Love After 50, For Real

A coffee date that ran six hours, a Trader Joe’s aisle dance, and a moment of unexpected safety—that’s how our second chance began. We open up about finding love after 50, where the spark is real but the work is what keeps it alive: naming baggage, repairing quickly, and building trust that lets you rest instead of perform.

We talk through the messy middle most people skip: saying no to passive aggression, asking whether a reaction is about us or the past, and the hard pause that led to a Valentine’s breakup and a stronger reconciliation. You’ll hear how we used simple tools—value lists, premarital counseling, and clear boundaries with adult kids—to turn chemistry into a shared roadmap. We wanted a relationship shaped by faith, honesty, and humor, so our choices reflected that, from a Lord of the Rings wink at the wedding to buying a few new items that made our house feel like ours, not his or hers.

If you’re dating after divorce or navigating a second marriage, expect real talk on intimacy, triggers, separate bedrooms, and why repair is the secret skill that beats any “type.” We share practical questions to ask early, what to prioritize over looks, and how to protect your bond while honoring family and independence. Press play for an honest look at later-life love that is safer, braver, and, yes, fun. If this resonated, subscribe, share with a friend who needs hope, and leave a review to help others find the show.

Transcript

On-Camera Debut And Love Story

Heather Anne 0:00

I really started thinking I had a problem. We wouldn't be having conversations sitting on the couch next thing I thought I was playing. Or if we tried to move watch a movie, I fell asleep probably even halfway before the movie was halfway through.

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Your next favorite podcast pick starts now. Here's the Professor and Heather Anne.

SPEAKER_03 0:26

Welcome to The Professor and Heather Ann. Although we don't have all the answers, we are here to encourage and excite you. We're sharing our lives to help you to make the most of the second half of your life. And today's episode is extra special. First of all, it's our first episode on camera. And in this episode, we're we're going to share our love story. Talk about how we met and um uh the good, the bad, the ugly. The good, the bad, and the ugly. Um, because um, as we all know from our Shakespeare, the course of true love never did run smooth. Um, and so uh we're we're gonna talk talk about some of the the ups and downs.

First Date Sparks And First Impressions

Heather Anne 1:14

And ours did not necessarily run smooth. So we met online. We our very first date, we talked a little bit back and forth, we had some text messages, but our first official date was at a golf a golf golf course. It was at a coffee shop. And so I asked you this the other day. What was your first impression of when I was walking up to you?

SPEAKER_03 1:57

So there was there was a spark, there was something just from the first moment uh that I set eyes on you. Um but it's hard to, it's kind of difficult to put into words like you know what what it was about you know about the way you look, the way you act, um uh that that struck me. But um uh but yes, I knew before before we even you know exchanged greetings, um uh there were I could tell there was there was You said something about you thought I was fancy. Elegant. Elegant so so um I my career was in academia, and my my my my first wife is is an academic, and uh there's definitely a kind of aesthetic in the academic world for where women um it's kind of uh what should we say, sort of subdued or or or muted. And in fact, academic women who um who put or it's clear have put a lot of attention into their appearance are are in some ways actually like looked down on, certainly in the social sciences and humanities. So that was that was one of my first impressions was that you you were elegant looking, although what you've told me is that in fact you were actually dressed very casually and it was for considered what I considered for a date, especially a first date, it was on a Saturday.

Heather Anne 3:15

I was dressed more casual. I still I wore jeans, I wore a shirt that accentuated all the right places purposely, but I also had changed my clothes multiple times. This is it was this our date was technically our my second date after almost 30 years. Um I'd gone out the night before with a gentleman, and so I felt like I was more dressed up for that because it was dinner, all of that. Um, but yes, I was casual but still wore heels.

SPEAKER_03 3:55

Heels.

unknown 3:55

Yeah.

Heather Anne 3:56

And that was probably what did it. It was the heels.

SPEAKER_03 3:59

Um and then, of course, I guess I can't count this as part of the first impression, but but later in the date, when we left the coffee shop and went to a restaurant, I saw that you were driving a red Lexus. And uh so that that was it. My red Lexus got you was hooked here hooked.

Heather Anne 4:19

I didn't know that's all it took. Well, uh for me, it was uh, you know, everybody in their mind, you know, obviously I knew you were a retired professor. I had a vision in my head, you were dressed um in slacks. You weren't wearing jeans. I think you were wearing slacks, weren't you? Slacks. And a button-down, and you were wearing the appropriate shoes. You were not wearing tennis shoes or anything like that, because that probably would have been a strike against you right away. Uh you had this Panama hat, um, even though we're in Oklahoma, it was still cute, but just definitely nerdy vibe, and I really liked that.

SPEAKER_03 5:06

So, you know, you st a a romance, a successful romance, it starts with this uh spark.

Heather Anne 5:14

I think there has to be a spark. Um but then no matter what age you are.

Six-Hour Date And Trader Joe’s Moment

SPEAKER_03 5:19

Yes. But the uh but that's not enough.

