To want out?

[PoppySeedBun18]

DH and I have been together for 5 years and have a 2yo DD. I’m in my early thirties and he’s in his late fifties (big age gap) which is now very much starting to show. When we first got together he seemed excited to have a family and we agreed to start a family, which meant I had to put my career on hold. We got married as I was concerned I could be left with a small child should the worst happen to him.

Now he’s talking about retiring and moving a long way away for a quieter life. The only problem is that I’m not ready to ‘take it easy’. I like my job and plan to have a reasonably long lasting career there. I don’t want to potentially be left a widow miles away from my family either. We have absolutely no sex life anymore and it’s getting me down. It feels I’m now tied to a man who shows me no affection and just wants me to follow him round and eventually be his carer.

He can’t change his age, and I knew his age when I married him, but now I’m far more confident in my ability to cope on my own. We seem to want completely different lives now, and I’d rather be with someone I can grow old with, rather than someone I can just watch grow old. Every time I try to talk to him about my concerns he just starts yelling and I can’t bear it.

Either I leave him and look like a complete villain, or stay and accept I will never have a career, sex life or more children.

I can’t eat or sleep. I honestly feel I’ve ruined my life and just wish I could go back 5 years and never got into this 😢

You're right that staying does imply not having a sex life or more children. Those are things where you both have veto power, and if he wants to exercise his veto power then accept it or leave are your only choices.

However, the same's true of moving away, but this time it's YOUR veto power that's relevant. I'm really worried about your implication that staying means giving up your career, because that says you have a very unbalanced power dynamic in your relationship. You're implying that if you stay with him, you also have to follow him wherever it is he wants to move. Why are you phrasing it that way? You are where you are, and you don't have to go anywhere you don't want to. He has to accept that or leave you. It's really important that you think of it that way. Refusing to up sticks does not imply you leaving him - he's the one with a choice between staying and leaving you.

Can you discuss this with him and tell him how you feel. I have a friend whose husband is 22 yrs older than her and they've had problems similar to what you describe but have worked through them and stayed together. He's now semi retired, mid sixties and she's working full time and their children are teenagers.

Do you love him, are you in love with him? Is it worth saving?

If you feel this way now, I would suggest leaving.
I'm sorry that it sounds callous and quite cut and dry, MIL is late 50s, has a 14 year age gap with FIL, hes early 70s.
He has alzheimers and its terribly sad to see that whilst hes quite young, he is going to need a carer for the rest of his life, and this is how she will spend her remaining good years.

You’re not having sex anymore and he yells at you when you try and have a serious conversation. That’s not about age.

You need to be ‘selfish’ here (in inverted commas because it’s not selfish at all). You get one life - don’t waste it staying with a man because of duty.

I guess you’re all saying what I’ve been thinking - seems such a shame as we haven’t been together long. He adores DD and she adores him. In reality we got married in case he died and I was petrified of potentially being out on the street with a tiny baby as everything was in his name (and still is). I don’t want to break up DD’s home, it I’d rather do it whilst she’s young enough to not remember. I don’t know how I will manage rent on my own though, my job is reasonable but rents seem to be over a grand a month for just a studio flat!

The actual age gap isn’t the problem. Age is just a number.

I am the same age as him and he sounds very very old.

It does sound as though you need to part as you both want different things.

I wonder if he is in a roundabout way telling you that you should split. Or subconsciously thinking it.
The reference to moving away for the quiet life doesn’t go with having a 2 year old.

Won’t you get some money from the divorce and CM and if you are working you will have your salary.

You could find you could afford to buy

YANBU. People make mistakes, there is nothing wrong with acknowledging that fact and doing what you can to rectify it. However, bear in mind that if you are working he could claim that he is better able to look after your DD. I strongly suggest you get legal advice ASAP.

Leave him.
And please let it be a lesson to all the young women marrying old men that it's not a good idea.
He's more than twice your age.
There's reasons why women say that's not a good idea. And it's not prejudice bigotry or jealousy.

Men are not nice and they will always chase a young bit of arse. Us older women know this but the young women don't and see it as meanness on the older women's parts. We're right and we were trying to protect you.