Put all the Seasons to Work for You in Your Relationship

So you’ve found the “MayDecember Secrets” website and blog – now what?  Well first, you’ll subscribe to our RSS feed and our newsletter.  There is a lot of valuable information out here and new things are being posted almost every day.  We wouldn’t want you to miss anything!    Second, you just start reading.   If you aren’t in a relationship with an age gap, you may be wondering what is here for you.  While our secrets do come from our May December Relationship, we know they will enhance any marriage in any season.  We all know the seasons as they relate to weather.  In the many years we been in private practice, we’ve seen the same processes that happen cyclically in nature also happen in relationships.

We don’t think of the seasons as one-time pass-throughs in our marriage.  When an older man or woman meet that special someone, it doesn’t automatically mean the older person is in the winter of his or her life.  Nor does it mean the younger person is only in the spring of his or her life.   The seasons are more than a yearly occurrence.  At any given time, the essence of each season is at work in our lives and relationships.  They are ongoing parallel processes.  Understanding how the seasons are moving or flowing at any moment in your relationship can help you work WITH what’s happening instead of working AGAINST it.

Spring brings growth, summer is a time of stability, letting go happens in the fall, and winter is the season of hibernation.  The essence of each season is a necessity to life.  No one season is better or worse than the other.  They each bring different gifts and they exist in an interdependent relationship with each other.  When you learn to recognize and use the seasons in your marriage and your life amazing things can happen.

1.  Spring:  A season of change, chaos, creativity emergence, expansiveness, multiplication, growth, transformation, turmoil, & vulnerability.

Spring is a time of explosive growth, rapid change, and rebirth.  Things happen quickly during this season.   A hallmark of the season is emergence.  Colors are vibrant but the foliage is tender and vulnerable to the frost that can come at any time causing damage to the new buds of life.

Spring is the metaphorical season of the younger partner in a May December relationship.  We like to think of spring as an energy present in any relationship and in each individual.  It is the force we need to bring forth growth and transformation.  With change comes risk and vulnerability.  It will take time for the tender new growth to become strong enough to survive.  Even though metamorphosis is ever present in our lives, we tend to resist change or at least find it uncomfortable.  For some it provokes anxiety and agitation.

Gayle’s office has been in our home since 1998.  The chair she sits in has been with her many of those years.  The cushions are beginning to break down and it is becoming increasingly uncomfortable to sit in it.  The room is fairly small and there are several doors which present a challenge when laying out furniture.  Before she went shopping for a new chair, she decided to “play” with the space.  This meant testing a couple of different chairs from our living room and moving some things around.  It may not sound like a big deal, but she knew that it would be taxing for both her and clients.  They have become accustomed to a fixed layout in her office and generally sit in the same place week after week.

As she began moving things around, there was much explaining to do.  Hour after hour, people noticed and commented.  Some liked the new arrangement.  For others it was very uncomfortable.  Each hour she warned people to not get used to the room – it was a work in progress.  Yet, people continued to find the changing environment difficult.  She could see a parallel to the work a client does in therapy.  They seek help when things are beginning to break down or fail in their lives.  Transitions may blow in with tropical storm force winds.  Her clients are seeking a different way of coping.  Yet they often resist the change they seek.  They know it needs to happen, but when the opportunity presents itself they often become engulfed in fear or discomfort.

Of course we’ve bumped up against our own comfort zones over the years.  For a relationship to survive and thrive for many years, learning to utilize “spring” is necessary.  Since we’ve been married, we’ve changed lots of things, some with more grace and ease than others.  The toughest transformations we’ve gone through often netted us the longest lasting results.  Learning to listen, hear, and understand each was a battle fought (literally) for many years.  We still bump up against our egos and slip into old patterns, but generally we have an effective way to talk about the difficult things.

Applying the Lessons of spring in a Relationship with an Age Difference

Successful May December couples draw on the energy of spring to navigate the challenges of the age gap including:  generational differences, meeting each other’s children and parents, blending families, health issues, aging, retirement, making the decision whether or not to try to conceive children, and finances to name a few.