Heather Anne 5:26

No, I think being that this w we had both been in long-term marriages, we know that that is not enough to carry a relationship. The next thing that attracted me more to you was we went into the coffee shop and ordered coffee and sat down and we wound up talking for like several hours.

SPEAKER_03 5:51

Uh a total of what, like seven or eight hours, I guess.

Heather Anne 5:56

Our total our total date was six hours. Okay. So we were at the coffee shop for several hours, then it was then we decided, oh, we want to continue our our conversation because we were having great conversation. So the next uh we decided to go to dinner, and then we finished off our date at Trader Joe's because you were driving back home, we did not live in the same city, you were driving back home, and you're like, I don't have Trader Joe's, I need I need some this some things I could only get. At Trader Joe's. Um, and then it was at Trader Joe's that I knew I was smitten with you. I don't people that know me would know that it's very unusual, but you had you went off to go use the restroom um right when we had got there. I found myself dancing in the aisle, which is not me at all. So I was like, oh, I'm in trouble. I so then I stopped and literally was just standing there going, I'm in trouble. Great. Now what am I gonna do? So that that kind of started our whole dating.

Dating After Divorce: Caution And Baggage

SPEAKER_03 7:07

The whole the whole drive then back home, which was more than a little more than an hour, I was like grinning ear to ear and and thinking this this is someone very special. But what okay, what want to talk to you about next is the so the good points and the bad points about um about love uh in in middle age after and after having been in a long-term relationship. So because there's the advantages and disadvantages of that compared to being, you know, 20 and uh and and in your you're young and innocent and you don't know better.

Heather Anne 7:48

You're going into a new relationship older in life, you know better. I think that it might give you the I I think you might go in I know I did, a little bit more cautious. Not sure I wanted to jump into a relationship, even though we had um been, you know, you had been divorced for several years, I've been divorced separated for several years. So I just wasn't sure what I wanted to do, but I knew that I enjoyed hanging out with you. So it was a lot of what do we do next? But also one of the things that we started doing very early, and I believe I drove this conversation, was what is it that we if we continue, because you had asked me to date exclusively within a couple of weeks, you were very adamant about that. I was slightly hesitant, even though I had didn't have any dates lined up or anything that just seemed like that was very quick.

SPEAKER_03 9:04

Big step very soon.

Heather Anne 9:06

And I agreed to it. So we knew that we were in this exclusive relationship. And one of the things that I wanted to make sure, at least even for me, was that we weren't bringing in our old baggage from my previous relationship.

SPEAKER_03 9:20

So so this is the big disadvantage of as compared to when when you're and and in your first love. So that we you wonder about the other person, are they reacting to something that I have said or done? Or is it that I'm reminding them of their previous partner or partners, and they're actually they're they're like sort of reacting to um they're reacting to the sort of specter correct of that person.

Heather Anne 9:51

Yeah, correct, basically the past. And that was something that we started doing early on. We we don't have to do that as much now, but early on when we would see the other person reacting, then it was just a question. We would sit there and say, Okay, is did I do something, or is this something that's happened with your you know, past partner? So we were very open about discussing that, and we were very open about making it our relationship and leaving the baggage at the door and not bringing it into our relationship. But we still did. Oh, yes, and one one of the things that happened was we'd been dating a couple of months, and you started talking kind of marriage and stuff, and I was just like, I'm not getting married again.

Safety, Secrets, And Childhood Trauma

SPEAKER_03 10:46

So, and and this was this was to me like um it was a real real downer. It uh it it it kind of depressed me um that you were just categorically, unequivocally rejecting the possibility of getting married again. Um, and because it made me wonder if, well, you know, maybe this means that uh, you know, you're I'm I'm someone that you're you're into right now, but you know, you won't always be.

Heather Anne 11:13

Um it wasn't that, it was more of just my independence. And am I going to lose myself if I go into another relationship? I had spent the last couple years since my ex and I have separated, working on myself. And especially when you're younger for a woman, you become a wife, you become a mother. And I I feel that a lot of women lose ourselves just because we're worried about taking care of our family, taking care of our kids, taking care of our husband. And I just don't think I was ready for that. But I also was able to recognize, uh, it still took me a couple of months to recognize the trauma that I had to deal with as a child that caused me to date a little bit differently. I was not necessarily nice to the guys that I dated, not that I was mean or anything, but I always there was always a wall. I always put up a wall, never let anybody super close to me. And you were the first person that I just started spilling all of my deep dark secrets and all the deep dark secrets of my family because not anything to do with my ex, but even he doesn't know all of the stuff that you know. And I'm pretty sure that that scared me as well. Because we would spend our time together, you would leave, and I'd be like, What why did I tell him that? Why am I sharing that with him?

SPEAKER_03 12:56

But it's do you want to maybe summarize, you know, for listeners who might not have heard this, uh like a real quick summary of your childhood and the just the kind the kinds of things that you were revealing.

Heather Anne 13:11

From these were heavy things to reveal to somebody new that had never experienced the type of trauma that I had experienced. So from your standpoint, all the things that I was telling you.

