3 Decisions at 50 Plus That Make or Break Your Love Life

Have you ever found a promising relationship—only to have it fall apart? Finding someone wonderful is only part of finding lasting love. The decisions you make before, during, and after meeting someone can make or break your love life.

Pick Your Commitment Level In Three Questions

If you knew you could have any kind of loving relationship you wanted, and it would work out beautifully, what would you choose?

Marriage? Living together without marrying? Keeping separate homes but spending most nights together? Perhaps a duplex, with each of you on one side and a connecting door you can open when you’re feeling romantic and close when somebody’s snoring?

Or maybe you’d prefer a committed relationship without sharing an address, a bathroom, or custody of the remote.

The possibilities are especially interesting after 50, when you’ve probably built a life you’re rather fond of.

Yet many singles at midlife and beyond haven’t decided what kind of relationship they ultimately want. They know they want love. They know they want someone wonderful. But ask what their shared life should look like, and things get fuzzy.

Imagine getting into your car for a vacation without deciding where you’re going. You might enjoy the scenery, but you probably shouldn’t be surprised if you never reach the beach.

The British have a saying: Begin as you mean to continue.

And when it comes to choosing a partner, that’s excellent advice. Knowing where you’re headed changes who you choose.

So here are three questions I use with my clients to help them figure out their destination.

1. If you found your perfect partner, would you marry them?

I’m not talking about someone who’s almost right except for a few troubling habits. Imagine someone who meets your standards, shares your values, treats you beautifully, and makes you gloriously happy.

Would you marry this person?

If yes, why? If no, why not?

Maybe you want marriage because you value a lifelong promise and the security of a shared future. Or you loved being married before. Or you’ve never been wed and want to. 

Maybe you don’t want marriage because you genuinely prefer greater independence. Or you want for-now, not forever. Or maybe you’ve been hurt before and are determined never again to risk your freedom, finances, or favorite armchair.

Those aren’t necessarily the same reasons. It’s worth knowing whether you’re choosing based on what you value—or what you fear.

 2. What does an ordinary Wednesday with your ideal partner look like?

Close your eyes and picture it.

Where do you wake up? Your house? Their house? Our house?

Do you eat breakfast together? Spend the day doing your own things? Reunite for dinner? Go to sleep beside each other—or kiss goodnight and head to separate homes?

Maybe you’re picturing a traditional shared household. Maybe you’re picturing two houses with a connecting door and a very clear policy about when it’s open.

Neither vision is wrong. But they’re different lives.

And someone who wants to combine households, finances, and futures may not be a good match for someone who wants companionship while keeping nearly everything separate.

Love is wonderful. But it doesn’t magically settle disagreements about where to put the furniture—or whether there should be shared furniture at all.

3. How much interdependence do you really want?

This is where marriage and cohabitation deserve a closer look.

People sometimes think living together is marriage without the paperwork. But research could not be more clear: marriage and cohabitation are separate institutions with separate benefits. And these arrangements can involve very different expectations.

Marriage generally means a promise of permanence, along with legal protections and obligations. Cohabitation can offer companionship, shared expenses, and flexibility without that legal commitment.

But living together isn’t necessarily marriage-lite, or even low-risk. Combining households without marriage can intertwine finances and daily lives in ways that make separating difficult and riskier, sometimes.

And moving in together to find out whether you’re right for each other can backfire. And research shows that sometimes people marry because they’ve already combined their lives and getting out seems harder than staying in. “I chose you because inertia” is not the best reason for saying I Do.

That’s why I recommend screening for compatibility before sharing a home, not relying on shared living to reveal it.

Of course, you may want neither marriage nor cohabitation. You may prefer separate homes. The important thing is to understand what each arrangement offers—and what it doesn’t.

And then comes the question that can save you an astonishing amount of time and heartache:

Does this prospective partner want the same destination?

You can have wonderful chemistry, shared interests, terrific conversations, and sex that makes you forget where you left your reading glasses—and still be incompatible about commitment.