2.  Summer:  A season of balance, equilibrium, durability, fun, stability, steadfastness, sustenance, steadiness, & security.

Summer is the season of fun in the sun.  It heralds stability, warmth, and sustained growth.  The volatility of Spring is over.  Life is in full bloom but some of spring’s growth can’t stand the heat.  You’ve got to tend to the weeds, water the plants, and keep the grass mowed if you want to preserve the beauty of this season.  There is lots of activity, but it is the business of maintenance rather than expansion.

The energy of summer brings sustenance into relationships.  It’s a time of following through and tending to what you’ve planted without the chaos of spring.  If we don’t take care of what we’ve planted it may not survive.  One of the beauties of this season is the stability it brings.  When a relationship is filled with summer energy the partners have fun and enjoy each other.  There is a sense of playfulness without the vulnerability of spring.  The relationship has a good root system.  The new lessons learned during springtime have taken root and are strong and hardy.  There is lots to do in summer.  Sometimes the options can be overwhelming.  The skill to be gained during this season is how to have fun without getting overcome with busyness.  It’s also a time for a couple to conserve their resources and become more efficient.

Wendell and Rhonda married near Christmas time.  They moved into their dream home shortly before the wedding. They were both in their late 30′s and were anxious to start a family.  Rhonda had been laid off from her job a few weeks before the wedding.   Since they were planning for her to stay at home with their hopefully soon to be conceived child, she didn’t search for a job.  She began preparing the “nest”.  They got pregnant within a month or so of the wedding.  A healthy baby girl came bounding into their lives 9 months later.  In the meantime, Wendell’s job became increasingly demanding.  He worked more and more hours.  Rhonda spent lots of time alone with the baby.  She missed Wendell, but she loved motherhood.  Both she and Wendell were anxious to conceive their next child.  They did when baby Ingrid was 13 months old.

During the pregnancy, Wendell decided that he needed to find a way out of his current career and pursue his dream of opening his own business.  This would require moving the family to a small town and taking a considerable pay cut.  The family would be moving about 10 months after the birth of their second child, Eve.  They sold their dream home and most of their treasured possessions in order to downsize.  The stress level between the two of them was increasing.  They spent the first three years of their marriage in a spring-like state.  Summer could never get there.   Hopefully, once the family gets settled in their new surroundings they will be able to enjoy summertime.  The crops they planted in their prolonged spring (two children under the age of 3, a new business, a new city, a new home, and a radical change in lifestyle) will take lots of tending.  Their “summer” will be very busy indeed.  They will need to find ways to have fun with each other as well as the children.  They desperately need the energy of summer in their marriage.  Summer will bring them steadiness and will allow their many changes to grow roots and become more stable.

Applying the Lessons of Summer in a Relationship with an Age Difference

The May December couple can use the energy of summer to help them balance the transformations their relationship goes through.  Often, the changes that come with spring are multiplied times two with age gapped couples.  Gayle turned 50 and began the journey into menopause as Ron was turning 65.  While he isn’t retiring there are social security papers to complete, Medicare decisions to make, questions about how long he stays in his current position with a major telecom company, etc.  At the same time,  Gayle is researching hormone replacement therapy, contending with hot flashes, and with night sweats.  We are in two different stages of development.  It is like going through spring on two different continents at the same time.  Spring and summer in Texas are quite different than spring and summer in Antarctica.

As if there was not enough going on , we decided to launch this website and begin writing our book during the same year we were navigating turning 50/65.  Finding ways to bring “summer” breaks into this period of spring-like chaos helps us find stability.  Even short summer hiatuses will go a long way to enhance a relationship that has been in a prolonged or especially prolific spring.  Weekend get-a-ways, unscheduled time, and clearing the calendar to engage in relaxing activities can bring equilibrium.  It also a period to draw on the many lessons we’ve learned during our years together.  Our well developed communication skills are necessary to help us deal with the stress so much spring-like activity can cause.