SPEAKER_03 13:26

So so yes, this was these were it was very shocking and disturbing. Um but uh what I inferred from it all is that you were a person of of uh remarkable strength, that you'd been through all this and and and now had your act together, that you know you'd been I'd been in a I grew up in a domestic violence, I was abused as well as my siblings, my mother was extremely abused.

Heather Anne 14:02

Um, and then all of that came to a head when he went after her one last time and um she wound up in prison and he wound up dead. And that's not something I've really had to share a lot with. You know, we were front-page news, but it wasn't something I had to share with my ex-husband. He already knew the story, you know, my boys knew the story as well. But the thought of having to share that again with somebody, that was part of my hesitation of wanting to date again. But it was just an instant, I instantly felt safe. My for the first time in my life, my soul felt safer with you. But that still doesn't mean But that also scared you. It also scared me. We had issues uh because I still was, you know, wanting to be close to you, but then it's like I need you to just kind of stand off here.

SPEAKER_03 15:01

So and so, okay, there's you might say the the telegraphic version, which you've just given uh given our listeners, our viewers, um, but then there are there are another the details and the the the like sort of the more the more you hear the details, the more disturbing it gets.

Heather Anne 15:19

Yes. Um and and so and so yeah, those were things that you were so we might as well share it. When because we still laugh about it to this day. One of the things that I knew I could trust you and help me feel safe was so, you know, we're known as the professor and Heather Ann, but also you're Joe Manson. I'm Heather Simon. I'm Heather Crosley Simon. So one of the things, I don't know how it started, but we just kind of started making jokes about headlines.

New Year’s Trip, Hurt, And A Breakup

SPEAKER_03 15:54

About headlines that could describe us.

Heather Anne 15:57

Headlines that could describe us, headlines that kind of make fun of my past and what happened to my family. Because one of the deep, dark things that even if you look us up online and stuff, you won't find it. You won't find it, that my mother was in prison with the Manson Girls. And so we to a notorious. Yes. And so when we would start talking about marriage and different things like that, then I would be like, I can never take your last name. That just seems weird. It just the whole connection, we just knew that, you know, it it was a God thing, but we had to kind of still make fun of it. So we would sit there and just randomly pick um headlines where you know we would think that it's, you know, and we would laugh hysterically. Murderer's daughter Mary's was the most common one that we came up with. But that I knew it's like, okay, if this man can sit here and make jokes and come up with headlines. Um and then, but you also shared growing up when that happened, when people would call, your dad would make comments, or your mom would make comments when people would call Manson.

SPEAKER_03 17:16

Oh, oh, oh, so for a while, my mom would answer the phone by saying, Um, okay, oh, now now that I'm telling the story, I'm not sure this really happened, or she just said she was gonna do it. To answer the phone and say, Spawn ranch, Charlie speaking.

Heather Anne 17:32

So that I knew that, okay, this is the man. I found the right man. Now we just have to navigate all this stuff. And we had we had several months that we still had to battle past feelings that were not a part of our relationship, past relationships, because we both had failed long-term marriages.

SPEAKER_03 17:54

And I didn't help matters by um just a couple months after we started dating. So you want to bring this up? Yes, that I uh um my birthday is near the beginning of January, and I went But just a few days before mine. Yes, we we celebrate our birthdays together. Um but for this, I'd already you know planned to do this, and I didn't have the sort of flexibility to then say, well, okay, now it's an inappropriate thing to do, and I'm not doing it. And that was to go back to LA and visit um my ex-wife and my daughter, who was also there for the holidays, and um this friend of ours that we'd been living with.

Heather Anne 18:38

Um participate in the New Year's Eve party. New Year's Eve party, which is a tradition. A tradition that you've been doing for years and years. It's our first New Year's together, and here you are going back to California. So my thought process was you're not ready for a relationship. You're not you're still holding on to your past relationship, and then um you sent me a picture.

SPEAKER_03 19:10

This is stupid.

Lists, Values, And Counseling Tools

Heather Anne 19:13

Like, this is what we're doing, and your daughter and your ex-wife, and I'm like, Why are you sending me pictures of your ex-wife? So uh, so we still had a lot of things to work out. Um, the listeners may not know that um after I did not allow you to come to my birthday party because I was kind of mad and not sure. Hurt. Number one, let's I was hurt, um, didn't understand, but also my main concern was here, I found this guy. I've buried my soul, and maybe you're not ready to step out of that life, even though you moved to Oklahoma. You walked away from the academic world. I mean, not walked away, but you retired, started a whole new life in a whole nother state. But maybe you weren't ready. And so that started playing in my mind. And wasn't sure if I really wanted to deal with that or not.

SPEAKER_03 20:20

And when you would ask me, you would ask me this, which is right up front, you know. So are you are you sure you're not gonna just go back to your old life? And to me, it just this sounded ridiculous. And but that was my own, like not being sensitive enough. Um and and I was Because women and men think differently. Yes.

