Age difference has become a problem after 5 years!!!!!!

[Pink Cupcakes]

Yes, but that doesn't mean that she should be miserable for the rest of her life with the wrong man, just because it will really suck for him. He is never going to be truly happy anyway, with a wife who really wants someone else (a man closer to her age.)

There are plenty of great men closer to your own age. Don't settle. Life is too short.

 

I backed out of a relationship with an older woman once, but it was after about three months of dating, so it probably didn't hit her as hard. If you've spent years together, this is going to suck -- for him especially.

[EarthGirl]

I get what you're saying but I don't think she's repulsed by him. She has been with him for several years and nothing drastically changed - they both got older. It would be weird to expect that our partner not age, and that's going to happen to a new younger guy too. So I guess I just wonder what happens when that occurs. It's as if the age thing is only an issue now where it wasn't before. Why is it an isue now, after all this time?

 

you know what, "weird" (and "natural") is relative depending on different individuals perspectives. Maybe with resveratrol and all those creams and such and bettering surgery, 100 years from now, or maybe even sooner, people who are actually 50 years of age will look more like 25 still and 70 year old's more like mid 30's. Back in the day cave people and hunters and gatherers would have thought it was either super cool or incredibly "weird" and bizarre or maybe even the devil's work or something...that many of us look at glowing screens several hours a day and talk to people hundreds and thousands of miles away.

 

I think the point is "time" is exactly what causes people to age..right? so I would guess that's why it's an issue now where it wasn't before. so hard to understand?

[EarthGirl]

..but it's not my story, it's hers..so I don't really know where she is coming from..I am just making some points of my own here.

[clv0116]

Thanks again for your input, guys. LOL I know I keep saying that over and over but you have no idea how refreshing it is to actually get some adult advice without the name calling and bashing. <3

 

Something that should be addressed is that you say you're 'embarrassed' as a main reason you want to break it off. You might want to consider whether it's you or your friends calling the shots here. It sounds a lot like your peers are directly or indirectly pressuring you.

[clv0116]

I would just suggest that you not be unreasonably optimistic about the possible outcome if you break up. It is not a choice between the man you have and a man 17 years younger who is otherwise identical. It may well be a choice between the man you have and a man 17 years younger who has one or more other undesirable qualities that your current man does not. Spend some time thinking about the qualities in your man that you do like, and what it would really be like to be with a man who was the opposite.

 

Best wishes either way,

 

Scott

 

The grass is always greener.

 

We can clearly see the flaws in our current mate, and we can clearly see the dozens of other potential mates who do not have that set of flaws. What we can seldom see clearly are the completely new flaws those others have.

[Pink Cupcakes]

I totally understand why she wouldn't want to get married to a man that much older. Doesn't sound like peer pressure to me - she is picturing having children with an older man. The guy is 44 and at that point most men are looking at being GRANDFATHERS, and many are already. By the time they would get married, he would be even older than that. I totally get it.

There is a coworker who is 30 who just had a baby with her 47 year old husband. All is good now but I can't help but wonder if later on down the road, she won't feel like you will. Yeah the guy treats her like gold, but she could also find a man closer to her age who will treat her like gold, too. She is always making little jokes about her husband's age and how he was graduating high school when she was born, etc. I can't help if there isn't a little subtext to the jokes, as there almost always is.

[amerikajin]

Something that should be addressed is that you say you're 'embarrassed' as a main reason you want to break it off. You might want to consider whether it's you or your friends calling the shots here. It sounds a lot like your peers are directly or indirectly pressuring you.

 

You are spot on the money, my friend.

[amerikajin]

Yes, but that doesn't mean that she should be miserable for the rest of her life with the wrong man, just because it will really suck for him. He is never going to be truly happy anyway, with a wife who really wants someone else (a man closer to her age.)

There are plenty of great men closer to your own age. Don't settle. Life is too short.

 

You don't just cut someone loose like you're handing them a pink slip. Christ, I can't believe I'm saying things like this, but people have feelings. The thing is, she goes out and drops this guy...then what? The chemistry that she had with this guy is gone - she can't ever get that back. She'll get a different kind of chemistry with someone else, and maybe it'll be good, but it won't be the same. When you end a relationship, you end something special.

 

I'm getting out the thermometer and taking my temperature because I can't believe I'm actually writing this kind of crap, but I guess I mean it.

[drillman]

i'm sure theres a way of telling the man that you need to move on without dogging him about the fact that its his age, and crushing him.

you might say you feel the "chemistry" just isnt the same.

you might say you need time alone, to develop as an individual.

All these things are true, but are a bit more tactful.

[clv0116]

You are spot on the money, my friend.

 

Well I call it like I see it.

