Till death us do part?

We all had our opinions about the marriage of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles all those years ago, but if you were female and over 35, it can’t have failed to have lifted your spirits. And I’m not going on about the enduring love thing. I’m talking about the miracle of an older woman registering on anyone’s sexual radar, let alone snapping up a chap with his own duchy. On the one hand there is Sharon Osborne, 58, always raving on about how a face-lift has turned her life around. On the other, there is Mrs. Parker Bowles, now 62, bon viveuse, a woman who doesn’t look a minute younger than she is, has hit the jackpot without so much as a glycolic acid peel.
Still, we have all been so conditioned to believe that fortune only favours the young; we can’t help but think of their union as a shadow of the youthful equivalent. What we haven’t stopped to consider are the advantages of tying the knot later in life. Once you do, you see that the late-life marriage (LLM) has more going for it than you might imagine. For example, there’s the baby factor. It’s well known that young children put a huge strain on a relationship, as do children from previous marriages. With LLM, there is no question of babies, and those who exist are grown-up and gone. This also means the couple can concentrate on each other and their own pleasures, which brings us to sex – another area where fiftysomethings score higher. They may not be as acrobatic as they once were, but they are less likely to be suffering from room spin, exhaustion (from the acrobatics), fear of getting pregnant or the physical complexes that plague everyone under 40, regardless of how good they look naked.
Fiftysomethings are usually way past caring what other people think. They are less likely to be on a diet and more likely to have stopped beating themselves up about their parenting skills, achievements or inability to give up smoking. They are also better off financially, have less stresses and are inclined to believe that attractions pass – and that there is no substitute for someone who is sympathetic about your bad back.
In turn, this means that, in general, they fight less and don’t fall out when they are on holiday – a crisis point in many marriages. The LLM has realistic expectations of its two weeks in the sun or snow, and each of the couple is happy to let the other do their own thing – unlike younger couples, who imagine endless beer and sex (him), and romantic swimming clinches (her).
The best thing about the LLM, however, is that it eliminates the ‘looking over the fence’ factor. A marriage is 100% safe only when it has past the point where starting afresh is a realistic possibility. If you plight your troth in your late fifties, you know you’re both signing up for the duration, and the pressure to keep your wits about you, your tummy firm and your undies fragrant is off. Sounds like heaven, now I wonder if I should go for duck-egg blue or black?