My daughter said I don’t want a real relationship with a man; I want movie love – that all-consuming euphoria in a seemingly perfect relationship.

From my experience, early love in any relationship is like movie love. You think he’s Mr.
Wonderful, and you overlook his faults. If you do discover any flaws, you may think they’re cute or you move on.

After being divorced 15 years, I gave up on finding Mr. Right for the second time. At that point, I thought married life would be about two old people living together. We’d lead slow, lethargic lives – eat dinner at 4 p.m., indulge in scavenger hunts to find our eyeglasses and fall asleep while waiting for the 11 o’clock news. I’d probably even lose my independence. Yuk!

Lightning struck!

Well, I felt like I was hit by a bolt of lightning when I met Larry. We met through an Internet dating service, ourtime.com. Two hours after we met, Larry placed his hand on mine and it felt like lightning struck – for both of us. Two hours later, we left the restaurant. At Larry’s suggestion, we went to the mall. Larry said he didn’t want the night to end. Well, our early afternoon meeting progressed into the evening. I’m not going to say when I finally returned home. Let’s just say Larry invited me to his place to see his paintings. Yes, there were paintings – amazing paintings. Larry is an artist.

It felt like movie love when we met – the electricity and feeling like I’ve known Larry for a long time. Now, Larry is my husband of over a year. Here’s the surprise. Larry is 70; I’m 65. I never thought love could be like this in my golden years. Actually, I never thought I’d be in love in my golden years.

My husband is affectionate, showers me with flowers and love notes, and tells me I’m beautiful and sexy – almost every day. We cuddle, hold hands, sit on the same side of the table, and he opens doors for me. Once he said, “You have no flaws. You are you.” Our love life – this surprised me too. There is one, thanks to our local pharmacy.

Neither of us feels like old goats ready to go out to pasture. Actually our love for each other left us feeling as if we drank from the fountain of youth. We feel blessed to have this experience at our age. We take long walks, go to the gym, cook together, work on writing and art projects, attend church regularly…and this man loves to communicate.

Not So Perfect

But head-in-the-clouds love – even at the seasoned age of 65 – calms down. The rose is off the bloom, so to speak as some differences became known. We both lived independent, single lives for 15 years. That’s 15 years of doing things our way – no compromising. There are my adult children and his adult children – one of whom isn’t fond of us being married to each other.

There are expressed expectations, unsaid expectations and different ways of doing things that sometimes cause conflict. We’re people who have lived our entire adult lives with our own thinking, habits, baggage and children.

A New Movie Script

In spite of the dose of reality, I’m still enjoying movie love with my husband. Now, we’re starring in a different version of movie love – the story that takes place after the boy gets the girl, and they live happily ever after. The theme has changed from the passionate, “can’t get enough of you” feelings to reality.

We’ve settled into the practical side of married life – chores, maintenance, finances, considering adopting a dog…and we continue to make minor adjustments, like learning to be more flexible, ignoring small annoyances and improving our communication skills with each other.

But romance, affection, flirting and playfulness still flourish in our relationship. We feel very fortunate to get another chance at love and marriage. And the feelings we expressed to each other throughout our relationship continue – I like you and I love you.

I’ve fallen in love with Larry and enjoy a real, life relationship. We’re writing a script about our movie love – not so perfect, not filled with infatuation or giddy love, but it’s the real thing. As far as we’re concerned, it will be the best movie in town.

Michele Sprague is the author of the book Single Again 101 and has written hundreds of stories for magazines and newsletters. Michele and her husband live in Michigan.

*They met through the Internet dating site – ourtime.com. A year later, Michele and Larry Sulkowski married on October 24, 2015.