Waiting for Her Own Knight : ‘Happily Ever After’ Can Be Hoax Impeding Many an Older Woman’s Progress

Vicki stands before her full-length mirror and smiles at her youthful reflection.

“Not bad for 53,” she reassures herself, thinking that maybe this will be the night that the special man she’s been waiting for will come into her life.

Blond and slender, with large blue eyes that exude vulnerability, Vicki is a striking woman accustomed to attracting younger men who are surprised by her age. So on this night, dressed her best for a cocktail party she is attending alone, she doesn’t expect to be buying her own drinks.

But soon after she arrives, her self-assurance--always shaky under the surface--slips away. She is shocked to find herself standing on the sidelines, feeling as alone and awkward as a shy adolescent at a high school dance. When she looks around, trying not to show the desperation building inside her, she realizes that she’s probably the oldest woman at the party.

She chides herself: “You are 53 and, of course, the men aren’t looking at you; they’re looking at the 20-year-olds.”

And she goes home in a panic, thinking, “Oh my God, I’ll never be able to find a husband. How will I survive without one?”

Vicki, a twice-divorced Orange County businesswoman, wants to be able to let go of that feeling of panic and enjoy life--with or without a man. She’s working on that in therapy. But, she admits, she has a long way to go.

So do many other single women in her age group, says Laguna Beach psychotherapist Ruth Luban, who is 47 and divorced.

“They have that ‘50s image of a woman as a half made whole by her man. Their mothers were programmed that way, and they’ve picked it up,” explains Luban, who leads support groups for women facing mid-life problems. “Their lives are on hold until the right person comes along to allow them to be all they can be.”

Adds Marti Monroe, a 48-year-old marriage, family and child counselor who practices in Santa Ana and Huntington Beach: “A lot of women are still looking for ‘happily ever after,’ but that’s the biggest hoax we’ve ever been sold. We have this notion ingrained in us that somehow, somebody will be our knight in shining armor. Then we get hit in the face with the reality that probably no man is going to take care of our financial and emotional needs.”

When that sinks in, many women get angry, depressed and even physically ill, says Monroe, who is divorced.

They wallow in disappointment and self-pity instead of pursuing happiness on their own. In spite of past failures, they refuse to look at the possibility that marriage might not prove to be the state of bliss they see in their fantasies.

It never occurs to them that the older men they’re most likely to meet may no longer be willing to play by the old rules. They’ve done the breadwinner bit, and they may be looking for a more equal partnership. And because of their early conditioning, they may not have the sensitivity that women are counting on to satisfy their emotional needs.

Besides, Monroe points out, “if I marry again, what’s the guarantee that he’s going to be there until I die?”

But such logic escapes women who are convinced that a walk down the aisle is the only route to happiness and fulfillment.

Even younger women are susceptible to that kind of thinking. Meryl Eisen, a 40-year-old Laguna Beach resident who has been divorced for 10 years, says she had hoped and expected to remarry a long time ago.

If she could change her life now, she would add a “committed relationship--someone to sail around the world with and sleep with.”

Her sister, 44-year-old Ronnie Hochman, has never been married, but she’s now living with her boyfriend on a boat in the Caribbean--a lifestyle Eisen admits that she envies.

Eisen says they were raised with the “typical fantasy that you marry and stay home with the kids and you’re taken care of and everything’s perfect.”

Both Eisen and Hochman have updated the fantasy, but they haven’t let go of it completely.

Hochman, who is staying with her sister on an extended visit, says she doesn’t need a marriage license to be happy, but “it’s important to have a relationship, even if it means giving up personal freedom.”

And Eisen, who learned during her “hippie period” that she could do without material things, says she doesn’t need a man to support her financially because she has a career as a commodities broker and a house that gives her a “nest egg” for the future.

However, she adds: “It’s very important for me to have somebody to love and give love to. People are meant to live with someone else so they can grow and learn the lessons they’re supposed to learn.”

But, Luban tells her clients: “To believe that you need to be with someone of the opposite sex to change and grow is a fallacy.”

Personal growth should be an individual process, even if you’re married, she says.

A good relationship, she explains, is made by “two strong beings who have, for healthy reasons, chosen to spend a life together--not two halves coming together to make a whole. It’s what we put into it, not what someone else gives to us, that makes it work.”

One of the hazards of depending on a man to make you feel complete is the tendency to be blinded by your own needs.

Vicki can now see that her two marriages were acts of desperation involving men with whom she mistook sexual chemistry for love.

The first time she married she was only 19.

“I didn’t really want to get married, but I felt like I had no choice because I was really unhappy at home. I had been working forever, and I was already tired and overwhelmed, and I thought if I got married I’d be taken care of and I wouldn’t have to worry any more.”

She was divorced after 17 years and remarried a year later.

“I thought this was the love of my life, but I was still feeling scared about being alone,” she says. “I just don’t do well outside a relationship.”

Her second marriage lasted 12 years. She has been on her own since 1987, and she recently ended a long relationship with someone she decided she didn’t want to marry.

She keeps falling for men who aren’t right for her, she says. “If I’m attracted to someone physically, I project my fantasy on them and see them as something they’re not. By the time I realize I’m doing that, I’m already hooked into the relationship and I have a real hard time letting go.”

She longs for someone with whom she can plan for the future. Meanwhile, she often wakes up in the middle of the night in cold sweats worrying about money.

She was so eager to put both her marriages behind her that she walked away with almost nothing. Although she has been supporting herself, she hasn’t been able to set aside anything for the future.

“That’s scary,” she says. “I have to stay real healthy and strong because I’ll be working until I die.”

She admits that she hasn’t let go of the hope that a long-term relationship will change that scenario: “I see a man on a white horse pulling into my driveway any minute.”

But depending on that can lead to major financial trouble, stresses Marti Monroe. She’s seen many older single women end up living in poverty because they’ve been waiting for a man to come along instead of working toward becoming economically self-sufficient.

“Women should get clear that they are going to have to be responsible for themselves and make every move they can to support their own future,” she advises.

Luban agrees--and adds that women will be surprised at how much fulfillment they can find when they stop putting their lives on hold in the hope that a man will rescue them from the single life.

“Going through life in the healthiest way is about being loving--not waiting for the love of your life to show up,” she says.