Dating over the age of 50
We are born. We are parented: either poorly or in a quality way. We leave home and attempt to make it on our own. If we are parented well, we usually become happy, successful, healthy (emotionally, mentally, physically, and in relationships), responsible (behaving responsibly), and self-disciplined, able to think about how we can be positive, contributing people (mindfulness), and aware of our basic beliefs and values.
If we are parented poorly, we start off our young adult years rudderless, directionless, not responsibly, not self-disciplined, and able only to think about ourselves. We often don’t know or think about our beliefs and values: we just think as our parents told us to think. We often have “ineffective” values: I value me and mine, being rich, greed, being better than the Jones’, competition, being better than others, power and control, being “right”, getting away with doing wrong: lying, manipulating. As these young people get older and experience frustration, the consequences of their poor decisions/choices, and irresponsibility, they often grow angry, depressed: their emotional/mental health starts suffering. They find that they are not successful in relationships. They no longer have their parents there to pick up the pieces, fix things, do things for them, keep them from experiencing consequences. If the situation is really bad, some young people commit suicide. Some just go on, into life, suffering more relationship failures, career failures, and being a poor parent (keeping the cycle going). Some learn to lie and manipulate even more. Some, if they are narcissists, go on to become successful in their career, but are unsuccessful in relationships.
Some of these people just continue through life rudderless, mindless, just taking life as it comes, not thinking about whether they are happy or not. They don’t have a clue how to improve their lives, and don’t want to think about it. They don’t know what “happy, healthy” is; what good relationships are. They go into automatic: doing things as their parents did it, which is not good if their parents “did life” and relationships poorly; They stress out very easily, and so try to avoid stress at all costs. But life involves stress, good and bad stress. Moving forward, change, love, trying new things…it all involves stress. If we avoid stress, we avoid life. Often they further check-out by using alcohol or drugs.
Some of these people continue on a pattern of being unhappy, unsuccessful in relationships, and try to figure out how to fix things, but have no coping skills. They often turn to lying, manipulating, breaking the law. When they do these things, they often develop fear, defense mechanisms, delusions, paranoia. Fear begets fear, begets more lies, more manipulation, more frustration… These people sometimes become psychopaths/sociopaths. By the time these people reach their 50’s, 60’s, their mental illness is fully entrenched and reaching critical stage. Unfortunately, when dating over the age of 50, we run into these mentally ill people. Most of them are not married, so they are plentiful in the dating pool. They are masters at lying, manipulating, and pretending. Many times they have become delusional and actually believe the lies they tell. It is very difficult to discover the illness until you actually move in with a person, they realize they “have you” and can stop the hard work of pretending, and some of the façade starts breaking down. But they have to work very hard not to expose themselves and their big lies. They know you are watching them daily, and they become even more paranoid. Many new marriages over the age of 50 end quickly because of this.
We have to be especially careful of people who want to date “long distance”, as it is easier to lie and hide things when we don’t see each other often. It is an excellent idea to do a background check on potential partners which will detail criminal history, bankruptcies, numbers of marriages, divorces, relatives, numbers of addresses/moves, numbers of jobs, etc. Ask for a copy of their most recent resume, and check it for accuracy. It is also good to check a university to see if they attended, and the armed forces to find out if they served and how and why they were discharged. You will need their social security number for this. You can then call ex-wives, children, places of work, etc. to get an accurate picture of a person. Be careful about moving to another state to live with a new love interest, being especially careful if moving in with them into a house that they own. Unless you have the money to move and get out quickly if needed, and find and book a new place to live, you are at risk. You will need to be able to afford an out-of-state lawyer. If leaving a psycho you will need to find a window of opportunity, in secret, to get your belongings out of a house that he/she owns. and on it goes: very risky! If you live in the same city while dating, after you leave a psycho, you may need to get a protective order to keep him/her away from you.
