Dating Advice | Over 40 Dating: Making Use of Your Experience

Over 40 Dating: Making Use of Your Experience

By: Stephanie Constantina

Once you are over 40 dating and relationships are a little different from how they were in your twenties. It is YOU that has changed, rather than dating or relationships themselves. The fact is, you now have history... You have been in a relationship or relationships; you may be bereaved or divorced. Now that you are over 40 you have experience; possibly you also have potentially damaging emotional baggage.

Now that you are seeking over 40 singles for dating you must learn to use your past relationship and dating history to your advantage. How can you do this? To begin with you must make use of your experience. You will need to spend some time thinking about past relationships, what was good about them, what was bad, what went well, what was disastrous.

It is one thing having experience now that you are 40 plus, however, quite another learning how to use it. For this purpose, in thinking about your past relationships do not allow yourself to get weighed down in the emotional details of the past. This is a trap easily fallen into and it takes a lot of will-power to avoid it and to concentrate solely on the matter in hand. Allow yourself to get side-tracked by damaging emotions and they will sap your energy and make you lose sight of what you are trying to achieve.

Rather, you must try to extract from your pre-40 dating experiences that which is useful. If you spend enough time with this kind of exercise you will come to some conclusions about how relationships can be successful for you, even if you only have failed relationships to work upon.

When it comes to starting a new, over 40 relationship, you must understand that it IS a new relationship, that you are starting afresh and must not sour things with the emotional baggage of the past. Rather if you have spent time thinking about previous relationships and come to some useful conclusions you will be in a good position to move forward in a positive and constructive way. There would be few things worse than spoiling a new relationship by subconsciously shifting blame for past events onto your new partner.

Equally, you must understand that your new dating partner over 40 may well have had some bad experiences too, as well as positive ones. Therefore you must proceed with sensitivity and understanding. The new relationship is not just about you but about each of you. If any over 40 relationship is to develop well, there must be understanding and give and take on both sides. It is not a time to be selfish, but on the other hand nor is it a time to lose yourself entirely in the needs of the other. A balance has to be sought.

If you take time to think carefully about these things, and you are committed to a fair and considerate relationship, then there is no reason at all why failures of the past should influence the present. Happy over 40 dating!

Resource Box: For more on dating singles over 40 visit: Single Lady Over 40. Stephanie Constantina writes for Single Dating. For dating advice go to Dating Advice and Tips.