Better late than …

After years of dating, writer Hannah Holmes marries for the first time in her 40s.

As she approached her mid-40s, Hannah Holmes had absolutely no interest in getting married.

She was, as she says, “fundamentally independent,” and a “little Red Hen” with a “wild” career traveling the world as a writer. And, as a child of divorced parents, she just didn’t think the whole notion of wedded bliss would work for her.

But all that changed when a close friend tied the knot.

“I could suddenly see the appeal, the tremendous appeal of not doing it all myself,” said 48-year-old Holmes, a South Portland author who married her husband, John Dorvee, at age 44. “Seeing my friend, who was much like me, suddenly sharing her burdens and her joys with a partner allowed me to envision that for myself.”

And she’s not the only one. True, more baby boomers – and high-profile ones, too, such as Al and Tipper Gore, or Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenegger – are slipping off their long-worn wedding rings and stepping back into single life.

But more are getting married, too – and, in many cases, as with Holmes, for the first time.

Based on a study of U.S. Census figures by single minded women.com, 13 percent of all couples who get married today are 45 and older, compared to 1 percent 20 years ago.

It’s a phenomenon Holmes can understand. In her case, getting married later in life followed decades of interpersonal relationships, career ups and downs, an understanding of what she wanted from both herself and partner – as well as a realistic understanding of what a true, lasting relationship really is.

“It is not going to be awesome every day. It may even suck for long periods at a time,” said Holmes, a science writer whose books include “Quirk,” “The Well-Dressed Ape,” “Suburban Safari” and “The Secret Life of Dust.”

“But,” she said, “in pursuing a goal together – a goal of creating a stable, supportive relationship – you come to know and appreciate your partner in a realistic way. You bypass the disappointment of realizing your partner is a flawed and annoying human being. You knew from the outset that every human being is flawed and annoying.”

To seek out that flawed and annoying partner, she took to Match.com with brutal honesty. She posted on her profile that she was looking for a long-term relationship with the kind of person willing to put in the hard work that it requires.

“And I was truthful about everything else, too,” she explained, noting that she also posted a playful picture of herself holding a stuffed skunk. “I’m old enough to accept myself, oddities included. So why lead someone into believing I’m anything else?”

And finding that right person didn’t take long. She wrote up her Match.com profile on New Year’s Eve, and in the next five days went on four dates (two of those with Dorvee, now 55, a divorcee and father of two). After their second date, they both canceled their Match.com memberships.

Six weeks later, on Valentine’s Day, after polling his two kids and reaching an agreement that “it was time,” he proposed.

“He asked if I would marry him,” Holmes recalled. “I said I’d marry all of them.”

So in the end, she got much more than a husband – she got a whole family. And instantly.

“It’s been a completely unforeseen privilege to be part of these young lives,” she said – and this for someone who admits she never had the “faintest interest” in having kids.

Nine months after they met, on Sept. 15, 2007, she and Dorvee wed in her back yard  before a group of around 90 people. The wedding party was simple: Just the couple and the kids in mismatched outfits (hers a $25 pewter satin dress from the Macy’s clearance rack).

Many of her friends and family were shocked that she was getting married after being single for so long. Later, she learned that many also had concerns that it was all happening so fast, that she didn’t know what she was getting into.

“Which, of course, I didn’t,” she acknowledged.

But the only way you find that out is by jumping in, she said.

“I had total faith that we could overcome whatever came our way,” she said. “And plenty of things have.”

One advantage culled from experience has been knowing that bumps in the road are just that: bumps. They’re not the road itself. And it’s also about commitment, and willing to do that hard work without giving up.

“I don’t think there’s one special person for each of us,” she said. “I think a relationship is an entity unto itself. And for it to stand solid, all it needs is the care and support of two people who believe in it.”

marriage