Experiences and Aging - What's Love Got to Do With It?

I'd be happy to hear everyone's take on this - the more the merrier.

Are older partners more stable (mentally, emotionally, spritually) because they can conceal their inner thoughts better? Control them better? Ignore them better?

What exactly does experience teach?

Is experience alone enough?

How do our experiences transform us as people, and how does ageism play a role?

 

Age helps in life experiences because we have been through almost everything and survived. We have the perspective of having experienced it before, and know how to cope. In love, we know what works and what does not. In lovemaking, we know to slow down and enjoy it and how to please our partners - in fact, for many of us pleasuring our partners in lovemaking is more important than being pleasured ourselves. We make love through our partners, not to them.

For the young, it is all instant gratification, and on to the next thing. But we know better - think for the long term, not the short term.

 

You just embodied ageism in your entire post. It's not a bad thing. I think young people should face up to the face that they are ignorant (I am young and ignorant) and be more comfortable with their youth.

Why are people so afraid to be young these days? Why is it cool to have dyed white hair streaks? Why do girls and boys lie about their ages being older?

I understand what you mean and appreciate your response.

Also is experience enough? Or do we need a little thing called.. self-reflection, to put it all together?

 

age and experience doesn't necessarily correlate

 

[Are older partners more stable (mentally, emotionally, spritually) because they can conceal their inner thoughts better? Control them better? Ignore them better? ]

IMHO, age can mean nothing. If you have never owned up to your responsibilities in life, age is meaningless. When your responsible, take ownership of your actions, thats when you begin to learn to control your mind, your feelings, and your world around you.

[What exactly does experience teach?] TIME CURES ALL THINGS.

Agin IMHO, what doesnt kill you can make you stronger! As a young man, a cheating girl friend would send me into a black minded depression, so deep it chilled my bones, darkened my mind. Over the years as my lady and I grew, we talked and became involved in an open marriage of a sexual nature, so what killed me as a young man, became sought after experience. It didnt happen overnight, it happened after a lot of soul searching and a lot of talking.

[Is experience alone enough? ]

No, action is always needed. Reading, talking, experiencing, opening up your mind to experiences and calculating their expense. Meeting like minded folks and listening to their experiences can help you to decide...but ultimatly, we're alone in this world, so make up your to do a thing or not... but on your terms, not because someone wants you to.

Excellent thread.

 

That varies much more by individual experience than by age. As I get older, I've come to appreciate that many people who have led what I would have considered rather sheltered lifes, have actually had some pretty challenging experiences. But we do vary a great deal, both in what we've been through and how we've dealt with those experiences -- there is a big difference between just getting through and looking for the lesson.

Again, that varies. I've known 40 year olds who have just been repeating the same old cycle for 25 years. I would put myself, at 27, as knowing better what works and what doesn't than the 40-something year old that I have in mind. But, I also assume that I know these things better than, well, pretty much any 20 year old that I've ever met. I'm not saying this to sound full of myself, simply to express that experience and self reflection are important. So, yes, on average, the older you are, the more you probably know about what works and what doesn't, but there is a huge range of variation in each age set and a huge amount of overlap between age sets.

Again, some people get this from experience, but some people don't. I've known some men who were more interested in pleasuring their partners than themselves at 20, while some 40 year olds don't care.

I'm not trying to pick on the person who posted the response that I just picked apart, but responding to the various points included above was a much more focused way for me to respond to the OP, because her questions were a bit too broad for me to come up with a good response!

 

I'm not sure how exactly to respond to this, but something about it just doesn't sit right with me. I guess I don't like the idea of thought-control, regardless of who is imposing it or acting as thought-police (read 1984 at too early of an age I guess!).

I think it's more a matter of learning to express and interpret them in more constructive ways. Instead of getting upset with my fiance and snapping at him or flinging insults, I've learned to constructively communicate about what's upsetting me. I've also learned that, just because I'm upset about one thing, doesn't necessarily mean that that's what's really causing the problem. Instead of arguing about him losing the remote AGAIN, I can take the time to take a deep breath, think for a minute, sit down with him and say, look, I got really irritated about this, but that's really stupid, and I think I'm just overly irritable because I'm stressed out about X.

That's not concealing or controling or ignoring my inner thoughts, all of which sound rather unhealthy. Instead, I've learned to accept, interpret, and channel my inner thoughts into a constructive course of action... Which could be considered control depending on your definition, but I think of controlling one's inner thoughts as refusing to think certain thoughts, suppressing them, etc.

 

Thanks. I suppose we should always be aware and open to change since change will let us evolve as we age. I agree that time cures all things. But it may not cure longing or desire. When a spouse or loved one has passed away, it is not easy to "cure" this at all (for me).

I always had a problem with this saying when I was younger and friends would tell you, “Don’t change! You’re an awesome person.” …but why not? What if it meant improvement? What if it meant adapting to changing circumstances also? And congratulations for coming to a new and improved you, and achieving a happy state of mind with your wife!

I guess they mean “don’t change” in terms of the whole, in making sense altogether. If that’s possible..

 

I agree that if my initial post was read in this way that it may not sit right with me too. That’s interesting that you read it as thought-police. I hear you about living with someone or disagreements. For me, I had a habit (for several years!) of accusing my partner of anything sexual when I’m very upset with something else in the relationship. As you can imagine, this was damaging to both of us.

What I meant with my question was more of something along the lines of the ability to control irrational outbursts (as you addressed), the discretion and consideration enough not to blab out details of something I don’t need to know, and the (often positive) ability to accept an apology and move on and genuinely put a mistake behind. This is what I meant by “conceal, control and ignore”. I don’t think at all that avoidance behaviour works. It’s terrible to deal with. I think the key word here was discretion.

I think it's ironic and funny that no matter how much we've been through, there're always curveballs and odd dynamics we have with new people.

 

It really depends on an individual. There are older people that are immatures. Whereas, there are younger people that are mature.

 

no, they are in climax