Married to a rich older man - feel conflicted

[chalkandpen]

Please don't flame me - first time poster and I have 2 under 2 so quite sleep deprived.

I am 30, married to my DH, 42 We have two sons: DS 20 months, DS 2 1 month.

I love my DH and we've been together since I was 27. However I've been feeling a bit conflicted recently about aspects of our marriage / life.

He is from a very posh, well-off family. Meanwhile I am from a happy lower-middle-class family in Scotland.

We met in London - originally because I rented from his ex-wife's family (!) and then through some work we did on a local committee together. We just clicked and our relationship came very naturally. He was more worried than me of the optics - he was v aware of the age gap and was conscious that others might think he was taking advantage of me. However, we really were drawn to each other, both wanted a family, & started our lives together.

Since then ... we've had so many comments about me being a golddigger, , him getting 'banter' about being with a younger woman, suggestions it's a very transactional relationship (me giving him the children he wanted, him giving me money and a house). I've found it hard to integrate with members of his family, and although my family love him, my sisters have expressed envy / jealousy of how much easier my life is now because of him.

Also we do have some differing opinions - he is def. more right of centre politically, I am left-wing, he assumes our children should have a nanny / private school etc. He also wants to pay for things for me - fancy meals etc - and I['m worried about looking like a trophy wife.

AIBU to feel weird or out of place? His first wife - who he is still good friends with - is also private school, oxbridge, high-flier, & sometimes I think I'm just not 'right' in this relationship, even though we love each other.

1. Give your children every educational advantage, no matter the cost. Don’t make them part of your politics.
2. your sisters should be happy for you

forget this stuff, focus on each other and moving forward.
dont feel guilty about your advantages, enjoy them, enjoy the stupid comments, just laugh and feel confident.

I was expecting you to be Bernie Ecclestone's wife. Twelve years is nowt.

Most relationships are transactional in tangible and non-tangible ways. Stop over-thinking and enjoy your husband and family.

Go back to work when your kids are old enough.

To those saying it is not a big age gap, it is. He is not a different generation though. It’s not too big, he is not old enough to be your dad, eg 16 years plus.

How did he come to be divorced? Had he met you whilst he was married?

I bet his ExW is upset at you! Despite all her oxbridge poshness, you still have the life she wanted. And maybe the children she doesn’t have, and the husband (and home) she lost. She’ll be trying to make as many narky comments as she can, what else can she do!

Haters gonna hate!

Enjoy being the young trophy wife. You sound very sweet too. Don’t let them bother you.

Just focus on your little family and surround yourselves with people who accept both of you as you are. You may not be able to take your old friends who are resentful of your material circumstances or his old friends who are snippy about your background with you, but you can make your own tribe.

Ignore the haters and tell these people to f@#£ off! They are jealous

life's too short, enjoy the life, love and family.

You know, there is no reason at all why the need to go to public school. And I'd still be shopping at Tesco over waitrose tbh. Obviously I'd be in a bigger house with more land and have a few more vehicles etc

As everyone else has said,it's not a big age gap and he's not an older husband.

Don’t give up your own beliefs and values. And keep your career, hobbies and friends you had before. If you don’t, it’s likely you’ll harbour resentment for giving those up.

Then you’ll feel guilty for feeling resentful, because ‘he’s given you this wonderful wealthy life’. It’s not all about money and class status. If you feel proud, content and and happy in yourself, you can hold your head high to any such comments in the knowledge you have a loving relationship and not respect one another.