If you want marriage and they never intend to marry, that’s not a little detail to work out later. If you want separate homes and they dream of waking up beside you every morning, neither of you is necessarily wrong. But this is not a small matter, and it can be a giant incompatibility.

Now, I’m not suggesting that on your first date you whip out a floor plan for the duplex you’ve selected.

But it does mean asking, “If you could have any kind of relationship you wanted, what would that look like?” And asking it from the very start. The first call, or even before that. It means knowing what you’re screening for, so you don’t spend months—or years—falling in love with someone whose vision for the future is going someplace you aren’t.

And if you’re worried that commitment means risking the life you’ve worked so hard to build, remember: You can screen carefully, protect your finances, maintain boundaries, and make thoughtful choices before intertwining your lives.

You don’t have to choose between love and alignment.

You can choose the kind of relationship you want, understand what it requires, and find someone who wants to build it with you.

Because when you know where you’re headed, you’re far more likely to get there. 

Want to find your person without settling or repeating old patterns? Watch my free 10-minute training: https://LoveScienceMedia.com/consult

 

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You're Dating Too Much

How many first dates does it take? I recently saw a New York Times piece called “40 First Dates and Still Searching.” The lead-in described a man investing in pricey matchmaking services as he searched for The One, and asked: Would it help him find love?

My first thought was: Maybe, but probably not. For two reasons. 

First, you’re your own best matchmaker.

Nobody knows you as well as you do. Nobody cares more than you do about getting this right. And you can learn to fish for yourself instead of having it done for you—for far less money, and usually quicker and better too. I know, because I’ve been helping clients with their fish-finders, bait, and tackle—aka their clarity, selection, and commitment choices—for 30 years. You can do this.

Second, I got stuck on the other part of that headline: Forty first dates.

There’s a popular idea that finding love is a numbers game. Get on two or three apps. Keep meeting people. Keep getting out there. Go on another date. And another. Eventually, surely, one of them will be The One.

I knew a woman who believed this so much, she went on 800 first dates and still hadn’t recognized her person. I knew a man who dated for five decades and thought he had never met someone right for him—until he understood his patterns and changed his process. 

And I know someone who at age 52 met only four people, and married one, and they’re very happy.

So while it’s necessary to encounter other people, you don’t have to personally meet everyone who’s pleasant with a pulse. Dating isn’t a numbers game—it’s more about what you know and how you apply that. 

The problem? People routinely confuse volume with progress.

You can work very hard at dating without getting any better at choosing. Forty first dates certainly represents effort. It may represent persistence, optimism, and an impressive dry-cleaning bill. But if most of those 40 people were never genuinely viable candidates for you, or one was but they got lost in the shuffle, you haven’t necessarily gotten 40 steps closer to finding your person. You may simply have gone on 40 first dates. 

The antidate to fishing every pond is this: stop treating the first date as the start of screening. It should be where screening continues.

However you find each other, you can often learn quite a bit before your first date, from whether they smoke, to whether they’ve got kids at home, to whether they want the same kind of relationship you do. If you’re online, that information is usually right there on the profile!

Of course, you won’t yet know whether this person is Your Person; that takes time. But knowing they aren’t can be the work of moments to minutes—it does not need to take weeks, months, or years. Usually, it does not even need to take a date.

So the purpose of that initial before-the-date screen is to decide whether to have the date at all. Is this person a sufficiently promising candidate that you’d like to learn more? Date time!

Now you can find out what happens when you’re sitting across from each other. Do you enjoy talking with them? Do they listen? Are they kind to the server? Do you feel comfortable? Curious? Is there a baseline attraction that could become more? It could be time to set another date and learn even more.

So ignore some popular advice. Don’t date ‘em till you hate ‘em. Don’t give everyone a chance. Don’t set the goal to More Dates (unless you have No Dates. In which case, yes, you’ll need more than zero.). You don’t need a vast number. You need quicker, better screening, so your dating time is spent on real prospects. 

