“I’m Still Saying Yes:” An Interview with 81-Year-Old Relationship Coach Nancy Ripp White

“Love can arrive at any age and in places we never would have thought to look.”

Starting and maintaining a relationship, especially at an older age, is never easy, especially if your goal is to find romance and love. So if you have the chance to get advice and inspiration, all the better. Fortunately, Relationship Coach Nancy Ripp White is generously sharing her wisdom! For over 30 years, Nancy has helped older adults in their efforts to build loving relationships. Nancy is also the author of 2 books about finding love and creating joyous relationships no matter your age. Drawing from her personal experiences and professional training, Nancy has shared dozens of true stories of older couples who have found love in the most unexpected places. Recently, agebuzz Managing Editor Connie Zuckerman was lucky enough to interview Nancy about her life and work. What follows is an edited version of their conversation.

Connie Zuckerman (CZ): Nancy, thank you so much for sharing your story and your relationship wisdom with agebuzz readers. Let’s start with your background.

Nancy Ripp White (NRW): If life has taught me anything in 81 years, it’s that the most unexpected chapters often begin with one small word: yes.

I wish I could say I’ve always lived this way. I haven’t. I’ve ignored my instincts, made painful mistakes, stayed too long in situations that were not right for me, and resisted the very changes that ultimately helped me grow.

If someone had told the little girl growing up in the Bronx that she’d become a relationship coach, publish two books in her seventies and eighties, survive a terrifying medical crisis, and still jump out of bed excited about what might happen next, she wouldn’t have believed a word of it.

I was born in 1945 and grew up in Pelham Parkway, in the Bronx, NYC, when a pink Spalding ball, a pair of roller skates, and a skate key could fill an entire afternoon with magic. We weren’t rich in material things, but we were wealthy in friendship, imagination, and a family that taught me to find joy in whatever was right in front of me.

Those early years gave me qualities that have carried me through everything since: curiosity, optimism, resilience, and a willingness to say yes.

CZ: Can you describe how you became interested in relationship coaching?

NRW: My interest in relationships began with the twists and turns of my own life. At 17, I met my first husband. We married when I was 20, and by 22, I was a mother. We cared about each other, but over time we grew in different directions. Ten years later, we divorced as gently as we could. I went on to raise my daughter as a single mother, and today I am the proud grandmother of twin 22-year-old boys.

I graduated from Queens College with a degree in psychology and communications and later earned my certification as a life coach. But my real education came from living, listening, loving, losing, and staying relentlessly curious about people.

A few unconventional experiences also shaped the woman and coach I would become. For 14 years, I belonged to a circle of women called the Bliss Group, where we took a collective stand: “I am the source of life showing up as bliss.” Whenever life threw me a curveball, I had to ask myself, Am I being blissful? It was a radical reminder that I couldn’t control everything that happened to me, only how I responded.

In the 1980s, I also walked across coals heated to 1,200 degrees at a Tony Robbins event, a lesson in facing fear that I still call on. Even now, when self-doubt creeps in, I remind myself: You walked on fire. You can handle this.

Perhaps the most important preparation for my future career came when I volunteered for a suicide prevention helpline at Marble Collegiate Church. Before answering a single call, I completed a rigorous three-month course in active listening. On that line, there was no room to interrupt, advise, or plan a clever response. You had to be completely present. I learned that listening without distraction or judgment is one of the most powerful gifts we can give another person.

CZ: Tell us about the journey you went through to become a relationship coach, with a particular focus on dating and love.

NRW: Before coaching, I worked in advertising sales for Seventeen and New Woman magazines, then as an executive recruiter for creative directors and copywriters. I enjoyed connecting with people, but I longed for work that made a more lasting difference. Then I discovered Thomas Leonard as he was building Coach University, and I knew I’d found my professional home.

I didn’t become a relationship coach because I had love figured out. Quite the opposite. When my second marriage ended in deep heartbreak, I needed to understand what had happened, both to heal and to help other women avoid the same traps. I wanted to be both a student and teacher.

During my 30 years as a certified life coach specializing in relationships, I’ve walked alongside women as they rewrote their stories. I’ve also lived nearly every chapter I coach others through: marriage, divorce, single motherhood, dating, long-term partnership, starting over, and the loss of a partner. I’ve kissed my share of frogs and princes.

The most meaningful and bittersweet affirmation of everything I had learned, both from coaching others and from taking an honest look at myself, was finally creating the kind of relationship I had spent years helping others find. I learned to communicate openly, choose wisely, set healthy boundaries, and recognize the difference between simply being in love and building a love that could flourish.

Len and I shared eleven wonderful years filled with affection, trust, and mutual respect before he passed away. Losing him was heartbreaking, but loving him left me with something I still carry: the certainty that love can enter our lives at any age, and that the lessons from relationships that didn’t work may be exactly what prepare us to build one that does.

True relationship coaching is about far more than dating advice. It begins with knowing who you are, recognizing what you deserve, and learning to identify healthy, reciprocal love.

CZ: Nancy, you’ve more recently become an author of two books on relationships, dating, and love. Can you tell us about those books?

NRW: I wrote my first book, It Can Happen to You, in 2022, at age 76. I’ve always had an insatiable curiosity about how couples meet. I’m the person in a restaurant who turns to the couple at the next table and asks, “So, how did your story begin?” Over the years, I collected hundreds of those stories. The book gathers 50 of them for single women of all ages who need inspiration and hope. Before an ordinary day is over, something unexpected and completely out of the blue can change your life.

