What Exactly Are We to Each Other – Especially After 50?
By Dr. Leahcim Semaj
Transformational Psychologist | Relationship Architect
For many years, I operated with a fairly simple understanding of male-female relationships.
Teenagers have girlfriends.
A baby mother was often the consequence of contraceptive failure.
And when a man became a big man, he made a commitment and took a wife.
That was my working model.
It reflected the social expectations of an earlier generation, when adulthood was frequently measured by marriage, children, providing for a household and accepting responsibility. But as I have grown older, observed more relationships, and listened to the experiences of men and women across generations, I have been forced to reconsider. Was my original framework too simplistic? Certainly.
A girlfriend is not necessarily a teenage arrangement. A baby mother is not necessarily the result of an accident. And a man can have a wife without demonstrating the psychological maturity required to sustain a marriage. Equally, two people can build a deeply committed, loving and responsible partnership without ever getting married.
Marriage is a legal and social status. Commitment is a pattern of behaviour. Maturity is a psychological achievement. These three things may overlap, but they are not interchangeable. And perhaps, especially as we enter the Anchor Leg of life, we need a more precise vocabulary for describing the relationships we create.
1. Girlfriend: Dating or Building a Future?
The word girlfriend once suggested courtship — a relationship that might eventually become marriage. Today, it can describe everything from occasional dating to a deeply committed relationship lasting 30 years. But the label tells us remarkably little. Is there exclusivity? Are there shared plans? Is this companionship, emotional commitment or a pathway to marriage?
At 25, having a girlfriend may represent exploration. At 65, having a girlfriend may represent a deliberate decision to enjoy love and companionship without combining households, finances or legal responsibilities. Neither arrangement is inherently immature. The issue is not whether she is called a girlfriend. The issue is whether both people agree on what that means.
2. Baby Mother: A Child Is Not a Relationship Agreement
In Jamaica, the term baby mother carries enormous cultural significance. Sometimes it describes a woman who became pregnant during a casual relationship. Sometimes it refers to a former partner. Sometimes it describes the mother of several children in a long-standing union. And sometimes it becomes an unfortunate way of defining a woman primarily through her reproductive connection to a man.
My earlier assumption that baby mothers were largely the consequence of contraceptive failure was clearly too general. Some pregnancies are unplanned. Others are deliberately pursued. Some occur in loving relationships that subsequently dissolve. But here is the important distinction: Having a child together creates a permanent parental responsibility. It does not automatically create a permanent romantic relationship.
A woman may cease to be a man’s girlfriend or wife. She does not cease to be the mother of his child. And the corresponding question for men is equally important: Why do we hear so much about baby mothers and comparatively little about baby fathers? Perhaps our language has allowed too many men to separate fatherhood from responsibility.
3. Friends With Benefits: Intimacy Without Partnership
Two adults may genuinely enjoy each other’s company and sexual intimacy without wanting a conventional relationship. There may be affection, friendship and mutual respect, but no intention to establish a household, exclusive partnership or long-term commitment. This arrangement is not necessarily irresponsible. However, it requires an unusual degree of honesty.
What happens when one person develops deeper feelings? What happens when somebody else enters the picture? What happens when the arrangement no longer meets one person’s needs?
Sexual consent is not the same as agreement about emotional expectations. Without clarity, friends with benefits can become friends with confusion.
4. Entanglement: When Nobody Knows Where They Stand
An entanglement is often a relationship that has accumulated emotional, sexual or practical complexity without establishing clear boundaries. There may be intimacy without exclusivity. Financial support without commitment. Jealousy without an agreed relationship. Expectations without accountability. And sometimes one person believes that the relationship is progressing while the other insists that nothing was ever promised.
Entanglements are not necessarily defined by the absence of love. They are frequently defined by the absence of clarity. If you cannot explain the relationship without contradicting yourself, you may be in an entanglement. And after 60, when time becomes an increasingly valuable resource, prolonged ambiguity may carry a particularly high psychological cost.
5. The Situationship: More Than Casual, Less Than Committed
This is a relatively modern term for an old human experience. Two people behave like a couple but have never agreed that they are one. They go on dates, share personal experiences, communicate regularly and may even expect loyalty. Yet when asked, “What exactly are we?” the answer remains uncertain.
A situationship can be a temporary stage in getting to know someone. The problem arises when temporary uncertainty becomes a permanent relationship structure – especially when only one person wants it that way. You cannot build emotional security on an agreement that has never been made.
6. The Outside Woman or Outside Man
Jamaican relationship culture has long recognised the phenomenon of the outside woman. She may receive affection, companionship, financial support and even years of emotional investment. But she does not occupy the publicly acknowledged position of wife or primary partner. Sometimes the outside relationship is hidden. Sometimes everyone knows. Sometimes the arrangement is tolerated without ever being genuinely accepted.
We should also recognise the outside man. The psychological questions are the same. Who knows what? Who has consented to what? Who is being deceived? And who bears the emotional consequences? A consensually negotiated non-monogamous relationship is fundamentally different from a secret affair. The central issue is not simply the number of people involved. It is whether honesty, informed consent and responsibility are present.
7. The Living-Apart-Together Partner: Love Without a Shared Address
This category deserves special attention in the Anchor Leg. Two financially independent adults may love each other, maintain exclusivity, travel together, offer emotional support and still prefer to live in separate homes. They may have children from previous marriages. They may wish to protect family property. They may enjoy their established routines, privacy and independence. They may have spent decades caring for spouses, children or elderly parents and have no desire to reconstruct a traditional household.