3.  Fall:  A season of cleaning the slate, harvest, release, letting go, making room, preparing, pulling back, shifting, & simplifying.

"We don't get much fall color here in Texas, but the Arboretum is an exception the the rule."

Fall is the time of letting go and pulling back from the creations of the spring and summer.  It is a beautiful time marked by changes in the scenery and reductions in temperature.  The work of fall is slowing down, cleaning up,  letting go, making room, and preparing for the winter ahead.  It heralds the coming of the “quiet time” seasonally.  The hurricanes are stopping.  Nature is preparing for it’s big sleep.  Many species mate in the fall to prepare for a long wintertime gestation.

The energy of fall brings letting go and preparing for the future in relationships.  In order to create room for growth, we need to find a way to release our grip on that which no longer serves us.  We moved into our current home 10 years ago.  It has more than twice the square footage of the home from which we moved.  We’ve even added additional storage on our property, but now our cabinets, closets and drawers are bursting at the seams.  Gayle often goes on purging binges and even with that, we are still running out of room.  Recently she was reorganizing the kitchen and getting rid of old and useless items which had managed to stay in our lives long past their time.  She found a giant red electric wok in one of the cabinets.  We kept that wok over the years just in case we ever decided to stir-fry something which we’ve probably done only once or twice in 22 years.  When we want good stir-fry, we go out.  But somehow the wok hung on and survived countless purges.

It is much the same with resentments and bad habits.  They take up a lot of room.  While rarely used, they are easily located.  The essence of fall is what prompts us to re-evaluate and let go thus making room for new and more useful behaviors (or in the case of the wok – a George Foreman grill which is now taking up a notable amount of space in our kitchen.)  We were facilitating a couple’s workshop a few years back.  During one of the exercises on the first night, we had the participants visualize the resentments and old hurts they were still hanging onto in their relationship.  We asked them to imagine each incident as a rock.  At the end of the guided imagery, they were to combine their visualized rock collection into one rock.  Its size was to represent the entire collection of past grievances.

When they opened their eyes, they were instructed to go to a table in the back of the room where we had placed many rocks of different sizes.  The largest rocks were the size of a large ham.   One woman proudly trotted over to the biggest rock.  She picked it up with a smirk and looked at her husband as if to say “so take that!”  Imagine the look on her face when she discovered the rock was to be her constant companion throughout the weekend.  We carry our resentments with us.  The weight of them is felt personally and they certainly get in our way.  The next morning she had the rock attached to a luggage cart with a bungee cord.  Her husband was wheeling the cart for her.  Now that’s another story in and of itself, but you get the point.  This is an exercise we still do with our clients.  We just have them get their own rocks.  Gayle has a woman carrying a rock around in her purse right now.  The client is pondering just how long she is going to stay mad at her husband for past mistakes.

Applying the Lessons of fall in a Relationship with an Age Difference

The May-December couple can draw on the essence of fall to make their relationship stronger.  Sometimes there is negativity around the beginning of their relationship.  Her father may have disapproved of her dating an older man.  His children may be angry that their new step-mother is only a few years older or maybe even younger than they are.  Friends and other family members may not believe the relationship will last.  The impact of these early disputes can have long lasting consequences.  Just like an oak tree which must let go of its beautiful but dead leaves, we too must learn how to release our hurts and wounds.  If emotional space is occupied with regrets, anger and pain it is hard to let love find its way into our heart.  You can replace the anger with acceptance and forgiveness.  The space created by this release can then be filled with more joy and happiness.

4.  Winter:  A season of calmness, desolation, dormancy, hibernation, peace, renewal, rest, quietude, seclusion, sleep, solitude, stillness, & withdrawal.

