A young-at-heart couple in their 50s are arguing about where they should set up home. For Mariella Frostrup it proves that romance has nothing to do with age

The dilemma My fiancé and I are in our 50s. He's lived in his house for more than 30 years and isn't thrilled about the idea of leaving it. I don't want to live there for two main reasons. First, he's had two failed marriages there. Actually three: his son used to live there with his wife and they divorced, too. Secondly, I don't really like the house – the floor plan, yard, location, decor. I bought my house last year so there's no negative history attached. But it's quite small and located further away from stores, our jobs, etc. I think we should both sell and get something together that is new and ours. But I'm having to persuade him. My mother thinks I'm being unreasonable expecting him to sell a home he's lived in for so long. But when I think of living there, I get the willies. Far too many negative vibes.

Mariella replies So there is life after 50! Not just life, but deliciously romantic, uncynical, forward-thinking life. It's nice to hear good news from the frontline of middle age. Only the other day I received a dispiriting letter from a woman of 55 who felt that she was now invisible, with nothing to look forward to and all her best experiences behind her. I hope she's reading today.

Often the dispatches I receive are impotent cries of despair from the wilderness, a no man's land where you are neither necessary nor yet dead. I'm still waiting for the government to fill me in on what exactly I'm supposed to do in the two decades between 50 and 70 when I'm apparently unemployable, but not officially retired. It's hard enough to get a job as a college leaver, let alone as a woman post motherhood and menopause. Are we baby boomers set to become the oldest out-of-work generation of the modern world? Destined to be dancing badly to ancient Duran Duran hits and drinking cheap plonk to fill in the time between trips to the job centre? Against this grim imagined backdrop I'm loving the word "fiancé". With youngsters it always sounds a trifle naive. You know in your heart they are looking forward to a romantic idyll that can't fail to disappoint them – if not terminally, then at least in a scales-falling-from-their-eyes fashion. Yet here you two lovebirds are, hotly debating your future and refusing to allow past experience to temper your romanticism.

What a lovely problem to have. His, yours or a fresh start? I'm all for the latter, if only because it reduces the number of things to argue about. I suspect both of you are weighed down with memorabilia at this point in your lives, and there is nothing to rival collected junk as a hot topic when adults' lives merge. The other day, my parents-in-law dropped off six boxes of my husband/their only child's school exercise books dating back to the 1970s. Any suggestions for how I can diplomatically but emphatically dispose of them would be gratefully received. Luckily for our marriage, until recently the in-laws had a large garage; let's hope we can survive their recent downsize.

With two marriages and the tenancy of his son for a period, your man's home is probably a similar museum to times gone by. Forcing your man to tackle the souvenirs of his past emotional journeys is one of many good reasons to insist on combining assets and starting afresh.

One of the great advantages of the itinerant lifestyle of my own youth was that you discard as you drift. We all know there is no such thing as a truly fresh start – the baggage of our pasts weighs us down as heavily as any trunkload of belongings. All the more reason to allow air to circulate where it can, and in your situation that means a neutral environment where neither of your individual dramas has been played out. In maturity you know that it isn't just love, actually, but what you sustain it with that determines whether a relationship grows or perishes.

Stepping over a new threshold, both metaphorically and literally, is a potent symbol of your joint desire to move forward. Arguing "negative vibes" puts you on the back foot – all middle-aged sages know such superstitions are an irrational manifestation of rational fears, so instead outline what you are really afraid of.

If you two don't find a new stomping ground, you'll disintegrate into the clouds of dust created by the herd of elephants alive and flourishing in your respective homes.

As for having "to persuade him", you might as well get into training – in any partnership we commit ourselves to a lifetime of practising that dark art!
