AIBU to regret settling down young with an older husband?

[Agegapwoes]

Sorry, I’m not even sure what I’m asking.

I met my DH when I was 22 and he was 38. I had a fantastic first job straight out of uni in finance, and DH was much, much, much more senior in the company I worked for. I had not long broken up with my university boyfriend and he’d be very flirty with me at work. There was definitely no ‘grooming’ going on, everything was reciprocated.

He’s a very high earner and took us on some amazing holidays - we went to the Maldives, New York and the Caribbean all within a year of meeting. Lots of weekends away etc. I thought he was perfect and everything you could ever want in a partner. Which I suppose he was when compared to boys my own age!

I got pregnant at 25 and left work to become a stay at home mum.

The children are primary aged now. Our relationship never recovered after the birth of our first baby. It had already started to sour prior to the pregnancy, but the birth of our first was the thing that really made me realise that we are not right for each other. He’s a great Dad, very hands off but is great with them. We have a nice life, a nice house in a nice part of London. We rarely see each other due to his role. I don’t feel attracted to him anymore.

I definitely feel that now I’m older, we have much less in common than we did when I was younger (not sure how that works). We have different values and just very different personalities.

I feel like I’ve completely lost myself. I’m incredibly busy with three children under the age of 6. I’m no longer on the amazing career trajectory that I was on, and I’ll never get back to it now as I can’t possibly work the hours that I would be required to.

My friends are all marrying nice, successful men that are our age and I’m so jealous. They get to grow and achieve together. Where as in my relationship, DH had already ‘grew and achieved’ and I’ve not really achieved anything. DH already owned a house when we met so I’ve never had the experience of saving up and buying a house with a partner. Our salaries were obviously vastly different, so I’ve never felt equal financially. There is a slight power imbalance due to the age gap. I’ve missed out on holidays and experiences with friends and I’ve grew apart from most of my old friends.

So yeah… I have no idea what I’m asking, I’m just ranting. I can’t complain as I do have a nice life. I just wish I’d had my 20s to have fun and then settled down with someone my own age. I have three beautiful children who I wouldn’t change for the world but gosh I wish things were slightly different.

Feeling you're missing out and comparing your life to your friends lives sounds like the 7 year itch. You don't know what their life is really like behind closed doors.

You sound very bored and your husband sounds very stressed which is not a good mix. Also men get seriously grumpy around 50 for a few years, it's a dangerous time for them, they can make all sorts of rash and terrible decisions. Mid life crisis is real and no joke. Some are lovely still though so hopefully your husband in one of those.

I think if you arer going to keep the marriage together then you will have to find ways of getting out of the rut together and having an honest discussion without blame about it so a mediator might help. Your husband might need to step back from his career for a bit and spend time with his family otherwise he will never fully connect with his kids and regret not spending time with you and the children. He might be worrying about the future too much if his childhood was full of turmoil he might be concerned about providing. You need more challenge in your life that stretches your mind. Not sure about law, if you want a career in law your children might end up with neither parent at home much, it's a full on demaning career.

No one is perfect and looking at how life might pan out alone which isn't as great as some people will tell you when your marriage was funadmentally OK and 3 kids missing their dad is more stress on top of holding down a job and a household on your own. Besides after 3 years things do settle down a bit and at this point you became pregnant with your first. I wouldn't read a massive amount into it as the shine wears off as you settle into your routines and you start seeing each other as humans. These feelings are normal and natural in long term couples.

The important thing is to do something to help youself and your marriage if you want to remain with him otherwise you will start to sour on him and the children will pick up on that way more than you realise. Once you allow contempt into your mind it will be increadibly hard to see your husband as proper partner and that is the real danger you are facing.

Thanks for the advice 😊.

Not from me. My DH earns well, although possibly not as good as yours. I earn VERY well. Neither of which reflects in my advice to you. If you want to move forward, a job (plus childcare) is your answer.

Please don't start falling for the trap that people are trying to catch you in, that this man is somehow an abusive sexually incontinent nightmare because he doesn't know his children's favourite pasta shape or whatever. At the moment, you have a very traditional family set up - husband out at work, doing well, providing for his family financially. While you are at home doing the traditional child rearing. It is simply a different family model from the one that many MNers have where unless a man does 50% of everything, on top of working, they are shit. If you let that narrative in, the resentment will really start to mount.

The issue you have is that you are getting restless with it, it isn't working for you any more because you are clearly an intelligent educated woman who doesn't want to only change nappies and go to rhyme time and then find yourself in your 40s wondering where your life went to. You are starting to ponder what next and how do you get there. There are some hard conversations that you need to have with your husband and those don't happen within the span of a day on AIBU with crowd who want you to end your marriage on the spot.