Heather Anne 20:40

And we all have our own baggage and we all have different experiences from previous relationships, long-term relationships, relationships that we had before then. Um I found myself wanting to slip back into before I was married. I I wasn't mean, but I know now, especially since our relationship and stuff, it was just a way to protect myself. I never let somebody get real too close to me because it was it would be easy to be to walk away. Um not having those feelings was easy to walk away. So that just threw me into a panic. And a month later, on Valestine's day, I broke up with you.

SPEAKER_03 21:32

Yes. And and the the stories you told, because you told me a lot of these stories about the way you had treated men before before you met your first husband. And and so those, of course, were you know upsetting to me as I thought, well, like maybe that's the real Heather. And you know, all the time she was married was just kind of like a sort of a you know a detour, and now she now now she's back to being uh sort of callous and uh just viewing men as disposable.

Heather Anne 22:01

Um so we you know we inadvertently um sort of fell back into old patterns, I think is the best way probably to explain it. We did. We fell back into old patterns, old feelings.

SPEAKER_03 22:15

And we pushed we pushed each other's buttons.

Adult Kids, Boundaries, And Engagement

Heather Anne 22:18

We did. It was easy to fall into those old insecurities. So another insecurity, major insecurity I have that that you had as well was when you're starting a new relationship and you're starting an older relationship, the intimacy. You have to learn how to be intimate with somebody new. And for women, it's already hard for us to be intimate just because of the way we feel about our bodies or the way we feel about ourselves. So being with somebody that's older, you know, when you when you're in your long-term marriage and you've been with this one person for 20, 25 years, they saw you when, you know, it's a shallow way of thinking, but they saw you when you were at your best, and then when things changed. So it's easier to still be with that person, but when you're jumping into a whole new relationship, and those insecurities come through tremendously. And one of the things we weren't sure we were going to bring up or not was a lot of times in long-term relationships and why one of one of the reasons why a long-term relationship can earn uh to can end is that you sleep in separate bedrooms.

SPEAKER_03 23:45

And you know, they might start for some what I'm saying. And so just, you know, well, just so we can get some more sleep, you know, we're gonna sleep in separate rooms.

Heather Anne 24:00

But but it's hard to keep a marriage together if you were sleeping in separate rooms. So the whole intimacy thing is, you know, even for you, it was a difficult thing to um at first you I scared you. And yes. Um so we so there's just so many factors that are going into when you're starting a new relationship. And that first six months, it was great, and we always had fun and we were trying new things, but it was also scary in exactly in determining is this really what we want. You know, we after breaking up, I called you back and was like, okay, I don't know. I don't, I mean, I really felt like I was thinking you were gonna think I was crazy because I'm like, okay, I don't want you to be out of my life, but I'm just not sure where we need to go next or what we need to do. And then we started talking about marriage and and what long term was, and I was willing to talk about marriage. Um why?

SPEAKER_03 25:10

Why, why, why after, you know, earlier categorically rejecting?

Building A Home And Shared Traditions

Heather Anne 25:16

I just it part of that has to do with my childhood trauma. I did not grow up thinking the white picket fence and everything's wonderful and stuff. I knew the deep dark secrets and I knew what happened behind closed doors. So that was, I never envisioned myself getting married and having kids in the first place. So since and I when I married my ex-husband, I didn't think that marriage was gonna end. So the thought of doing a whole other marriage um actually scared me, and I wasn't sure that that's what I wanted. And um, but I knew I didn't want to lose you. I knew you were very important to me. I knew um that I loved you, I was in love with you, that for the first time in my life I felt safe with a man. Not that I was, and again, I have to stress this, not that I was unsafe with my ex-husband, or I was very fortunate to not be guys that I dated. I've dated some really wonderful men in my life. But I just didn't know I was missing that until you and I started dating, and all I wanted to do was you would come over to, hey, let's go to dinner and we have these plans, and then you come to my house. Because we did live, you know, an hour, hour and 20 minutes away, that we had to be at each other's places in order to, you know, spend weekends, spend several days at a time. We couldn't see each other every single day. And I would fall asleep. I really started thinking I had a problem. You would come over, we would be having conversations sitting on the couch. Next thing I know, I'm asleep. And you just let me sleep. That was even the weirder thing. Or if we tried to move watch a movie, I fell asleep probably even half before the movie was halfway through. I would fall asleep. I felt well. I'd wake up and you'd just be there. Not one time did I wake up and you were gone. So that was that probably would have been a bad thing.

SPEAKER_03 27:38

So after the Valentine's Day breakup, it was nice. Either either we're gonna go ahead and get engaged, or or we're gonna break up. We're gonna have to break up.

Heather Anne 27:47

Yeah, but had to move forward or and we've talked about this before, how we uh a friend recommended make a list. What do you want in a marriage? What do you want in a partner? And we decided to do that before we saw each other again. Our lists were pretty much identical. Um, we've been asked several times now what was your list? And it was basically that we had to, you know, God was one of the number thing, number one things, um, open and honest. Yeah. Able to talk about everything and anything, which we do. I think um listeners are learning, especially today, that we literally talk about everything, um, good and bad and ugly, and things that we the other person doesn't want to necessarily hear.

