Does love have an age limit?

This question was raised during the first seminar of the new Clinical Seminar Series “Love, Sex and Aggression” with Otto Kernberg, M.D. Seminar participant Inna Yakovenko (psychologist and entrepreneur near the front line) shares her reflections on what she heard—and on a person’s right to intimacy in later life:

“ I would like to thank the Ukrainian Association for Transference-Focused Psychotherapy for the opportunity to have such extraordinary encounters with Otto Kernberg. For the opportunity to listen, think, reconsider, and engage with topics that are still not always easy to discuss openly in our society.

One of these topics is love and sexuality, which have no age limit. Kernberg was asked about two people, both around 85 years old, who have dementia. They live in a residential care facility for older adults and have developed feelings for each other. They look for each other, want to be together, sleep in the same bed, and have sexual relations. This raised a question: can we speak of mutual love and desire when a person’s cognitive capacities have already been significantly impaired by dementia?

I really appreciated Kernberg’s response. He spoke about the capacity to love, to become attached to another person, and to experience erotic desire as fundamental human experiences. They can remain with us until the end of life. A person may no longer be able to fully comprehend the complexity of their relationship, but this does not mean that they cease to feel: I feel good with this person; I want to see them, touch them, lie beside them, and experience the pleasure of intimacy.

And Kernberg asked a very simple question: they are happy, they have sex, they lie next to each other, they sleep together—what is the problem?

And I thought: indeed, what is the problem?

For some reason, our society still holds the idea that getting married after 70 is somehow “not appropriate for one’s age.” That at 70, 80, or 85, a person is somehow no longer supposed to fall in love, desire sex, warmth, touch, or embraces, or want to fall asleep beside another person. As though love and sexuality had an expiration date.

Likewise, one can still hear people say that homosexuality is “abnormal.” Yet homosexuality in itself is not a mental disorder. When we are talking about relationships between adults in which there is mutual consent and no violence or exploitation, whom a person loves and with whom they choose to have a sexual relationship belongs to their private life.

And this is what, for me, brought these topics together. No matter how old a person is—30, 60, 75, or 85—they remain a human being. They may want to matter to someone, to experience warmth, touch, and intimacy. They may want not to fall asleep alone. They may fall in love. They may desire sex and experience pleasure from it.

Of course, when dementia is involved, the person’s capacity to express consent, understand the situation, and the absence of coercion remain important considerations. But old age or cognitive impairment in itself does not mean that a person has ceased to feel.

I also found myself thinking about how adult children sometimes begin deciding for their parents that, at an advanced age, they no longer have the right to fall in love. That they no longer “need” relationships, sex, or a new partner. As though, with age, a person somehow ceased to belong to themselves.

Perhaps the problem is not how people love. Perhaps it is that we too often try to decide for others whom they should love, how they should love, and until what age it is “appropriate” for them to do so.

Because the need to love and be loved does not retire. And if, at 75, 85, or even 95, a person meets someone they look for across the room, someone they want to touch, someone beside whom they want to fall asleep and wake up—perhaps it is not for us to decide that it is already too late for love”.

Inna Yakovenko, psychologist and entrepreneur near the front line 

A thoughtful reflection that not only conveys the experience of participating in the seminar but also highlights the complexity and multidimensional nature of Love, Sexuality, and Aggression.

We know that the work we do is important, valuable, and needed—and your support greatly inspires our entire team to keep moving forward.

Dear colleagues, we invite you to join us in continuing to explore these themes in the NEW Clinical Seminar Series “Love, Sex and Aggression” with Otto Kernberg.

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(c) Yuliia Holopiorova,

Ukrainian Association of Transference-Focused Psychotherapy