Growing older gracefully - sexuality and vitality hand in hand

This is a spin-off of a blog post I just recently read about hot or not, it brought a few things I'd noticed over the last few weeks in my own time to the surface and I'd welcome any input from long-term couples with a lot of experience (life experience) under their belt for this one.

To explain the several pieces that came together

1. At one point in the last month I had a conversation in my kitchen with my cousin. She works in mental health services and often provides over-the-phone company for senior people. She spoke to me about how she feels society does not respect people past middle any anymore "seriously, it's a real problem and we need to look at it!" - she said vehemently at the time. It made me think about a second incident...

2. I was driving back through South London from the Airport a week ago. Stopped at a red light in the sunshine of a Friday afternoon, a couple (man and woman) that must have been around late 70-80s walked across the road in front of me. They looked like they were keeping one another company. For all I know, they could have just been friends, but they seemed to walk together with the familiarity of a couple. They also looked like they had been and seen it all and weren't too bothered with paying attention to one another anymore, just as long as they had one another for company

This is just my superficial observation and split judgement on the day, and of course I know there was no time to see this was necessarily the case - it just made me think about the state of my own long-term relationships where the spark had been lost and my partners and I had fallen into that place of taking one another for granted.

3. I just saw a blog post on here about hot-or-not, the feature that attracts mainly younger, twenty-somethings just reaching the peak of their powers and awareness. The kind of demographic we're bombarded to pay more attention towards if we spend enough time around advertising.

I thought on that day in my car, absolutely no one else on the road was paying much attention to this couple walking across my car together. Whereas had they been in their early 20s or so, would people have stopped, turned heads, even pointed them out and encouraged "young love"?

I'm putting this out there to ask - what does it take to keep our eyes on the prize in a long-term relationship, to keep enjoying the journey together with vitality no matter what? In your own experience? Whether you are single, in a committed relationship, an open or closed relationship - particularly if you've been with your partner for a long time I'd love to hear your experience.

By answering, no I'm not saying anyone is old, young, in love or not in love - purely putting this out there as my thoughts to attract other people's experience and learn what I can.

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