WINNERS AND LOSERS... AND COUGARS

My friend Theresa, 44 years old, divorced, no children, smart, ambitious, hardworking, and having just spent a long weekend visiting her mother (who is my age, in her 60's) was frustrated and angry.  We were driving up to Palm Beach looking forward to a day of relaxation, fun, a nice lunch, maybe some shopping, but Theresa was agitated.  Her mother, who is of above average intelligence, but who has never exhibited even marginally good judgement in her choice of men, was currently involved with some practically penniless deadbeat who Theresa believed was clearly  using her mother for money.  Bemoaning her mother's bad taste and willingness to settle rather than be alone, Theresa turned to me and said, "You know, I look at what's out there and what's available to me and I just know I'm going to have to end up like you!"

Huh? Hold on a minute. What did she just say to me?  It took me a moment to get my stomach back out of my throat, but when I finally was able to speak what came out was, "Thanks a lot. I may not have everything I want, and there are things I'm clearly struggling with, but I really don't think that my life is all that pathetic!"  Dear God, why would she say something like that to me?  Am I really that much of a loser, someone else's worst nightmare of what life has to offer a woman who doesn't happen to be married or have children?  Should I kill myself now, after lunch, or what?   Is it pointless to even bother trying to get through another day?  I  made a mental note of how I would get my dog, Oliver, shipped off to my friend in St. Petersburg so he'd be properly taken care of before I took the plunge and ended this horror of an existence. 

"NO,NO, NO, YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND, FELICIA!!!" She was yelling at me, "no, you don't get it, ending up like you is the GOOD NEWS!!!  My mother and many other women of her generation are the ones who did what their culture told them to do.  For some of them, like my mom, real choices didn't even exist.  They were programmed to function in a certain way and so they did.  My mother's friends think I'm out of the norm because I'm not like them but I look at their lives today and see them as examples of how I don't want to end up.  You, on the other hand, are my role model of what I can have and be when I'm your age.  I can choose to not get married or have children if I haven't found the right man to do that with.  I can choose to have a career doing what I'm good at and what I enjoy.  And I can choose to eat healthfully and exercise so that at your age I can still have the energy to live life to its fullest and recognize that new options and opportunities still do exist no matter your chronological age.  Felicia, isn't that the real definition of a cougar? Isn't that an important part of what you are writing about when you write about cougars?  Isn't being a cougar so much more than just wanting younger men?  Isn't it about everything we're always talking about?"

Damn right it is.  A recent US News & World Report article told us that divorces among older Americans are surging.  Researchers report that the divorce rate among Americans 50+ years old had doubled between 1990 and 2009: "The doubling trend held up among those over age 65 as well as among younger boomers."  And from my own book, OLDER WOMEN/YOUNGER MEN:  New Options for Love and Romance, published in 2000 there's, "One of the ways we know that women are beginning to see themselves as multifaceted individuals... is because more and more older women are leaving the security and comfort of their long-term marriages to live life in a more honest, autonomous way."  It bears repeating: statistics confirm that it's more  often the women who are choosing to leave.

Some women of my generation lived the life they were programmed for and it worked out very well for them. They married loving, successful husbands,  had smart, successful children and even found success in their own careers, if they chose to have careers.  We were the generation that came up during the modern women's movement, the women of whom the actor John Wayne once said, "They have a right to work wherever they want to - as long as they have dinner ready when you get home."  We can recall a time when whether or not to work outside the home actually was a choice and we can also recall the time, prior to 1972, when we couldn't get a credit card without our husbands or fathers co-signing for them.

Some women were lucky that way, but it certainly wasn't so for everyone.  Many other women were financially dependent on their husbands, but their husbands' lack of kindness, generosity or sensitivity created a family unit based on female servitude, indebtedness and powerlessness.  Many of these women sacrificed their happiness, often for the sake of their children, and quietly accepted their prescribed roles.  The quality of some of their lives was compromised by the same system that offered others great joy and contentment. 

I know for a fact that my not having married a doctor, not having children and not having ended up living in Scarsdale (or someplace just like it) was a huge disappointment to my family, practically a scandal.  But it  wasn't the direction my life took and I was dysfunctional enough to go with the flow rather than take hold of the wheel and control the journey (which I wouldn't have known how to do anyway).  I made some poor choices in my youth but managed, somehow, to learn from them and move on to others, some good, some not so much.  I used to feel shame for not having lived the life I was programmed for; today I see it as a badge I can wear proudly.  Who but a true cougar would look at turning 60 and decide to have an adventure by taking a teaching job in China? 

Fortunately we really are never too old to learn something new, as I did on that little road trip.  The increasing numbers of women choosing to face the hazards of the unknown in a more authentic way rather than according to what they've been programmed for are clearly today's lifestyle pioneers, and it's what my friend saw when she looked at me.  So yes, my sweet friend Theresa, it is a very important part of the whole cougar thing and another dimension of what I will be continuing to write about. Thank you for reminding me, for giving me a mirror that reflects back what a winner really looks like.

Whew! Oliver will be so relieved...