Of course, sometimes you’ll still go on a first date that goes nowhere. Some important information, like whether you can tolerate their scent (which is a thing!) can’t be known until you’re in their presence. And sometimes you’ll find a dealbreaker. And that’s ok. That’s what the date taught you. 

But there’s a difference between discovering incompatibility that couldn’t reasonably have been known beforehand, and repeatedly going out with people whose incompatibility was sitting right there in their profile, messages, or phone call before you put on real pants and left the house.  

I know this can sound a little theoretical, so remember the 52-year-old who met four people for a first date, and married one of them? 

That was me. 

When I was dating, I screened carefully before meeting anyone in person. I used what I knew about my own personality, history, and patterns, what I needed and wanted in a partner, and specific strategies for finding out whether someone was likely to be a good candidate before agreeing to a date. 

It worked because it works. 

Now, I’m not promising that if you follow the process, Person Number Four will become your forever mate, or that total clarity will arrive by the end of  Date 1; even in my case, I knew Kerry seemed like an amazing match, but I could not have known, so quickly, that we were each other’s person. Really knowing someone takes time even if they show up right away, and even if they’re right for you.

But you are largely in control of every factor aside from when they show up, and 40 first dates aren’t an inevitable toll you have to pay on the road to love.

This is doable with the right screening process. That process should be specific to you: your history, your patterns, your needs, your wants, and the information you need to gather before attraction has a chance to start making excuses for incompatibility.

So if you’ve been going on date after date after date, I wouldn’t automatically conclude that you need to try harder, swipe more, hire somebody to produce more candidates, or expand the pipeline. I’d ask a different question: What’s my screening process, and is it working for me? 

Because the goal isn’t to gather first dates. The goal is to stop needing them.

Dating gets a lot easier when you know whom to meet—and whom to screen out before the first date. If you’re 50-plus, I’ve made a free 15-minute training to help you find and choose the right person without settling or falling back into old patterns.

You can watch it here:
LoveScienceMedia.com/consult

Photo by Duana Welch

The Non-Plan Plan

“It’s typically a ‘date’ without a time or place, but sometimes there is a time without a place or a place without a time. They manage to leave it just ambiguous enough. For example, Jim didn’t mention a time or place and only mentioned the day. He just never messaged me again after being excited and asking me on date 2.”

A client sent me this, and after the gut-punch feeling, I thought: Ah. I knew exactly what she meant.

She had what I call The Non-Plan Plan. Or perhaps, nailing-jello-to-a-tree.

There’s a day but no time or place. Or a time but no place. It’s just specific enough to sound like something has been arranged, while leaving you wondering whether anything actually has.

Is this a date? Am I supposed to keep the evening free? Should I check in? At what point do I make other plans?

Here’s my answer: If you don’t have a time and a place, you don’t have a date.

That’s important, because once we think we have a date, we tend to behave as though we do. We keep Saturday night open. We don’t accept another invitation, or make our own plans. We start organizing our actual life around something that was dangled before us only as a possibility.

Don’t take the bait!

If someone suggests getting together but doesn’t make an actual plan, I recommend being warm, interested, and completely clear:

“That sounds great! I’ll consider it a date when we’ve got details.”

Then, go live your life. If your friend invites you to over, and you would’ve gone if not for the non-plan, go. If someone else asks you out and you want to go, say Yes. If you decide you’d rather stay home reading books featuring heaving bosoms and brooding lords: good for you.

You are not obligated to hold time open for a person who hasn’t actually asked for it. In fact, let’s turn that around: your obligation is to honor your time until someone you like has quite specifically asked for it. 

And no, this isn’t playing hard to get. Playing hard to get means you’re available but pretending you aren’t, in hopes of making someone want you more. This is simply responding to reality: there is no date.

If they come back with a time and place while you’re still free, terrific! Now there’s a date.

And if they wait until you’ve made other plans, that’s okay too. You weren’t unavailable as a dating strategy. You became unavailable because you have a life. You can say,

“Oh! I already made other plans. How about next Thursday at lunch?” 

