13 Jul Dependency Between Elderly Partners
Can't Live Without You: Co-Dependency in Elderly Couples
Dependency can be a king pin in an elderly relationship, especially one that has been established for many years. Elderly problems may be experienced by elderly partners both individually and as a couple, as a result of the deep rapport that exists between them.
‘So what is wrong with long term devotion?’ You may well ask. Absolutely nothing is wrong with a long serving and loving relationship that mutually benefits two elderly people. However, extreme dependency can lead to elderly problems in one or both partners as a result of their long term reliance on each other.
In cases where the individuals are of a similar age, elderly problems are likely to be easier to deal with. Where one of the partners is very much older, the younger will often experience enormous pitfalls when trying to adjust to a life without the other in the event of death or serious illness.
Lengthy partnerships or marriages of forty or fifty years are usually deemed to be highly successful, simply by virtue of survival! Some people cannot imagine spending an entire lifetime with one partner. As extremely long partnerships continue into the sixty year bracket, living a single life must be unimaginable for both parties and when it becomes necessary through death or illness, elderly problems result.
In traditional marriages, either the husband or the wife takes responsibility for carrying out tasks such as household accounts, getting the car serviced, making tax returns, and so on. Left to tackle such things alone, a bereaved partner struggles against a mountain of difficulties and related elderly problems that are a direct result of being dependent upon a long term personal relationship.
The solution to such elderly problems is hard to define, as elderly couples often see no reason to change their lifetime habits. Why would they? Gentle encouragement might be shown to exercise a little independence, however, as a safeguard against a lonely and frightening situation to come, where grief and isolation are aggravated by not being able to deal with day to day routines previously handled by a partner now departed.
Elderly couples sometimes share a devotion rarely found in modern relationships and often this devotion itself becomes an emotional support for individuals experiencing elderly problems. While the other partner is safely resident within the relationship, all is well: the loss of this relationship can send a perfectly balanced and grounded elderly person into a tailspin when they are required to survive alone in a world they no longer recognize or feel comfortable in.
Dependency between elderly couples is a plus while both partners are still living and free of elderly problems but a little self sufficiency does not go amiss to allow for future isolation.
This Psychological Article on Dependency Between Elderly Partners is part of Boomer Yearbook’s continuing series of coaching suggestions on how to alleviate elderly problems. We believe knowledge is power. We’d love to hear what you think.
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