’s like a charcoal fire–those leaping flames when you first start it throw a lot of light, but when you stop seeing them it doesn’t mean the fire’s gone out. It just means you’re ready to start cooking the damn steaks, and that phase lasts a lot longer and is load more useful than the leaping flames.
That’d be me. Third for him, second for me (married 27 years, he died).
We were both 51 when we got married. Plenty of passion, including stuff neither of us had done before. I hear those “Ewwwwww’s” from the young folks – stop it right now! 
We have different problems than when we were younger. Health issues, mainly. But the kids are grown and self-sufficient, so that’s one potential area of conflict we don’t have to deal with.
We’re both more mellow and forgiving, but I don’t think that’s necessarily a second/third marriage thing – maybe it comes with age. I think we’re more willing to adapt and accommodate. That might be interpreted as “settling”, but it’s really that we both know what’s important to us.
And really, at this point, who wants to break in another spouse?