All right. Hi, all you incredible, wonderful ladies, bravehearted women, and beautiful friends! So today, as I said, we might go a little longer because I'm going to be talking about my hunk of hunk-burning love. Yes, my husband. But I want to talk about what love looks like in midlife, the mature woman the seasoned, and the beautiful relationship that we can have in the second half of life.

Now, people often think that older adults fall in love less intensely, that we don't have, you know, the chills, the goosebumps, the giggles, and the weak knees and feeling swooned and fluttered and flustered and racing heart. Nope, it's not true. We have all of that, every bit of that, because the same brain, same pathways, same neurons are firing just like they do when we're younger. But here's the thing. We know what to do with it now.

I fell in love with my husband, Paul, when I was 49 years old. I felt like I was 16. Okay. I was so giddy. I was so excited. I could not believe that love was like this. I was thrilled. I wondered really honestly, how long is this going to last? We actually dated for 16 months. Then we got engaged and we dated a total of 20 months before we got married. When I met him, it was just amazing. But here's the thing, dating at 50 is so different than when you're younger. It's beautiful. And I'm going to tell you about it, but it was magical. Our dating experience, our courtship, it was all wonderful. Our engagement to our wedding.

12 plus years later, I want to tell you that I have one of those relationships where I can say, It just keeps getting better and better. It's true. It might be sickening, but our love is evergreen. It just keeps growing and blooming. Just when you think that it can't get any better, we find out that it does.

Now recently, I got a text from a girlfriend who's also got remarried in her 60s, and she sent me this, you don't know who she is, so I can read it to you, and I have permission, but she says,

“I can say this to you because you are living it too. This second marriage thing is so wonderful and awesome. We are loving each other. Like we've never been loved. It is so wonderful. And he is a gift from God to me. We are having so much fun, such deep spiritual connection, and a beautiful deep intimacy.”

See, I get it. I know that. So I'm going to share a few things with you today on how we are making The second love the best love and if you're a midlife woman who's dating or you're in a marriage, you can make your marriage, you can bring it up a level by saying, maybe I don't have that element. I can work on that because your love can be cultivated.

So here's the first thing Paul and I did. We made a powerful intention, the word intention to have the best relationship that either one of us had. So that intention has shaped our actions, our words, you know, our behavior, how we talk, because we are intentional to say this relationship right here is going to be a wonderful relationship. We want to be soulmates, not cellmates. We want to thrive. I want you to be happy. I want to be happy. I want to make you happy. I want you to help me be happy. Not because I'm dependent on you, but because we're living together and in this committed relationship. Let's have fun. Let's make it great. I commit to you, we have a committed intention that this relationship is going to be great. So when I'm tempted to be frustrated or to complain about something, I just go back to my intention and say, wait a minute, I have an intention that this is going to be the best relationship this world has to offer, and it changes and informs the way I act and behave to what I'm going to say.

The next thing is, will we just genuinely love each other and we like each other? We want to be with each other and we feel it, but we also choose it. Okay. We choose love. Love is a verb. Love is an action. And also love is a choice. I choose to love you. I choose to act in ways that are very loving to you. So self-centeredness will sometimes say, you know, I'm just going to sit here and watch TV. I've had a long day. I'm tired. I don't want to do this. I'm going to veg out. But love says let me get up. Let me help or why don't you go sit down? I'll do it. We're always like outserving one another I'm probably a little spoiled. My husband really loves to serve I think it's his motivational gift and so I need to let him exercise that gift. That's what I think but I get up. I say, let me clean the kitchen. You made dinner. Yep. My husband cooks. I know he's the best. I'll do the dishes. I'll fold the laundry because you're tired too. So let's partner. Let's do this together.

But love is a choice. If you hear nothing else here that yes, I love the feeling of passion, but love in its truest form. And this truest definition given to us in the Bible in 1st Corinthians 13, love is a choice three. Well, we communicate at a higher level. We're wise because we're older. We know what escalating can do to our relationship. We know what catastrophizing can do. We know what belittling does in a relationship through communication or stonewalling. So we don't do that. Our goal is to know and be known. No one's trying to be right. No one's trying to have the last word. No one's interrupting. No one's trying to one-up you, make you feel small, embarrass you, or ridicule you for your thoughts or your beliefs. We value our values. I want to know you. I want to know what you're thinking. I want to know what your opinion is. I want to respect your beautiful humanity of who you are. And so, because I want to be known, in other words, I want to be heard, I want my voice to be heard, then I have to be a good listener. I want to listen to you. The Bible says that a wise person draws out of another the deep places. My goal is to help Paul know himself better by being able to communicate with me. I want to know what I'm really thinking and feeling as I listen to my own words begin to flow out of my mouth in the safe place of our intimate communication.

Number four why it's just magic and it works is because we're both chasing our own goals. Yep, we've evolved, we're our own people. I have no doubt that I bring the best version of myself to this relationship. It's absolutely true. Like rough edges are gone, well mostly, and I have no doubt that Paul is bringing to me the best version of him. While I love him passionately, not desperately, nor is he desperately needing to be codependent with me. We are interdependent. I am a whole person and he is a whole person and we enjoy being together, but I don't need him to complete who I am. You remember that famous line in Jerry Maguire, you complete me. Some people say you deplete me. You make things complicated. No, Paul and I just bring whole individuals to each other. Now we're not aloof. We revel in our love, but we're not obsessed and we're not needy. No clinging vines, but we are entwined as two choosing consenting whole individuals.