Winter is a time of solitude and hibernation.  Fall has transformed summer’s life into the barren yet peaceful landscape of winter.  Survival is the key task of this season.  Nature must survive with less.  Only the strongest of the species will emerge from winter into spring.  Everything slows down and seeks warmth.  It is also a time of dependency.  Many animals band together to make it through the winter.

Winter is the metaphorical season of the older person in a May December relationship.  It is a misnomer for most and creates much misunderstanding.  It suggests that the older person is winding down.  In many ways the “December” in a relationship with a significant age difference is just beginning to wind up!

The energy of winter brings rest and renewal to relationships.  We need times of solitude to recharge our batteries.  It is a necessary season for both the relationship and the individuals in the partnership.  The other seasons are frenzied with activity.  Winter heralds stillness and withdrawal.  This time of peace and slowing down brings much needed rest.  Without the essence of winter we become overwhelmed, sick, and tired.  It is also during this time that much of the groundwork is laid for the creative work to be done in the next spring.

For years we facilitated a very dynamic and intense series of workshops.  We worked every other weekend in addition to our day jobs.  The work was very rewarding and we still miss it today, but it took a toll on most every area of our life.  The time came to let it go and we called on the energy of fall and winter to make the transition.  We were sad to see the workshops go and as the winter came we were lonely without the buzz and excitement they brought.  At times we felt like we would never be creative together again.  Yet somewhere inside both of us we knew preparations were being made for something more – something different.  We were much like bears in hibernation.  Life went on.  Our work continued, but in a much less stressful way.  During this time, we were experiencing spring in a different area of our lives.  We always loved traveling and we finally ventured to Europe together.  Paris and Berlin touched places deep inside us and we fell in love.  Now we are committed to finding ways to spend more time seeing the world.  Without winter, there is no spring.  We are in yet another springtime with our writing and blogging.  Our home is bustling with ideas, plans, and imagination as we give birth to this project.

There is much discussion of what happens in a May December relationship when the “December” begins to slow and the “May” speeds up.  What we’ve discovered is that the energies are complementary.  Ron doesn’t want to “get old” and sit on a porch, but he also is not willing to go at full throttle anymore.   He wants time to “stop and smell the roses.”   Gayle can kick into overdrive, miss the roses, and careen headlong into the bush!  We’ve become “blenders”.  When we are at our best, Gayle’s drive get things going and Ron’s patient endurance keeps the pace manageable.  It could polarize us.  Sometimes we fight about it and then we learn how to draw from each other and become stronger.  This takes a willingness on each other’s part to adapt and change.

5.  Integration: (A time of blending, combining, merging, uniting, & putting it together.)

Each season in nature has its tools (rakes, shovels, seeds, snow plows, plant food, watering cans, garden hoses, pool toys, etc.)  Relationships need tools too.  Again, the different seasons have different tools.  They aren’t tools you have to put away when the seasons change; you might find yourself using them at anytime.  Here are a few to get you going:

• Spring
  • to-do lists
  • mission statments
  • brainstorming sessions
  • family meetings
  • attending workshops and lectures
  • reading a new personal growth book
  • finding a new podcast focused on relationships
  • doing something new like dance lessons
• Summer
  • active vacations (hiking, skiing, boating, fishing, etc.)
  • a family day outside
  • family dinners
  • having friends over
  • throwing a party
• Fall
  • writing in a journal
  • reading about acceptance, forgiveness, and letting go
  • looking at scrapbooks and picture albums from the past
  • cleaning out a cluttered area
  • creating gratitude lists
  • spending time with your partner reminiscing
• Winter
  • peaceful retreat vacations or weekends (yes you can even go to a warm climate in winter!)
  • spending quiet time in prayer and meditation
  • stretching and yoga classes
  • massages
  • napping
  • staying home and watching movies all day
  • sitting outside with a great book to read

We will continue to post more tools and lessons from the seasons.  Look for them in our blog.  Please subscribe to our RSS feed (look for the orange button on the upper left hand corner of this page) and you won’t miss any of them!

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