 

This case is a lot different from the ones JS likes to relate, where a younger woman essentially wh*res herself out for a short time while dating an older man for the material things he can provide. This is a 5 year relationship with someone she thinks is wonderful.

 

Five years.

 

I've dated a few (ahem) younger women in my time and her peers are almost always an issue. Ironically the most problematic ones are usually those who can't get into a good LTR herself. Friends come and go, family is forever.

[amerikajin]

Well I call it like I see it.

 

This case is a lot different from the ones JS likes to relate, where a younger woman essentially wh*res herself out for a short time while dating an older man for the material things he can provide. This is a 5 year relationship with someone she thinks is wonderful.

 

Five years.

 

I've dated a few (ahem) younger women in my time and her peers are almost always an issue. Ironically the most problematic ones are usually those who can't get into a good LTR herself. Friends come and go, family is forever.

 

That was said about as well as it can be said.

 

OP, read the above and think about it - a lot.

[justforfun]

That was said about as well as it can be said.

 

OP, read the above and think about it - a lot.

 

What exactly do you see as useful in that post?

 

To the OP I would recommend going back and reading Thornton's posts. Seems to be the only one that knows what they are talking about.

 

As you know we shared a lot of our experience and I understand a lot of what is going on inside you. Weed out the nonsense in this thread and go with those posts that are truly helpful. The ones that explain why they think you are being absolutely reasonable about how you feel. The rest of them just don't have a clue.

[justforfun]

...and it's all fun and games.......until you are actually a person that is in true love with someone who "turns you off" and other people who don't even know you choose to judge you as "shallow" and basically "BAD" for not being able to make your body do something which should ALWAYS be a personal choice...no matter the circumstances of any relationship or anything at all.

 

Edited a little. But that is so well put. OP, definitely one to read and take note of.

[clv0116]

What exactly do you see as useful in that post?

 

Maybe that throwing away 5 years with someone wonderful because your idiot 'friends' see a weak place and decided to pick at it like a bunch of hens in a feedlot, isn't necessarily gonna lead to greater long term happiness?

 

Something like that.

[Jersey Shortie]

Don't be bitter just because she doesn't want to be with the old dude Clv.

[justforfun]

Maybe that throwing away 5 years with someone wonderful because your idiot 'friends' see a weak place and decided to pick at it like a bunch of hens in a feedlot, isn't necessarily gonna lead to greater long term happiness?

 

Something like that.

 

Throwing away five years..you act like it's a lifetime. Why can't she leave someone after 5 years. Is there some rule that says after you have been with someone a certain length of time you can't move on because you've been with them too long?

 

The OP has grown and developed an the relationship is no longer a relationship she wants to be in. Quite frankly I don't see why she should even contemplate wasting another 5 minutes on it. And I support her 100%. She has spoke rationally and reasonably in every post she has made. Everything she says makes perfect sense.

 

And I would think her friends are in a better position to know her situation than we do. Despite how much the OP has shared. That doesn't in any equate to how much her friends can see and how much she has shared with them

 

To my mind she is ready to end the relationship. She is just struggling with how to do it and anxious about moving on.

 

It's over to all intents and purposes.

 

(are you old too)

[justforfun]

Don't be bitter just because she doesn't want to be with the old dude Clv.

 

:laugh:

[clv0116]

Throwing away five years..you act like it's a lifetime. Why can't she leave someone after 5 years. Is there some rule that says after you have been with someone a certain length of time you can't move on because you've been with them too long?

 

She certainly can, and honestly if he's taken any care of himself and his life, he's gonna have a lot of romantic options at his age, and so will she at hers as long as she's taken care of herself. However leaving someone who is in her own words, wonderful, because she's embarrassed (peer pressure) is not necessarily a sharp move.

 

I'm not questioning her right or wrongness to go ahead, I'm just cautioning with regard to her motives. She might be making a big mistake and he's not guaranteed to be there in 9 months when she has second thoughts. It's BS like this that makes me next young women who are too attached to their idiot friends. There always seems to be a few with the crab complex who cannot stand to see her in a happy stable relationship.

[justforfun]

I agree with what your saying. But I don't think that the OP wants to end it because of her friends. She's not happy in the situation for a host of reasons. And it does appear that it's time to let it go.

 

 

She certainly can, and honestly if he's taken any care of himself and his life, he's gonna have a lot of romantic options at his age, and so will she at hers as long as she's taken care of herself. However leaving someone who is in her own words, wonderful, because she's embarrassed (peer pressure) is not necessarily a sharp move.

 

I'm not questioning her right or wrongness to go ahead, I'm just cautioning with regard to her motives. She might be making a big mistake and he's not guaranteed to be there in 9 months when she has second thoughts. It's BS like this that makes me next young women who are too attached to their idiot friends. There always seems to be a few with the crab complex who cannot stand to see her in a happy stable relationship.