I’ve been there. Not to this extent, but similar. I hated feeling like I was living someone else’s life. I didn’t choose where I lived etc because his home, work, choices were deemed more important than mine purely because of finances. I wouldn’t out myself in that position again. My advice is - maintain control over your own life

Don't feel like you're unworthy of this relationship or undeserving otherwise this will be the demise in your relationship which will always hold you back and overtime create distance with your DH with your insecurities or the haters trying to do which is plant self doubt. Enjoy it and give the best to your kids to thrive with the privileges. Haters will always hate and will always be negative and don't let that hold you or your family back. Use all the resources for yourself and family such as private schools, nanny, housekeeper and use the the time and energy slowly going back to work if you wish and spending quality time with your DH and kids as you don't need to do the grunt work. You're lucky and please hold onto it tightly

My husband is 13 yrs older than me, I was 30 when we met. He’d been married before but the ex-wife had been off the scene for 12 years and his family were happy not to see her again!
We were married within a year and celebrated our first anniversary with a 2 month old baby, so super fast for us too.

We didn’t have hugely different family backgrounds and both came into the marriage with similar equity, (he is now not working and I now earn similar to his wage when he was the main breadwinner while I stayed home with the kids), but there are still struggles. Our upbringings were different in another way, more around the love and support we were given by our parents and that causes quite different points of view.

I found it pretty hard in the beginning, young children and not being able to do things as I would choose to, but my ultimate concern was the well-being of my children and creating and maintaining a happy and calm home for them, with loving parents who respect each other. And that kept me going.

It’s especially tough when they are the age yours are, but as they grow you will have more energy and strength to cope with these issues that are concerning you now, and you will find ways to manage them and ensure your ways and values get a look-in amongst the other ways you have to accept as part of the compromise of marriage.

The important thing is having a loving and supportive husband, and he might not get your perspective yet, it took a good few years for my husband to understand mine! But it’s not the looming disaster you fear it could be, it’s just having to deal with hormones and tiredness while also adapting to a very different way of life. Good luck!

There’s lots of good advice and anecdotes of PP’s relationships here OP.

I just wanted to say that it seems to me the thing you are struggling most with is, for want of a simpler way to put it, the class divide between where you come from and where he comes from. This is a real challenge and not something you should feel bad for struggling with. Often these differences are really highlighted when you have children as you will naturally both make assumptions about their upbringing based on your own experiences, but those experiences are really different…

A couple of suggestions. Perhaps when you have the energy (can imagine that’s in short supply right ie!) try and talk about how you want to parent together and see if you feel comfortable advocating for an agreement between you to try and take all the major choices as new choices which you will make together based on your specific children, best information available at the time etc. rather than “because that’s what I did/had when I was a kid”.
You would also have to be willing to flex in this scenario and ask him to do the same - it will be hard for both of you and you’ll have to really think about why one choice feels comfortable vs another. Not all private schools are created equal, so (you especially, as there more choice with private than catchment area primaries) will want to make sure you’ve seen lots together and can really discuss pros and cons of each.

This kind of approach can really help you both catch yourselves when you’re making a knee jerk type decision rather than one thought through together.

The other thing to say is please don’t worry that you won’t be able to share your values with your children if you bring them up with the advantages that money bestows. There are lots of different types of ‘posh’ people (just as there are lots of different types of people!!) Some will doubtless be unpleasant and condescending, some will be the complete opposite. The best way to begin to show your children your values is to treat everyone you encounter in the same way. As they grow they will be aware of the differences between their GPs homes etc, it’ll just be part of the fabric of their life. Hopefully they will be lucky to be able to thrive and fit in anywhere - as you’re discovering, it’s quite hard to do that if either territory is completely foreign to you. As long as your DH is a decent man that’s the main thing.

The best thing you can do for them is work on your own self confidence over the years, to model an ability to maintain the same attitude to and interest in people around you, whatever their background or experiences. The people I know who are genuinely ‘posh’ are incredibly warm and treat everyone equally - but all the best people I know are that way regardless of their walk of life!

Take your children to the local playground and activities as well as more exclusive places. Talk to them about everything! And talk to your H too - parenting is a long road, but if you can find a decision making process that works for you jointly, based on information and not assumptions, then it’ll be easier to navigate. This is a useful approach in any case, as the world is always changing and a lot of things that were true are a bit less true now than they used to be.