It will take time to work it all through, to decide what you actually want and get your husband onboard with it. If you can't have those conversations and/or can't get him in agreement that once you are ready to start back to work, then you have a very different problem. Your baby is only 6 months old, and you are still young. Time is on your side. I would encourage you to not make any big life changing decisions while your youngest is so little but use this period to start the discussion about what you do next.

There is also other longer term planning discussion to be had. When does he hope to retire? In his late 40s, he might be only planning another 10 years or so, if he can put away enough for the school fees, or is he looking at having to work to 67 to pay for them? . Is his pension pot generous enough to support both of you or do you need to also be able to contribute so you can start enjoying fancy holidays again. There are levers here that you can use to help him see that you want to do more and be more than wife and mother.

A lot of large companies run ‘return ships’ for women who have been out of the workplace due to childcare. I have seen these roles in your area so worth investigating.

Thank you so much.

DH will work for another 15 or so years I think.

Realistically you’re not going to meet anyone semi decent and start over when you’ve got three kids. Your dating pool would be older men again with their own baggage or younger guys for flings. Blended families are a shit show in the main so I would have no illusions that you’re going to have a nice new marriage and home life if you leave your current one. You choices are to stay in your relatively privileged situation and do more things for yourself whether they be work, volunteering or leisure or you could leave him and navigate all the crap that will come with that. Be prepared for him to meet someone else and have to share time, including christmases and birthdays with him which can be very painful for everyone. I’d be writing a list of all the potential pros and cons of leaving him and seeing how it looks.

Yes I have thought about this. I also wouldn’t want our children to have step parents (no judgement to those who do). I will be sticking with DH at least until the children are older.

I do think having my own career will put me in a more positive space, mentally.

Did he push the idea of kids? Just seems like you were still pretty young and early in your career to be thinking about children, whereas he would have been in his 40s and aware of time getting on.

If you like a really corporate world but you don't need money, and want family friendly, and like finance, I'd seriously consider Whitehall policy roles, you could do fast stream, tax specialist, apprenticeship, get badged as an economist... there are so many senior women doing jobshares (two people one job, 3 days each with one cross over day). You could start at HEO/SEO level where I have found people are very forgiving of school life (dropoffs, emergencies etc). You're also entitled by law to 4 weeks unpaid leave per child per year, so in the right role you could essentially work termtime, IF you got the kind of team where that would be acceptable.)

There are some really excited, close to the front line roles in e.g. DBT, HMT, Cabinet Office, and lots of senior people move in and out of consultancy.

You may find it teeth-gratingly humbling starting below where you thought you might be, but guess what, lots of thirty somethings then go off for parental leave and you will have DONE ALL THAT! A huge advantage I'd say.

There are lots of finance / economist roles that come up - you can set up a filter that sends a round up to your email. Do it now so that you can see what things are on offer.

What a lovely, supportive post 🙄

It's harsh but sadly it's accurate

May I suggest you get a therapist or a career coach (or both).
You sound really down and hopeless when you're still young and have so much going for you.
It also sounds like your husband is a bit controlling in how you describe working full time (totally different to you just wanting to work part time whilst you're kids sre young - totally reasonable).
Accounting is one of the easiest careers to do part time. My ex's mum retrained and did this when he was little! However, you can't expect to get employment again at one of the big 4. Can you see yourself being an accountant without the prestige of working at a top company?
I've had to take out due to health and changed career at 29 it's really hard being low down when all the friends you went to the same top uni with have amazing careers . I had one friend who was a mature student and he's now really high up - it took 9ish years which you'll only be in your early 40s if you start now! In fact there were a lot of mature students at my Master's uni who were even in their 40s when they decided they wanted a new career path . It's never too late! Also, law is totally possible part time...just again don't expect a magic circle firm!

You can’t have it all OP. You want a high flying career but you’re also not prepared to return to full time work until your children are teenagers? You’re looking at another 12 years or so then… how does that make sense?

Well you have two choices.

Carry on as you are, enjoying the benefits of wealth, being dependent on your husband and being his carer when he’s older.

Or leaving, being free, independent, young again, but likely much poorer and having to restart your career.

The choice is entirely yours, and you are free to make it, anytime you wish,

Agree

@Agegapwoes I think you are getting a bit of a hard time on here, but the information about your baby being only 6 months is very relevant and has been somewhat overlooked.

Did any of my points above resonate?

Another question I sometimes ask myself is: ‘What would a man do in this situation?’ Just to break out of gender roles…

I know of a family where there was a long term SAHD for three children and a high earning wife. Interestingly, the husband was still in total control of that household, especially the finances, kept a very tight rein on his family and the wife seemed to be constantly guilty/apologetic about gadding about ‘working’…

A very useful step could simply be to establish a bit more independence from your DH. Do you have your own bank account? Phone account? Savings account? You don’t have to do anything with these accounts, but it’s useful to have them.