SPEAKER_03 28:40

Yeah. Um I think in in my background, well, you've told me in my background, you you find a lot of like passive aggressive behavior, and that this was, you know, had not a good thing.

Heather Anne 28:55

That's not a good thing.

SPEAKER_03 28:56

Uh-oh.

Heather Anne 28:57

Because I'm also, because I grew up in such secrecy and we had to keep quiet what was happening in my house growing up. I I learned this at five years old. You don't tell people what's happening in your house. That I changed that in my first marriage, not as much as we probably should have, but I also changed that with my boys. That we talk, we talk about it the good, the bad, the ugly. Um, and I had noticed that you didn't necessarily want to have the hard conversations.

SPEAKER_03 29:30

That's that's right. You had to sort of coax it out of me. Um what's how are you feeling about this? And um sort of sometimes it felt like sort of you were doing some amateur psychoanalysis.

Wedding Choices, Faith, And Fun

Heather Anne 29:43

Which I probably was. I needed to make sure. I wanted to make sure this was, you know, we were heading in the same direction. Then we um did some uh counseling, we did some marriage counseling, and that probably was the best thing. I think for me in my mind, because you're you're a researcher as it is, but I'm also give me the facts. I want the facts. Um, even in the type of business that I do, it's like these are the facts. This is black and white, here it is. And being able to go through that, we had all these different tests, and we had a weekly uh session, and being able to have these conversations was like, oh, okay, you know, I I am my soul feels comfortable with you. You're somebody I can trust, I can be with. But it was a lot of work. We still the counseling.

SPEAKER_03 30:41

I mean, some of it was the the person, the the counselor was a life coach. More of a life coach, not a licensed code. Yeah. But but uh but I think that's what we both needed. A lot of it was practical, yes. Communication skills. Um but but yes, some of it were these certain these tests that sort of were trying to elicit priorities and values to you know to see how how compatible the And we had a lot of the same values.

Heather Anne 31:09

We were very compatible on a lot of levels, even though we both came from totally different backgrounds. I'm in the business world, you're an academic, you know, nobody's childhood is perfect, but as far as I was concerned, you had a you had a perfect growing up. Your your your childhood in San Diego was amazing.

SPEAKER_03 31:31

No one was ever meeting, knocked around locked in a room, starved, starved, murdered.

Heather Anne 31:36

You were able to get, you know, eat food anytime you wanted to eat. So um, so that was I think that was very eye-opening for me. It was like, okay, we're not as different as, you know, we may have come from different backgrounds, but we're really not that different.

SPEAKER_03 31:54

Exactly.

Heather Anne 31:57

And then we got engaged.

SPEAKER_03 32:00

Then we got we got engaged um on the the day that we officially got engaged.

Heather Anne 32:06

Um before a lot of we we did not. That's another thing to talk about. We did not announce the engagement right away. I wanted to keep it kind of quiet. One of the reasons being is that um my older son was not talking to me at the time. And he hadn't met you. And he was not talking to me because of me dating you specifically.

SPEAKER_02 32:37

He didn't want to know anything about you.

Heather Anne 32:38

He just didn't want to know anything about you. When I I let him know before I started dating that I was going to start dating, and he just didn't want to have anything to do with it, which is hard in later in life or two. We we uh we all of our children are grown, they're living their own lives. I wasn't looking for his um, I wasn't looking for his approval. It wasn't like I was asking him, is it okay if I start dating? But um, you know, that kind of had its own little strain as well. And this is this is very common.

Advice For Dating Later In Life

SPEAKER_03 33:16

It's very common. And and I mean in after divorce, but sometimes even after widowhood, the the grown child that doesn't really doesn't want their parent to find out.

Heather Anne 33:28

And we've had friends that that's happened to them as as well. So there's a lot of factors that go into dating later in life and getting married for the second time. I feel like when you're younger, it's you know, everything's great and you're puppy love and you fall in love. But when you get married at a younger age, you get to grow together. Unfortunately, you don't always grow together. Sometimes you grow apart, sometimes you grow apart. But when you start dating later in life and you start a new relationship, you're already kind of you're when you're younger, you're trying to figure out who you are. When you're older, you already know who you are. It's like this is who I am. Kind of take it or leave it. And I think I kind of had a little bit, especially when you first started dating, that attitude with you, is like, this is my past, this is who I am. You're either going to sit here and come up with newspaper headlines with me, or we're just moving on separate lives.

SPEAKER_03 34:28

I think, you know, for young couples, they can maintain, they can, it's easier to maintain the illusion that they can change the other person. Almost certainly they can't really. Whereas when you're when you're in your 50s, it's like, you know, you're not doing anymore.

Heather Anne 34:42

If he's got little quirky things, you gotta live with him. Or you don't live with him. It just depends on what you choose to do.