You can deal with your work a little while in the future. Having children can be very untethering and I don’t know many women with 2 under 2 who would be keen to race back to the workplace if they had any choice whatsoever in the matter!! FGS give yourself a break!! Work is something to deal with once you’ve had at least a little bit of unbroken sleep.

Make sure you keep your career and don't end up a stay at home mum as you will lose control over all decisions

What a completely bizarre statement @PrincessTeaSet 🙄

Until you said the ages I thought he must be 64 and about 10.

Youre a woman. People are ALWAYS gna have an opinion!!!!

Stay at home mum? Lazy.
Working mum? You can’t have it all.
Married someone rich? Gold digger.
Married someone poor? Settled.
Had kids? Killing the planet.
No kids? Selfish career woman.
« Too many » kids? Idiotic.
Big house? You’ll never pay off that mortgage.
Small house? Work harder.
Social housing? Scrounger
Send kids to private school? Privoleged
Send kids to state school? Poor outcomes.

and on and on and on…..

Best thing to do is IGNORE EVERYONE

Crack on and live your life on your terms.

It would be great if you had support instead of negative comments from family and others. The only thing I’m unsure of is if the age gap situation is unique or strange - in fact there is the same age gap between my parents and now that they are both in their 70s and 80s, no one bats an eye!

You’re a mum to two kids and it sounds like you have a great husband and affluent lifestyle but that’s not for others to be negative to you about if they are jealous. Think about how you want your kids to see their mum handle these situations.

Good luck!

When I read “older man” I thought he would be 20 years older or something. DH is 11 years older than me and it just is not an issue.

I bet your husbands thinks you are a breath of greasy air and feels lucky to have you in his life .

What else do you need?

Sounds like it’s everyone else’s issues not yours. It’s hard not to care what people think of us as much as we try, but you really should try. You maybe feel out of sorts simply because you are not familiar with the lifestyle. But try to remember-it’s all very shallow stuff- money, house, mortgage. It doesn’t matter, and as for age- that’s really not that big a gap at all. If people want to make remarks that’s on them. Let them. Their issue- usually jealousy. What matters are you, your relationship & your dc are happy & healthy.

Greasy air!

It's not as if he's ancient turtle Rupert Murdoch. It's only an 11 year age difference.

I don't see what the problem is. It all sounds fine, all happy.

You don’t have to suck it up. People being assholes is just so unnecessary. It’s likely they’re not very happy in themselves or their own relationships if they feel the need to be rude to you about your relationship. Stand your ground on things that matter to you - like if you’re dead set against nanny, private school etc. Other than that, as long as it works for you, great. Ignore these people but preferably put them back in their box when they’re being cheeky fuckers.

“I know a lot of people are obsessed with money and think about it a lot but I’m not, I’m interested in .. xyz… “

(Hint: it’s the cheeky fuckers who are obsessed with money and hopefully they take the hint when you call out their BS.)

Known him through your twenties and always liked him?

Were you the other woman?

That could explain reactions rather than the age gap.

In fairness, its easy not to be interested in money when you can afford the roof over your head and the food on your table. If money is a gnawing worry then its harder to ignore.

Get over yourself (in the nicest possible way!)

You had a baby very quickly with a man 10 years older who you knew through his ex wife & are spending 'more then an average income' on private nursery while being off work because your married & have a younger child ????

Nobody & I mean nobody these days has this sort of life in the upper or lower classes even amongst the uber wealthy & all those 'wealthy mums' at private nursery's who are probably trying to keep their heads afloat while working for private family businesses/sorting out family investment /holding down the fought for fly in fly out men

The problem isn't that you've married up it's that you've taken yourself back 50 years in wanting to be a trad wife/full time mum of 1 at a time
& consider yourself having reached a new level of social standing when really you sound bored/obsessive/jealous

What do you do for other people who are now getting pregnant/having babys....? Just Want to be in their presence & a "big mum" who already has 2 kids to offer advice & support ? (Nobody wants that in general!) OR are you trying to organise baby showers/gifts/physical support
& do you invite the mums though your husband/kids out & about or just dismiss them as too busy/lazy