One thing that is missing with these men is knowing how to develop and keep a strong relationship with a woman. What is missing is knowing how to enjoy the moment and be happy in “the now”. Controlling/psycho men are in “perfect” control when they are in their houses alone, or driving alone, or on the computer alone, or at work, as long as they get along with their bosses, or don’t have bosses. Many controllers end up having their own businesses because they cannot handle authority figures. But they want a companion to do things with. This companion is fine as long as they do what the man wants to do, how he wants it done, believes as the man believes, and doesn’t have ideas. Then the man has to be in control of another person—and it is a big job if that person is living with him. And he doesn’t mind having to be in control, except his job of dictating, judging, correcting, scolding, arguing becomes a full-time job. This is fine as long as the woman listens and doesn’t talk back or get mad. But if the woman talks back, or has ideas, he becomes unhappy—and so does she.
Happiness for controlling men hinges on being in control—being in their comfort zone. These men do not know how to just be with a person—just have fun, interesting, playful, meaningful conversations—especially with women. They seem to have fun when with men, discussing or participating in sports (if they are raised on sports), or at work with other competitive men—men who sit around criticizing others, criticizing their wives, criticizing the politicians who don’t think like them…but they never learned how to just be with people—women, children, all people.
Happiness involves positive attitudes, self-acceptance, and acceptance of others as they are. These men’s controlling fathers did not model how to be successfully with a woman. They probably saw their fathers being cold, unaffectionate, unaccepting — ordering their mothers around, arguing, criticizing, expecting to be waited on. They did not see their fathers having fun with their mothers, giving affection regularly. Controlling men were raised by controlling fathers (and sometimes controlling mothers).But the scenario is usually controlling father, unhappy mother.
There is an epidemic of controlling people, mostly men, in this society. It is mostly men because the cycle begins with fathers being dictatorial and controlling with their sons. They tend to be harder on their sons than on their daughters. They want to make sure their sons become strong, forceful, and “the best”. These fathers value the wrong things/traits in their sons. But mostly these fathers were fathered this way. The cycle of unhappy men is carried on from generation to generation by poor parenting— poor fathering. We tend to parent the way that we were parented unless we learn how to do it differently. The only way we learn to do it differently, or want to do it differently, or even realize we need to do it differently, is by realizing that we are unhappy; that we are not doing well in relationships, and not doing well in life, and that was caused by very poor parenting—usually by our fathers. That is not to discount the dysfunction that can come from our mothers. But here we are talking about control mainly.
Peter had a double whammy from his parents: a mean, controlling father and a cold, unloving, unhappy mother. The father was abusive, and emotionally abusive and neglectful (neglectful of having fun and being positive with his son; showing love), but the mother was also emotionally neglectful. You have to remember though, that when a woman lives with a controlling, negative man she is very likely to become unhappy. As a result of Peter’s behaviors, lies, fear, and ego over the years, building up over the years, he developed mental illness. This man was fearful all his life—of not being “good enough”, of being wrong, not being able to “get what he wanted”, of being “found out”, being controlled by his ego—so he lied more, manipulated more. His fears brought on lies, which brought on more fears, which brought on paranoia, amnesia, depression, manic behavior, phobias, sleep and eating disorders, obsession-compulsion, delusions, delusions of grandeur, dissociative disorders. He was out of touch with reality. When he did bad things he dissociated himself from the bad thing. He was unable to see consequences. He told Linda, “sometimes I do bad things, but not on purpose”. How profound: he obviously had never thought about that statement, what it means and how to “not do bad things”. Such is mental illness.
In my opinion, and the opinions of others who have written about Donald Trump, Donald Trump is a psychopath. He is mentally ill and his disorders include narcissism and control issues, pathological lying, authoritarianism. After reading books and articles about him, the above profile meets his life growing up: mean, authoritarian, alcoholic father; unhappy mother; he was with a nurse or caregiver for many months after he was born; his mother was unable to care for him; his brother was also an alcoholic and committed suicide; parents sent him away to military school at a young age….. Trump has been unsuccessful in his marriages, and America deserves a strong, mentally healthy person as president.
RELATIONSHIPS; WOMEN, MEN AND CHILDREN 
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