SPEAKER_03 34:50

So now my daughter actually helped me put together my dating online dating profile. Um, so you know, I said I said, I need I need a photo where I have a you know a spontaneous smile, not not like you know, the fake airline um flight attendant smile. And she said, okay, okay, here's what we do. Um just like, you know, sing a song from a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, and and and then, and I'll just take lots of pictures and we'll get well, you know, we'll get one where you know you're smiling because you're genuinely having fun. And then that was that, and one of those ended up being the the photo on my profile. But you said you said you told me later you didn't like you didn't like my smile.

Heather Anne 35:33

No, I liked your smile. You have a really great smile. It was the color of the shirt. It was right so, but that was just you know, me being me. So I still married you. Thanks. Though I did get rid of that shirt because that color was totally wrong for you.

SPEAKER_03 35:50

That periwinkle blue.

Heather Anne 35:51

It was a periwinkle blue that just is not blue, looks great on you. Like, hence, blue looks good on you, but periwinkle blue does not look good on you at all.

SPEAKER_03 36:01

But your older son eventually came around.

Communication, Triggers, And Repair

Heather Anne 36:04

Yes, and it probably took him even another year to meet you, um, but it was fine. But we also knew going in that this could be a problem, this was going to be a problem. So when we did decide to get married, then um one of the things that we talked about was, you know, we would like to be able to bring our kids together, do things, everything. But if it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen. That's not going to make choice, you know, that's not going to be decisions on our marriage and how we live our lives. But also that both of us are allowed, you know, would go and spend time with our kids because we weren't going to keep our kids out of our lives, even though my son didn't participate at that time. My younger one did, my older one did not. I would still go to dinners with him and go to his his house and you know, different things like that. Um, you go visit your daughter. Uh she's working on her PhD. She's abroad uh in uh for the entire this entire academic year.

SPEAKER_03 37:06

You just got back from Germany going to visit her. Um Well, this was one of the items in that list. I mean, you know, some of the some of the items were about, you know, what you already talked about, how we're gonna be honest with each other and uh um and and and and so forth.

Heather Anne 37:20

But but the some of them were sort of you might call more practical or you know, yes, being able to go on vacations by ourselves. Right. That we just didn't do everything together, but now we found out we really don't like going on vacations. But I didn't like you being in Germany for a whole week.

SPEAKER_02 37:38

Yeah, I think I actually missed you.

Heather Anne 37:42

That was it was too much.

SPEAKER_03 37:44

A few days.

Heather Anne 37:45

A few days is good, but long term like that, we need to be traveling together.

SPEAKER_03 37:51

Yes.

Heather Anne 37:52

But we found out we like to travel, we like the same things. That was important, both of us like to travel. Um, so that was important that we liked similar things. But it was it was still a process, even getting married, buying a house, picking the wedding.

SPEAKER_03 38:11

Um I think that um there's this kind of like reciprocal or you know, positive feedback loop process where you know feeling close together let that lets you plan and carry out things together, like like you know, including very big things like buying a house. But then having done those things together then brings you closer. You know, like the more sort of the more you know common experience or you know, common challenges that you face, then the closer you feel. So so it kind of they seem to kind of like feed on each other.

Heather Anne 38:44

I think the main thing is the communication is that we're willing to talk about the stuff. Um, we're willing to, you know, not that marriage is perfect and we are still trying to figure it out ourselves. Um, but we have you know, you old things come up, old feelings come up no matter what you try to do. And that's right. We've learned to still deal with those. And we've learned to communicate on that and not let it. We we we actually don't fight very often. No, but we have had some couple of blow-up fights.

SPEAKER_03 39:30

Like they leave we've never let them like last into the following day. Um and that's right, the the the key is just to well calm down and talk. That's the number one thing, and then and then talk very frankly about like what what what what is causing this, you know what why are you behaving this way? Why is this coming up? Why is this an issue? Because you It may it may be that the sort of precipitating event was something that's actually very minor, but it has the event has like evoked uh uh feelings about you know much bigger and and more troublesome things from the past. And that has to be gotten out into the open.

Second Marriage Realities And Hope

Heather Anne 40:17

I I think that the one of the h other hard things about a second marriage is merging stuff. We've talked about that on how we had to merge two households. Um but also one of the things that that I really appreciated, one of the many things that I've appreciated about you is that my suggestion on yes, let's merge our stuff, but I think that it's also important that we go out and make buy some stuff that's ours. Yes. So and that doesn't mean it has to be brand new or anything, but just getting some pieces and putting it into our house, our first house together, and make so the to me that just was like, then that's making it our house, not this is my couch, that's your table, it's our stuff. So I so yeah, when I've made suggestions like that, you weren't just like, no, we're not gonna do that, we can't do that. It was like, okay, let's go ahead and and do that.

SPEAKER_03 41:29

And so, yeah. It makes it makes so the house feels like it's ours. It's ours, rather than one of us moving in to the other one's house.