That distinction becomes especially important at 50+, because most of my clients already have lives they value. They have friends, family, work, hobbies, travel, routines, and commitments.

The goal of dating isn’t to put all of that on standby in case somebody decides to show up. It’s to find someone wonderful who eventually becomes part of the good life you’ve already built.

So when someone dangles the possibility of a date, be open. Be warm. If you’d like to see them, say so.

But don’t stop your life.

Until there’s a time and a place, there’s no date to stop it for.

Dating gets a lot easier when you know what to look for—and how to respond when someone shows you who they are. If you’re 50-plus, I’ve made a free 10minute training to help you find and choose the right person without settling or falling back into old patterns.

You can watch it here: 

LoveScienceMedia.com/consult

 

Photo by Carole Hachet for Unsplash

Want Commitment? Say So.

Saying what you want will scare people away. Or will it?

Want Commitment? Say So.

If you want more love, reveal more of yourself from the start. 

One of my clients recently told me she’d encountered some popular dating advice that went something like this: If you want a serious, committed relationship, don’t say so.

Apparently, letting a potential partner know you’re looking for commitment might scare them away.

To which I say: Yes. That’s the point.

If someone is frightened away by the knowledge that you’re looking for a committed relationship, and you’re looking for a committed relationship, this is not a marketing problem. Instead, it’s useful information.

For decades, I’ve encouraged clients who want lasting love to say so right up front, and if there’s a given commitment that goes along with it, to share that as well. I’ve also encouraged them to write fairly detailed online dating profiles—not War and Peace, but enough that another person can get a meaningful sense of who they are, what matters to them, and what kind of relationship they’re hoping to create.

Clients sometimes worry about this. Shouldn’t they play it cool? Reveal less? Keep things short, and vague enough that more people will be interested?

But the goal isn’t to interest more people.

It’s to help the right people recognize you (pssst: there’s more than one!). 

And in my clients’ experience, that’s exactly what has happened. The people who ultimately became serious partners liked the fact that my clients had been clear. They wanted commitment, too.

My own husband did.

When Kerry found me online, my detailed profile explicitly said I was looking for a serious relationship. He appreciated both, because he was looking for the same thing. Nobody spent months pretending to be breezily indifferent while secretly hoping the other person would eventually want what they wanted. Neither wasted the other’s time. From the start, we had Meaningful Discourse^tm, not tapdancing classes.

And now there’s research supporting what I’ve been seeing for years.

In a 2026 study of online dating profiles, psychologist Gurit Birnbaum and her colleagues found that people paid more attention to profiles containing greater self-disclosure and clearly stated long-term relationship goals. Those profiles also made their writers seem more sincere, more available for intimacy, and ultimately more appealing as potential partners.

In other words, revealing more didn’t make people look desperate.

It helped them look available.

Of course, what you reveal matters. My clients’ detailed profile isn’t an autobiography, a list of grievances about their ex, or the complete medical history of everyone in their immediate family. It’s a positive, honest, and kind disclosure of what and whom they’re looking for, which says much about my clients and the good lives they’ve built, too. 

Because online, as everywhere else, like is attracted to like, and we tend to like people who are like us.

So if you want a long-term relationship, say so. If you’re looking for commitment, don’t disguise it as casualness to appeal to someone who doesn’t want what you want. And if you’ve built a life you love, reveal enough of yourself that someone compatible can recognize their equal.

Will that turn some people away?

I certainly hope so.

Dating isn’t an election. You don’t need the most votes.

You just need the right one.

If you’re over 50 and want to get better at finding and choosing the right person—without settling or repeating old patterns—I created a free 10-minute training for you.

You can watch it here:

LoveScienceMedia.com/consult

Reference: 

Birnbaum, G. E., et al. (2026). “Too much information or not enough? How self-disclosure in online dating profiles influences attraction and relationship intentions.” Current Psychology. DOI: 10.1007/s12144-026-09787-y

Photo by Patrick Nguyen on Unsplash