Is this a red flag, or am I just being careful?

If your hesitation is about pace, health, privacy or your family, it’s usually care, and you’re entitled to every bit of it. If it’s about someone reaching for your money, your time with your family, or your right to make your own decisions, or if you ever feel afraid of how they’ll react, that’s a red flag, however careful you happen to be.

Why does it feel so hard to tell the difference?

Take Harold, 71. He was married for 44 years, and his wife died three years ago. Last winter he met Joan at a grief support group, and they now have dinner twice a week. Joan is lovely. She has also, after four months, started talking about selling her condo and moving in with him. Harold keeps hesitating, and he can’t tell whether that’s good judgment or whether he has simply forgotten how to let someone in.

His son says he’s being too careful. His daughter says he isn’t being careful enough. Harold is mostly tired.

Here are two things worth knowing if you’re in Harold’s position.

Your caution is less likely to be anxiety than you might fear. The National Institute of Mental Health estimates that 9.0% of adults 60 and older had an anxiety disorder in the past year, far fewer than the 22.7% of adults aged 30 to 44.1 That doesn’t mean worry never gets out of hand later in life. It means that a wary feeling at 70 is at least as likely to be experience talking as nerves.

You may be wired to let the negatives slide. Research from Laura Carstensen’s group at Stanford found that older adults remembered negative images less well, compared with positive ones, than younger adults did.2 That tilt toward the good is part of why later life is often happier. It also means that a small uneasy moment can fade from memory before you’ve thought it through. If something gave you pause, it’s worth writing down.

What does being careful look like?

Caution is about your own pace. It sounds like:

• “I’d like to meet your family before we travel together.”
• “I’m keeping my own home for now.”
• “Let’s talk about our health before we’re intimate.”
• “I’m not ready to change my will, or to talk about money at all.”

None of these needs a justification. And sex and health aren’t a young person’s subject. In a University of Michigan national poll of adults aged 65 to 80, 40% said they were sexually active, including 46% of those aged 65 to 70.3 A calm conversation about health and testing belongs to dating at this age just as much as it did at any other.

A good sign in any new companion is how they take your pace. Someone who says “of course, whenever you’re ready” is showing you something important.

What does a red flag look like?

Red flags are about the other person’s behavior, and they tend to repeat. The CDC describes coercive control in relationships as behavior intended to monitor, control or threaten a partner.4 Later in life, that often shows up around three things.

• Money. Early, repeated interest in your savings, your house or your will. Pressure to add them to an account, or to lend “just this once.”
• Family. Resentment of your time with children and grandchildren, or quiet efforts to make you feel your family doesn’t understand you.
• Decisions. Taking over your appointments, medications or plans, and getting angry when you decline.

These problems aren’t rare in later life. In a national study of 5,777 Americans aged 60 and older, about 11% reported some form of mistreatment or potential neglect in the past year, and 5.2% reported current financial abuse by a family member.5 Those numbers cover all close relationships, not just new romances. They are a reminder that guarding your money and your independence is ordinary good sense, not suspicion.

You don’t have to decide what any of this says about who the person is. You only have to notice that it’s happening, and that it doesn’t work for you.

What did Harold decide?

Harold sat down with a notepad and split his worry into four lines. What happened: Joan suggested moving in after four months. The reading he’d been giving it: she’s after something. The fear underneath: making a big mistake at 71, or ending up lonely because he was too cautious. The next step: tell her plainly that he wants to keep two homes for now, and see how she takes it.

Joan said she was a little disappointed and then asked if they could book the trip to the coast they’d been talking about. That told Harold more than any amount of worrying had. His hesitation was about pace. Her response was respect.

If she had pushed, sulked for weeks, or brought it up every visit, the same conversation would have told him something different. That’s the point. Saying your pace out loud is the test.

When do you need more help?

If you feel afraid of someone you’re seeing, if they check up on you, cut you off from friends or family, or control your money, that isn’t something to sort out by being more or less careful. Tell someone you trust, and use the support line on this page.

And if worry about any new person is keeping you up for weeks, pulling you away from people you love, or making daily life feel heavy, a licensed counselor or your doctor is the right next call.

What the research doesn’t tell us

• The anxiety figures are population averages. They can’t tell you whether your own worry is right.
• The memory research used pictures in a lab, not real relationships.
• The elder mistreatment study covers all close relationships, mostly family, not new partners specifically.
• No list can read someone’s intentions. It can only help you see their behavior clearly.

What to do this week

• Play the sort above and notice which moments you hesitated over.
• Write down anything that gave you pause, the same day, before it fades.
• Say your pace out loud once, kindly and plainly, and watch the response.
• Keep money, wills and accounts off the table with anyone new.
• Tell one person you trust about the person you’re seeing, by name.