Heather Anne 41:37

We were fortunate enough to be able to buy a brand new house. Um uh it it was already built, we didn't pick anything, but we did change a few things and we made those decisions together, again, making it feel like it was our house, even though we we have similar tastes, but we still have some very distinct differences. And um I I believe that helped make our house feel more cozy, yes, more welcoming. Um and I appreciate that you've always been when I throw things out at you like we're gonna go buy a whole new living room set. You good with that? Let's go. That you're just like, okay, let's go ahead and do it.

SPEAKER_03 42:23

Well, I I I appreciate all the how you've indulged some of my uh unusual tastes. So like our The door in the new house.

Heather Anne 42:34

The door in the new house, but our uh Lord of the Rings themed wedding.

SPEAKER_03 42:39

Yes. This this you'd never even read the books.

Heather Anne 42:45

Um and um I'm an avid reader, but I that's just not a genre that I have ever read. It's just never appealed to me.

SPEAKER_03 42:55

And so when I I I tell the when I told the story to people, they they said, well, that this this is this is someone who loves you very, very much.

Heather Anne 43:06

That's true. But again, part of my past stuff was like, well, let's just run off, let's go down to the courthouse and get married. You were very adamant about that. You were like, no, we're not doing that.

SPEAKER_03 43:17

Well, that's because a lot of that is because, you know, as we said, um we we believe that God played a role in bringing us together.

Heather Anne 43:29

So we wanted a religious ceremony, which is something neither one of us had in our first marriages.

SPEAKER_03 43:34

That's right.

Heather Anne 43:35

So um when we handled the whole wedding thing together, we did that together. Yes, that was if I had to do that on my own, we probably would have been at the courthouse again. It's a lot, it's just stresses me out doing all of that. But we had a we made a lot of decisions together, and uh there was you know, some things you were like, I would like this, and some things I I was I would like this to happen. But for the majority of our wedding, it was just very like you you said no operetta music. No operetta music.

SPEAKER_03 44:09

And I felt like okay, well, you've you've given me the Lord of the Rings theme, so I'm you know, I'm fine with the music. Because I like all we like all sorts of music.

Heather Anne 44:16

I am I more so than you like a lot of different genres of music. So uh that was very something for you.

SPEAKER_03 44:25

I wanted to dance the Merry Widow waltz with you. Right. Yeah, we didn't. No, didn't happen.

Heather Anne 44:30

Did you know how to do you know how to do a waltz?

SPEAKER_03 44:32

I I I I learned to waltz as a teenager. I'm sure it would all come to me. As a teenager.

Heather Anne 44:37

That you wanted to go to waltz in front of all of our closest friends and family that we hadn't even practiced or anything. Let's do a waltz, no. But we did have a hard time picking um our song that we danced to. We did have a hard time. We didn't have a hard time picking music. Yes, but we did have a hard time deciding on what was going to be our song.

SPEAKER_03 45:01

And it was finally found someone. Finally found someone.

Heather Anne 45:06

So it was that really just resonated. Yeah. And you went along with it. I know it wasn't your topic, but you went along with it.

SPEAKER_03 45:14

It was good.

Heather Anne 45:15

And here we are. So what is some of the main suggestions and advice that you would give somebody who well? So as a man looking for because you knew you started dating before I did. You went online, met some people. You knew you wanted to be married again.

SPEAKER_03 45:46

Well, okay, and as from what I understand, um it it many middle-aged men divorced or or widowed, they they don't want to commit at all. So that I didn't I didn't know that. That and this but this this is like a complaint that middle-aged women have, oh, the men my age.

Heather Anne 46:09

Um we do. We follow this one lady. Oh, yes, that she tells about all of her dates. That this has become her thing. This is her shtick. She goes on, she tells her, you're not gonna believe this. And she tells about, and she has gone on lots of dates. She dates on she's online, and she's gone through lots of dates. So I don't know. We'll have to do re you'll have to do research on this. I don't know if it's they don't necessarily want to commit, or maybe they came out of long-term marriages and just want or feeling burned. Feeling burned, or they want to play, or you know, I was married for 30 years. I want to go out and have some fun. Yeah. But you knew you were going to get married again.

SPEAKER_03 46:58

Yes. Yes.

Heather Anne 47:00

I was um what was your driving force on you were gonna jump into the dating pool? You were gonna go ahead and start dating again. What gave you how did you find the confidence to even do that?

SPEAKER_03 47:19

Well, I uh assessed myself and uh and and realized that I've had an interesting life so far, and I have more in more interesting things to do. Um and um and I'm you know in good health. Um uh God willing, I'll stay in good health for a while. So so that that that what gave me the confidence was thinking, you know, I I have I have I have things to offer. Um and um yes, my first marriage ended ended in divorce. Um, and of course, you know, there's in a divorce, you know, both parties are somewhat responsible uh for the failure. But um it I I did not I never thought about that, well then that that that means I'm I'm just not suitable or I'm just not capable of being married. I thought, I thought, okay, that you know that ended up not working, but I I still have a lot to offer.