For them, living apart does not mean emotional distance. It may mean that they have consciously designed a relationship compatible with who they have become. At 65, commitment may mean choosing each other without surrendering the independence each has spent a lifetime creating.
The critical question becomes: What happens when one partner becomes ill, dependent or financially vulnerable? That is when the real meaning of commitment emerges.
8. Common-Law Wife: A Partnership With Legal Consequences
Many Jamaicans use the term common-law wife to describe a woman who has lived with a man for several years without a formal marriage ceremony. But common-law status is not simply a matter of public recognition or how long people have been sleeping together. Under Jamaica’s Property (Rights of Spouses) Act, qualifying unmarried couples must meet particular conditions, including living together in a marriage-like relationship for at least five years. Legal rights depend on the applicable legislation and circumstances.
A common-law partnership can involve shared property, financial responsibilities, children, caregiving and long-term commitment. It should not be dismissed as an inferior relationship. But neither should couples assume that all the legal protections of marriage automatically apply. Especially in later life, questions of property, inheritance, medical decisions, financial dependency and family obligations must be considered deliberately. Living as husband and wife emotionally does not necessarily mean having all the legal protections of husband and wife.
9. Legal Wife: Marriage Is a Contract, Not a Guarantee of Maturity
The legal wife occupies a clearly recognised marital position. Marriage establishes a formal relationship with significant rights and obligations. But does that guarantee love? No it does not. Does it guarantee fidelity? No it does not. Does it guarantee emotional security, respect or companionship? Certainly not.
Some legally married couples have not shared genuine intimacy for decades. Others have developed highly functional arrangements based on friendship, mutual respect, shared history and practical cooperation. Marriage can provide a powerful structure for commitment, but the structure itself does not create the commitment.
A wedding establishes a marriage. Daily behaviour determines the quality of that marriage. A big man is not necessarily the man with the wedding ring. He is the man who understands and honours the commitments he has freely accepted.
10. The Companion or Life Partner: Commitment Beyond Conventional Labels
There is another category that becomes particularly meaningful after 60. This is the companion. The person with whom we share conversation, laughter, cultural activities, travel, personal growth and emotional support. There may or may not be sexual intimacy. There may or may not be cohabitation. There may or may not be an intention to marry. But there is an enduring commitment to each other’s wellbeing. This can also include a deliberately chosen platonic partnership.
At 75, I increasingly recognise that companionship, peace, trust and psychological compatibility may be more important than the public label attached to a relationship. The question becomes less about ownership and more about mutual enrichment. Does this relationship make the remaining years of our lives better for both of us? That may be the most important question of all.
The Anchor Leg Changes the Relationship Equation
At 25, people may be looking for someone with whom to build a home, raise children and establish financial security. At 65, they may already have accomplished those things. They may be divorced, widowed, financially independent or emerging from a marriage in which they sacrificed much of their individual identity.
Their needs may have changed. They may want intimacy without cohabitation. Companionship without remarriage. Sexual expression without exclusivity, provided the arrangement is fully understood and accepted. Or they may want precisely the opposite: a legally married partner who will share the final decades of life. There is no universally correct arrangement.
But there must be psychological honesty. We should not assume that what represented maturity at 30 must remain the appropriate model at 70. The task of later life is not necessarily to repeat the relationship structures of our youth. It is to design relationships that reflect the people we have become.
Five Questions Every Mature Couple Should Answer
Before deciding what to call a relationship, perhaps we should answer five more important questions.
1. What are we promising each other? Are we offering friendship, sexual intimacy, exclusivity, emotional partnership or lifelong commitment?
2. What responsibilities are we accepting? What happens during illness, disability, financial difficulty or family crisis?
3. How independent do we intend to remain? Will we share a home, finances, assets, social lives and decision-making, or retain boundaries around some of these?
4. What do our families need to understand? Especially after 60, adult children, former spouses, grandchildren and inheritance arrangements may complicate the relationship.
5. What happens when one of us changes our mind? Can we negotiate, redesign or respectfully end the relationship without deception, coercion or unnecessary destruction?
These are not romantic questions. They are the architectural questions of mature love.
My Revised Position
I began with three categories: Girlfriend, Baby mother and Wife. I now recognise that human relationships are too complex to be adequately understood through those three labels. A girlfriend may be a lifelong partner. A baby mother may be a responsible co-parent without being a romantic partner. A common-law wife may have demonstrated decades of loyalty and commitment. A legal wife may be living in a marriage that ceased to function emotionally many years ago. And a 70-year-old man and woman living in separate homes may have created a more honest, loving and sustainable partnership than many conventionally married couples.
So perhaps I should revise my earlier observation.
Teenagers often explore relationships.
Having children creates parental responsibilities.
Marriage creates legal commitments.
But emotional maturity requires something more: knowing what you want, communicating it clearly, negotiating honestly and accepting responsibility for the consequences.
That is what being a big man — or a big woman should mean. Not simply claiming a title. But demonstrating the psychological capacity to honour the relationship you have chosen.
Semaj MindSpa Challenge
Whether you are 35, 55 or 75, ask yourself:
What exactly is the relationship you are in — and does the other person define it the same way?
Are you a girlfriend, boyfriend, baby mother, baby father, friend with benefits, entanglement, situationship, outside partner, common-law spouse, legal spouse or life companion?
And more importantly: Is the relationship intentionally designed, mutually understood and genuinely improving the quality of both your lives?
Because perhaps the most dangerous relationship is not one without a conventional title. It is one in which two people are living under the same label but operating under completely different agreements.
Dr. Leahcim Semaj
Transformational Psychologist
SemajMindSpa.com
I don’t write to convince or convert. I share insights to encourage reflection, clarity and conscious living.