Then five, I mentioned this a moment ago, but just our rough edges are smoothed away. Just kind people and refined people. We use our manners in this relationship. I just want to say sometimes when I observe other relationships or marriages or young marriages, I'm like, ooh, ouch. Like, can you just be nice? Just be kind. You wouldn't treat your boss that way or a co-worker or a friend. Why are you treating your spouse that way? So let's just get rid of the childhood issues. Let's process our anger. Let's learn to manage our emotions and regulate how we're feeling. Let's just deal with the hot-headedness. Put that away. That's youthful, childish foolishness. We're grown adults up in here. So let's have mature love and walk in patience and acceptance and just smooth those rough edges away.

I think the next reason why our relationship is just so beautiful and works are because we don't have the heavy load of young adulthood. Those burdens are gone. In other words, we're not trying to raise babies. We're not trying to have babies, raise babies, or pay for babies. We're not taxi cabs driving kids here and there and everywhere. We're not stressed out trying to figure out where our next dime is coming from or who's going to go to the grocery store, who's going to run this, or what we're going to have to do to raise enough money. We're at a place where the kids are out of the house and I will tell you about blended relationships maybe that will be another episode I'd love to hear from you if you think that should be a podcast episode. Because we had some blended family things but because of our bond, our connectivity, and our values, it was smooth sailing after the first year. Our family is so strong and our blended family just works This is the thing. We didn't have all the heavy-duty stuff that young love has and we've made our mark in the world. We're not trying to still grow up and figure out who we want to be.

Now I know in my first relationship, we started out okay, but then we kind of evolved as two totally different people and would I have married that person at 35? No. Would he have married me? No, you know, I'm not saying leave your spouse. God wants your relationship to be the best it can be and his miraculous power is available for you. But today we're still hungry. We still want to grow. We still want to learn, but we're humbled. That just makes it work. There's just something beautiful about aging and we're not fossils. I mean, everything still works. Don't get me wrong here. That's part of the glue to, you know, we both want to be in a healthy relationship. That's the thing. I want a relationship that's filled with passion and love, and I want to be called baby, sweetheart, and lover. So guess what? I call him lover, sweetheart, and baby because I'm planting seeds of the thing that I want to reap back. This relationship, I want this relationship, not just any, I want this relationship to be healthy and beautiful and whole. I have to tell you, I admire my husband so much.

I found that part of my love language is admiration. When I look at this man that God has given me, I'm blessed beyond words and the level of admiration and respect. I would never want to mistreat him. So in this relationship, there are not those toxic things that if you have, you need to double-check. No possessiveness. No desperation. No isolating one another from the world. No manipulation. There is no intensity that we just have to be together. We love each other. We want to be together. We miss each other, but we're very well able to function on our own. No volatility. No infidelity, absolutely none. No betrayal. No addictions.

When I met Paul, I knew what I was looking for. I knew what I wanted. I knew what I didn't want. Honestly, as a pastor, I did not want a date. I did not want to be somebody's flavor of the month. I was like, God, here's my vision board, here's my list, and I wrote out in very specific detail. What I was looking for, what the promised land for me would look for him. I wanted to be in a relationship, but I was okay with being alone. Like I know enough right now to be alone is way better than to be in some kind of dysfunctional relationship. True that. Trust me. I did not want to go back into anything dysfunctional, but yeah, I wanted someone I could laugh with someone I could share my faith with and grow in my spirituality with. I wanted somebody that I could share intellectually that there was chemistry there. There was a spiritual chemistry and emotional chemistry. I wanted someone I could kiss. I wanted someone I could hug. I wanted someone who could just scoop me up in their arms and all the things. I wanted all of that because I didn't have that and that was largely my issue. So I was free now. I was whole. I wanted that tall order. Nope, not for God. Well, it was a tall order, my husband's 6'5 but not for God. God has exactly the relationship for you, should that be the desire of your heart. Then if you have that as a desire of your heart, and I believe that that would be what God is planning for you because I believe God gives you. He inserts. He deposits in you the desires of your renewed, regenerated, redeemed heart.

So in this month of February, as we're celebrating love, those are my thoughts for you on what love is. Love is a choice. Choose love this February. It's also Black History Month. Choose love, choose empathy, and never be lacking in having the compassion and the love of Jesus Christ.

All right, everybody, that's what I have for you, beautiful and bravehearted women. I hope this helps you. I believe that it will.

Hey, maybe someday we'll bring my hunk of burning love on here, and we'll answer all of your questions about what it means to fall in love in the second half of life, how to continue to flourish and foster, and cultivate that relationship. So that you know what sex is great. Love is great. Finances are great. Communications are great. It's all great. What can I say?

If you're not experiencing greatness at the level that you would like to, I'd like to offer you my free download this week. I want to talk to you about how to change the words of your mouth. I have the best affirmations for you to begin to speak out of your mouth and they're available for you: Dawn Damon’s Brave Affirmations for an Abundant Life. It's always in the show notes, but you can go to braveheartedwoman.com/resources.

Don't forget to subscribe, love, and like me. And hey, if you're just listening to this, check us out on YouTube. I'd love to see you at @dawndamonlive. I'm going to leave you like I always do amazing bravehearted woman. This is Dawn Damon, your Valentine Braveheart mentor telling you to find your brave and live your love!