Heather Anne 48:25

And I think that's the same with me when I decided, okay, I'm gonna jump into this and see what happens, is that even though, you know, I had my insecurities and everything, I knew, okay, I'm smarter. You know, I am self-sufficient, so I knew that I had things to offer. Um and I I'm finding because we get a lot of questions from people that we've just met or people that have heard the podcast, or you know, just different people we come in contact is how did you meet? How how did you decide this was the person? I'm just finding that a lot of us are afraid of taking that next step, afraid of maybe I'm not old, you know, maybe I'm too old, maybe I'm not thin enough, maybe I'm not smart enough. I I'm just finding that a lot of people our age are not even wanting to.

SPEAKER_03 49:31

Not even, yeah. Not even don't even want to try.

Heather Anne 49:33

Don't even want to try. I've had several women in their 50s tell me, oh, I'm just gonna be, you know, by myself for the rest of my life. And part of doing this is sharing that just, you know, you've got to put yourself out there. And if you want to be by yourself, there's nothing wrong with that. Oh, oh yeah. But if you're thinking that you want to be with somebody that, you know, don't shortchange yourself. There's a lot of yes. One of the things that I did find is that I was a lot more open to who I would date than I was in my 20s. So I didn't have a specific type that I was looking for. For me, it was somebody that was funny, that can carry on conversation, that was intelligent, um, that was adventurous. It wasn't like, you know, he had to look a certain way or had to have a certain career or anything like that, because you're you're retired. And so, you know, that was something completely different. You'd already, okay, I've done my career, here I am.

SPEAKER_03 50:44

So, I mean, would you describe that as, and you know, and it could apply to men and women, would you describe that as like relaxing your standards, or is it just a different kind of standards?

Heather Anne 50:54

I don't know if it's relaxing because you still have high standards. I don't know if it's relaxing, but I think it's just looking at your standards differently. So, you know, one of the things I'm not gonna lie, I've had several girlfriends that have been remarried. Um, I know several women that have uh remarried. It's the nerdy guys. Don't don't uh don't pass up the nerdy guys. The nerdy guys have a lot to offer.

SPEAKER_03 51:22

That's great advice.

Heather Anne 51:23

So uh so I'm telling all the women out there, don't don't pass up on the nerdy guys. There's they they've got quite a bit to offer and they and they make you laugh. So um, so we've talked about all kinds of stuff, basically our relationship. I think the main takeaway is I think in certain aspects a second marriage is easier, but in other aspects it's even harder. Um, we know that we didn't really talk about it today, but we know everybody knows this. You hear the statistics, second marriages are more likely to fail than first marriages. But we openly talk about stuff. We're trying to make sure we we're not bringing in past things into our current marriage.

SPEAKER_03 52:15

Um this is yeah, this is essential.

Heather Anne 52:19

I think it's very important.

SPEAKER_03 52:22

And would you say that you know men have more difficulty talking about their feelings than women? And so like the challenge here is mostly for men to open up.

Heather Anne 52:30

Wasn't that a challenge for you?

SPEAKER_03 52:31

It was a challenge.

Heather Anne 52:32

I put the woo-woo in you. That's what we always say. I I got you to bring out those inner feelings to be able to openly talk about them. Because again, none of us were taught any of this. I mean, I'm hoping that our children do better than what, you know. I'm hoping I taught my boys better in how to navigate the you know, relationships and marriage and life and all that stuff. But our parents sure didn't talk about it. Our parents didn't, you know, never had conversation, open conversation. I mean, that definitely was not talked about in my house.

SPEAKER_03 53:11

But even, you know, even my parents, who were, you know, not not not uh a pathological case like your parents, uh, they they never they never they never talked about they never talked about that sort of thing.

Heather Anne 53:22

Never talked about feelings.

SPEAKER_03 53:23

No.

Heather Anne 53:24

So that's something that's important. We just all have to be grown-ups and go into these old relationships as we're older. You know, being open and honest about our friend our feelings, our dreams, our wishes. Um realistic. I mean, we're both very realistic.

SPEAKER_03 53:45

Yes.

Heather Anne 53:47

I did change a few things in your wardrobe. I didn't have to change. Yes, it does. But I did change your wardrobe. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 53:54

Okay, so that, you know, I we said earlier you're not going to change the other person, but that's that's something you might you might well be able to change in the other person.

Heather Anne 54:00

Yes, but not not much more of that. Well, uh whether you're dating, newly married, or just dreaming of what's next, we hope you walk away from today's episode um with hope in your heart. It will work out as long as you keep your heart open and your expectations honest. We hope you've enjoyed this episode in which we've shared how we found love after 50. Blended our families while prior to prioritizing, can't even say that, prioritizing our relationship, navigate emotional highs and lows and keep things fun and exciting.

SPEAKER_03 54:41

Please subscribe and support our podcast as we have so many exciting discussions coming up, including guests. And we can't wait to have you along for new episodes. So join us here each week, my friend, return against Mile. From lessons learned to mishaps. The adventures go on for miles.