When it was published, I was on cloud nine. Then life introduced a plot twist I never saw coming.

Shortly after the book’s release, I faced a sudden, life-threatening medical crisis. What was expected to be a five-day hospital stay for a triple bypass and valve replacement became 59 days in intensive care after a nightmare of complications, including ulcers and sepsis.

At first, I was a terrible patient. My natural optimism vanished. I couldn’t walk, and for four weeks I couldn’t even lift my phone. My daughter, Sloane, became my rock, a relentless advocate who fought to make sure I received the care I needed.

When I was finally transferred to a rehabilitation center in Connecticut, I was still bedridden and dependent on a wheelchair. The aides and therapists gave me the tough love I needed and refused to let me give up on myself. To go home, I had to be able to climb 16 stairs. I spent two determined months rebuilding my strength through the pain. After four surgeries and everything my body endured, I lost all my hair and wore a wig for a year and a half. It grew back even better than before, one of many small miracles.

Eleanor Roosevelt is often credited with saying, “A woman is like a tea bag. You never know how strong she is until you put her in hot water.” In that hospital bed, I found a reservoir of strength I never knew I had.

Four years later, fully recovered, something shifted in me again. Six months before my 80th birthday, I realized I simply didn’t want to reach that milestone. I wanted to grow into it.

I felt that women in their seventies were still allowed to be considered vibrant, but once we reached 80, we were expected to slow down and fade from view. I refused that story. So I created Project 80, not a bucket list, but a growth list. My goal was to become my personal best in body, mind, and spirit. Most of all, I wanted a sense of purpose that made me excited to get out of bed each morning.

I asked hundreds of women in Facebook groups, “What do you do to stay relevant, vital, and vibrant in your wisdom years?” Their answers pushed me to stop asking, Why would I do this now? And start asking, Why not now?

The boldest part of Project 80 was writing another book. LOVE, Later in Life, published in time for my 81st birthday, is a collection of 52 true and inspiring stories about women and men who found love after 60. Both of my books were published by the company Three Tomatoes Publishing.

I was fascinated by people who found love in their sixties, seventies, and eighties, sometimes after divorce, sometimes after losing a spouse, and sometimes after deciding that romantic love was no longer going to happen for them.

Many felt too old or too set in their ways, or believed all the good ones were taken. Then, in the middle of an ordinary day, something changed. They met in an elevator, a laundry room, through an old friend, or online. Their stories remind us that love can arrive at any age and in places we never would have thought to look.

Project 80 taught me something larger: we don’t age simply because the years pass. We age when we stop growing. Anyone can create a personal version, whether it is Project 60, Project 68, Project 75, or whatever comes next. Choose one goal for your body, one for your mind, one for your spirit, and one that feels slightly impossible. That last one may be the one that transforms you.

CZ: Nancy, can you share with us your best advice for someone looking for romance and love in their later years?

NRW: For anyone looking for love in the second half of life, here is some of the wisdom I have gathered:

• Remain open to possibility.

• Let go of the checklist, but keep your high standards. A checklist can make you reject a wonderful person over height or a ZIP code. Standards protect you from someone who is dishonest, unavailable, or unkind.

• Build a life you love now rather than waiting for a partner to appear. Serendipity favors motion.

• Don’t close the book too soon. Leave it open, even if only a crack.

• Say yes more often than you say no.

Here is my secret to always having a good date: Instead of spending the evening looking for faults, make it your goal to learn one interesting thing about your date and one interesting thing about yourself. Then, even if that person is not “the one,” or even close, the evening was not a waste of your time. Curiosity is far more attractive, and much more fun, than criticism.

CZ: Nancy, thank you for sharing your experiences and wisdom with the agebuzz community. Any final words of advice and inspiration to share?

NRW: I can’t promise that everyone will find a romantic partner. I can promise that everyone can find more connection, joy, and delight by staying open to life. Romance may be the vehicle, but personal transformation is the real destination.

When people ask what is next, my answer is simple: “Hey, I’m only 81!” I no longer measure my life by the years behind me, but by how curious I remain and how often I still surprise myself.

At 81, I’m not finished. I’m still becoming. And when life places its next invitation in front of me, my answer will be yes. Will you join me?

CZ: How can readers contact you for more information or to inquire about your coaching?

NRW: For information about my books or coaching, or to share your own love story, email me at [email protected] or text me at 646-662-9162. 

Nancy Ripp White is a New York-based author, speaker, and certified relationship coach with over 30 years of experience. She is the author of LOVE, Later in Life: 52 True Stories of Love’s Unexpected New Chapter, a heartwarming collection celebrating couples who found love after age 60, proving that joy, romance, and new chapters have no age limit. The book grew out of Project 80, a personal initiative Nancy created six months before her 80th birthday to challenge herself in body, mind, and spirit and, most importantly, to give herself an exciting reason to leap out of bed every morning. She is also the author of the book It Can Happen to You: 50 Serendipitous, Unexpected, Out of the Blue, Life Changing Love Stories. Today, Nancy’s mission extends well beyond romance. She inspires older adults to remain curious, connected, and open to possibility. Above all, she champions two powerful truths: the best chapters of life can begin at any age, and living fully isn’t about counting the years; it’s about making every day count.