Love Doesn’t Have a Deadline

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”― Lao Tzu

Igot married young, over thirty years ago now, back when that was simply what people did. You met someone in your twenties, sometimes even earlier, and built a life together without giving it much thought. It felt normal at the time. Looking back, I can see how different things have become.

My brother didn’t marry until his forties. He met his wife online, at a point when most people had already figured that chapter of his life was closed for good.

My husband’s cousin has a son in his early 40s, who reconnected with an old high school classmate decades after they’d lost touch. Now, the two of them are expecting a baby and planning a wedding.

An older friend of mine has a son in his forties who found someone too. I don’t know all the details of how they met, but I know they’re happy, and that’s the only part that matters.

Another family friend of ours met and married in their late thirties. They had a daughter together who quickly became the center of their world. They’ve given her everything and are still happily married today, proof that starting a family later in life can be just as full and joyful as starting one young.

None of these people rushed into anything. They did not settle for less than what they wanted either. They waited, often without meaning to, and love found them anyway, regardless of the timeline they’d once pictured for themselves.

It is rare for people nowadays to marry young the way I did. Careers take longer to get off the ground now, and people want a fuller sense of who they are before they commit to someone else. Many spend those years finishing degrees, building their independence, or traveling before they even think about settling down.

There’s also the sheer number of choices people have today. Online dating means you could meet someone from almost anywhere in the world, and having that many options can make it harder to settle on any one person. There’s always some voice in the back of your mind wondering if someone better is a swipe away, so people keep looking longer than they used to, sometimes without even meaning to.

Love still finds its way to people. Just not always when they expect it, or on the schedule they once had in mind. If you’re waiting, or wondering whether it’s too late for you, take these stories as proof that it isn’t.

Has love ever shown up for you later than you expected?

B.R. Shenoy is a lifestyle writer and the owner/editor of The Family Desk on Medium. She also publishes Musings and Reflections, a newsletter on Substack, and is the coauthor of The Invisible Lines of Poverty.