*Ava and Oliver are in their mid-60s. As of Valentine’s Day 2026, they will have been married for 22 years, a fact I casually celebrated with them early, a couple of weeks ago, over an Italian lunch one afternoon in Santa Monica.
“After all this time, he still excites me,” Ava said over risotto with asparagus and too few shrimp. “He still does things that make me ask how in the world did I get so lucky.”
“And whenever she says that,” Oliver interjected, pausing before digging into his lobster ravioli, “I say, ‘I’m blessed.’ That’s the only way to explain how a bum like me could end up with a woman like her.”
I enjoy these two. Their affinity for laughter and openness, their taste in music, and their love of conversation make spending time with them a real pleasure. Pop culture, politics, religion—no topic is off-limits. And there’s juicy gossip—plenty of sentences that start with “Quiet as it’s kept….”
Ava and Oliver recently retired—he from an executive position at an energy company and she from a long teaching career in the Los Angeles public school system (which is why she says she never had kids—“I raised plenty of them in my classrooms”). They enjoy active lives. Both hike and play tennis. Oliver golfs.
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The three of us, being at a certain age, talk about our personal health and that of others, which naturally leads to a conversation about sex. Ava confided that they don’t have much of it.
“When was the last time we did it, babe?” Ava asked.
“Two days ago. You already forgot?”
“Before that, silly.”
“I don’t know,” Oliver shrugged. “Maybe a couple of months.”
“I’ve been a sexual being since I was 17,” Ava said. “I did my stuff. I was in my late 20s when sex started to mean more than just physical.”
“I second that emotion,” said her husband. “We love it. We just don’t do it much anymore.”
Ava and Oliver have separate bedrooms. They haven’t shared home-cooked meals in years. “Occasionally, I’ll make a big pot of something and tell him it’s in the kitchen,” says Ava, sifting through that risotto for stray shrimp, “but we usually cook for ourselves.”
Oliver: “My niece came to visit last month and said, ‘Unc, y’all sleep in different rooms, you don’t eat with her, and I ain’t heard no sounds coming out of these bedrooms. Why are y’all even still together?’ I laughed and told her our marriage has never been stronger. We’re madly in love. She just shook her head.”
Actually, today, Ava and Olivia’s lifestyle isn’t that unusual. I know others, middle-aged and older, who say sex just isn’t the focus in their relationships like it was when they were younger. While physical health is sometimes a factor, most suggest their relationship shifts to a more cerebral level.
Those people also speak of separate bedrooms; they go on separate vacations, and might have different groups of friends. I know at least one very married couple who live in separate homes. And yet they describe relationships that have never been more fulfilling.
One of Ava’s friends, familiar with the details of their marriage, once argued that their unconventional lifestyle influences their sex life, or lack of it.
“I said, ‘Nope.’ I don’t understand why folks put so much emphasis on sex where age or marriage is concerned.”
But we do. As a teenager—strangely, when I was young, I paid attention to this kind of thing—I noticed that the women in my life—my mother, aunts, and grandmother—after they were divorced, widowed, or never married, at some point seemed disinterested in romantic relationships, which, I imagine, ended their sexual activities. As a kid, I thought these women were ancient, even though they were only in their 40s and 50s.
Ava can relate. “My older relatives who weren’t married, as far as I knew, didn’t date. I figured they weren’t having sex, either.”
“Except for your Aunt Joy,” Oliver said.
“Well, yeah, Auntie Joy. She was ‘fast,’ as they used to say. Never married. She was an attorney; sophisticated—and, from what I now know, a straight-up ho.”
Laughter.
“Older dudes are still gettin’ down, though,” Oliver insisted.
“Men lie,” Ava countered. “Sure, older men are having sex. But they’ll claim they’re having all these women when they’re not. It’s an ego thing.”
Oliver: “Well, James is still doin’ it.”
Ava: “James who?”
“James…Jimmy. He’s over 70, and the other night he went out with a 39-year-old he’s been talking to. Said he was standin’ UP in it…tearin’ it up!”
Ava: “You talkin’ about J.J., Darla’s ex? Boy, J.J. ain’t ‘standin’ up’ in nothin. J.J. can barely stand up, period.”
According to Oliver, after years of being together, his marriage to Ava has found “that sweet spot.”
“We have an emotional intimacy that is so gratifying,” Oliver said, as he perused the dessert menu. “Our ability to communicate with one another, the space we give one another, that’s what keeps us together. Here’s the deal: the only ones who decide what a marriage looks like are the people who are married.”
I found exactly what I wanted for dessert, but my lunch guests declined sweets. They wouldn’t let me pay for lunch, either. Ava was eager for another kind of treat.
“All this talk about not having sex,” she declared with a sly wink, “has got me wanting to take my husband home and get busy.”
I ordered my Apple tarte tatin to go.
Real names and other distinctions here have been changed.
Steven Ivory, a veteran journalist, essayist, and author, writes and discusses popular culture across various platforms, including the Internet, TV, radio, documentaries, magazines, and newspapers. The Last Man on AOL is at [email protected]
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