Loneliness

It's A Serious Issue For Older Adults

We’re not meant to live alone.

As a species, we are as social as any in the animal kingdom but because we often fail in our relationships, many of us find ourselves living alone and lonely in our later years.

Certainly, when a spouse or partner transitions, the net result is being alone but this isn’t the same thing as loneliness. Some people love living by themselves.

For these folks, living alone doesn’t mean living empty lives. Far from it. They have interests, activities they enjoy doing, social connections.

When they return to their homes, they are alone. But not lonely.

There was a recent story in the Washington Post that struck a nerve.

It’s not usually the case that a newspaper story can be described as poignant but this one certainly is in this writer’s view.

The contributing reporter, Judith Graham, profiles the lives of several men in their 70s and 80s who are alone and lonely and then states that the suicide rate amongst men over 75 is the highest of any group in the United States.

It was a shocking statistic to read.

Yet, the brief life profiles that Judith Graham documents are all too sad and it’s easy to see why so many men in what should be the most satisfying years, choose to end their lives.

In each profile, loss was involved, whether it was the loss of a spouse of many years or the loss of a sense of self, by which I mean a loss of one’s former identity.

The title of this newsletter is taken from the words of Paul Rousseau, one of the men featured in the WaPo story. Paul is 73, a retired physician and someone you’d think would have a full and productive final chapter.

“Now, I’m ‘no one,’ a retired, forgotten old man who dithers away the days,” he says in the story.

He admits to being estranged from one daughter and doesn’t see his other daughter much. He is a widower and he actually sought out an isolated location in Wyoming to live.

Are you thinking, “Well, what does he expect? He’s brought it on himself!”

Certainly, every choice we make in our lives ripples out to some far shore, only to bounce back with consequences. But, rather than pointing fingers and assigning blame, what is a better thought to hold for Paul Rousseau?

“May he be guided to find comfort” might be a good starting point.

There is a ton of research, statistics and reports that indicates how epidemic (and it is an epidemic) loneliness is among older people but especially among men, it seems.

Pew Research analyzed census records in the United States going back to 1900 and found that women over 65 have historically lived alone in greater numbers than men. Not surprising if you’re an insurance company actuary: women live longer than men. That’s why their insurance premiums are so much cheaper.

However, this trend seems to be slowing down for women whose male spouses are beginning to live longer, likely due to a generally improved level of health and fitness awareness among adult males, these days.

While the numbers of widowed women living alone has been declining, the mitigating factor here is that those who are divorced and not re-marrying are increasing in number, particularly between 65 and 74.

It’s easy to get lost in the stats and the numbers, though. The question remains: why are single men over 65 so lonely, while single women – with exceptions of course – seem to get along well on their own?

It boils down to one element. Women have more social connections. That’s the view of Robert Waldinger, a psychiatrist who directs the Harvard Study of Adult Development.

His long-term research study determined that those who live longer are those with the strongest connections to others. And currently, those who live longer are women.

Bingo.

Paul Rousseau chose to move to the wilds of Wyoming and live alone in a tiny cabin with no running water. He says in the WaPo piece that he is still lonely but the beauty of the nature around him is a comfort.

These are the choices he made. Could he have made better choices?

That’s not for us to say. He made choices that he felt would help him as an older, widowed man estranged from his kids.

But there are two things that are clear. He has next to no social connections where he is and he has chosen to live in a location where social connection is scarce.

Robert Waldinger refers to “social fitness” as being vitally important for our psyches.

It’s difficult to argue with that, especially in the face of loneliness.