[jerseyboy]

I think you can explain it by saying that when you met him you were very young, barely out of your teens, and you weren't mature enough to think about the long-term prospects of a relationship. Now you're a bit older and more mature, all your friends are getting married, and it's natural for you to start to think about your future... but you can't see a future with him because of the age difference. Tbh he only has himself to blame; when you met he was a mature man of nearly 40, he cannot seriously have expected a relationship with a 21yo to last long-term.

 

 

Great post

[justforfun]

Great post

 

Ditto. Best advice on here!

[clv0116]

I agree with what your saying. But I don't think that the OP wants to end it because of her friends. She's not happy in the situation for a host of reasons. And it does appear that it's time to let it go.

 

If that's actually the case then maybe so, however the opening few posts seemed to strongly indicate peer pressure as a primary cause. Word to the wise.

[Calendula]

I think you can explain it by saying that when you met him you were very young, barely out of your teens, and you weren't mature enough to think about the long-term prospects of a relationship. Now you're a bit older and more mature, all your friends are getting married, and it's natural for you to start to think about your future... but you can't see a future with him because of the age difference. Tbh he only has himself to blame; when you met he was a mature man of nearly 40, he cannot seriously have expected a relationship with a 21yo to last long-term.

 

I would primarily agree with the above, but I would hesitate to cast blame of any sort. The fact of the matter is PEOPLE CHANGE and what they want changes with them. You can place blame on this simple fact of life, but never on the actual person who changes.

 

I was with a man 11 years my senior for 4 years. We met when I was 19 and I ended the relationship with him on good terms 4 years later after about 6 months of agonizing over my decision and how I would communicate it to him. Our relationship was for the most part perfect, we could practically read each other's minds, we could do anything and everything together, and we had excellent communication. We had a total of three actual fights the entire time we were together because we really were in agreement on almost everything and we could solve most minor problems we had before they ever became arguments.

 

In the end, the age difference didn't matter. It wasn't age that was my final reason for ending the relationship, it was how our life paths changed. He was ready to settle down and stick with the job he had had for a while because he was comfortable, I was ready to go find myself, try new things, and build my career by going to graduate school. I had changed. I had grown. My goals and desires for what I wanted from my life had developed during those 4 years we spent together and I had to choose between the future I saw with him and the future I truly wanted for myself. I chose me.

 

This was how I explained it to him: What I wanted from life and from a relationship had changed, and while we were great together while we were together, what we had was no longer what I wanted or felt I needed. It was no one's fault, neither of us was to blame, we had both simply started to change and take our lives in different directions. At that point, if we had tried and forced our relationship to continue, we would have both simply ended up unhappy. It was time to let go, remember and treasure the past for what it was, and move on with the next stage of our lives.

 

It is now almost five years later and I still have no regrets. I knew at the time that I was ending a relationship with someone who HAD fit me perfectly for 4 years, but we simply no longer fit. I have since been able to take what I learned from that relationship, in terms of how good things can truly be, and used it build on the relationships I have had since. Sure, I may never find another man exactly like him, but the person I want to be with doesn't have to be exactly like him, and I wouldn't ever try and compare them. The qualities or traits that he had which I appreciated are what I now want in my ideal partner, not necessarily him.

 

How long you've been together doesn't matter, the age difference doesn't matter, the opinions of your friends or other people on this forum don't matter. What matters is what you truly want in a partner for the long term, and if your life plan and the life plan of the person you are with are compatible. If he truly loves you, and if you explain youself to him as best you can, he will let you go, if only so you can find happiness somewhere else. It won't be easy, but the best thing to do isn't always the easiest. Both of you, however, will have to be able to accept that PEOPLE CHANGE, and not always in the same direction.

[Pink Cupcakes]

I didn't read that there was any peer pressure from her friends to leave this man. She had been simply seeing her friends get married to men closer to their own age and she realized that is what she really wanted - a marriage relationship with a man closer to her own age. Observing her friends and being jealous of what they have that she doesn't is not peer pressure.

[mem11363]

I thought this was the guy who is fat - promises every year to get in shape - she has totally lost her desire for him.

 

He has let an age gap that was a difficult hurdle to being with - turn into a physical decay gap - he has made no effort to stay young to keep up with this much younger partner.

 

It has turned into a sexless relationship - he has got to be feeling really rejected. Putting him down would be a kindness at this point.

 

And his lack a physical maintenance is a compounding factor in the grand scheme of peer perception....

 

 

 

If that's actually the case then maybe so, however the opening few posts seemed to strongly indicate peer pressure as a primary cause. Word to the wise.