But I think @GelatinousDynamo had a really wise point here and I don't think it was particularly unkindly expressed, I don't know why you're dismissing it as "venom".

It's like I said upthread... you aren't a grafter-type. You've proven that time and again with the choices you've made up till now.

So be realistic. Don't chase this kind of corporate "success" because only very exceptional grafters can manage that with a big unemployment gap and pickups to dash off for. So each endeavour will probably crash out and you'll try another one and so on. If you're doing it for your self-esteem, it'll be counter productive.

Instead lean into what you're good at, as proven up till now. Being a "hands on" mum [see above: despising childcare]. Being a homemaker. Just lean into the wealthy waifu role and try to enjoy it. Take your kids to stately homes, keep yourself looking nice in Sezanne and Boden, with impeccable hair and nails, stay friendly with the other private school SAHMs and have vino with them after bedtime. Maintain the hydrangeas.

You might think I sound "venomous" but I'm not. I try to live this life, part time around my work, myself. It's nice. Be content. It's what you're cut out for and what you've signed up for.

@Agegapwoes I think you need to be careful that you’re not comparing a longer relationship (your own) with shorter ones (your friends). If you took the age gap out of the equation, most couples settle down somewhat after children. This will likely happen to your friends too.

Likewise, they may choose to pause their careers if they have children and have the same feelings of inequity at that point too.

So the two real questions to me are how do you give your own life and career a boost? Career-wise you need to decide what you want the future to look like and work towards that. Life-wise it’s a question of whether you really want to stay in your marriage.

Unless I couldn’t bear to be with my husband any longer, I’d try to think about the career first and see if some changes there could help.

I don’t think that necessarily makes him a bad person — not saying that’s what you were implying either. But if an older woman met a younger man and knew she wanted children, I think most people would see it as realistic and honest for her to say, “I want kids sooner rather than later.”
Being upfront about timelines and compatibility isn’t inherently manipulative — sometimes it’s just being truthful about what you want out of life. I guess the issue here seems to be that the OP wasn’t fully sure of this herself in hindsight, which is totally normal. We all change as we get older and our goalposts move and are shaped by our experiences.

Kids don't pick up on vibes if parents behave decently. Kids don't give a shit about 'parents marital happiness' at all. All they care about is stability, mum and dad together and peace at home. People tell lies and stories about 'better for the kids to have happy divorced parents' because they feel better about it. You have to put children first, in all fairness. Nobody is guaranteed marital happiness. Adults have to learn to be adult - and put children and children's happiness first.

Op , you made a decision which was right for you at the time.
You’re still looking for fulfilment from him though- as in, you think you’d be happier if he was at a different stage. Bring it back to yourself- what can YOU do to give yourself a sense of fulfilment? Go back to work? Retrain? Buy your own property?

Give over she was a 22 year old accountant, a 25 year old married Mum and a 31 year old Mum of 3. She has done a lot in her earlier years. She does need to take a bit of charge in her life but marrying a much older man probably impacted her in that direction and she is now trying to formulate a plan.

You are in the thick of it with 3 young children , for most moms this is a hard time and everything else takes 2nd place , i think we may even come lower on the list when there are commitments and responsibilities such as elderly family members, pets etc.
It's so easy to lose your identity to some degree ,you are probably pulled from pillar to post with your children.
If there are things you still like about your husband and you think there may be something worth saving can you spend some time away together from the home/family to talk uninterrupted about how things are.
If you don't do something then resentment will grow and get to the point where there may be nothing left at all.
You are still young with the opportunities that brings ,he may be right behind you with any ideas and career plans you may discover.
I really hope you can work things out together.

Oooh OP you sound so level-headed, and I admire the calm way you've detached from the barbed comments.

A book I often recommend on here is Daphne Rose Kingman's Coming Apart. She says that we are attracted to someone who helps us achieve our next "developmental stage" in life, and this is often completely unconscious. At the end of the book is a whole chapter of questions to work through, and this is how I made sense of my first marriage and how it finally petered out.

Both you and your DH had strong motives for choosing each other, based on the stage in life you'd reached at that point and what you wanted next. This was powerful enough to bond you together for having children and setting up a comfortable life, but priorities and goals change over time and eventually it can become apparent that you're not compatible in important ways. For example, you mention that your approach to life/spending is very different, and this no small thing.

Re training/work, I'd be asking AI for suggestions based on my skills / experience / preferences - you have plenty of time to investigate this carefully! Good luck, and don't be afraid to test the water with self-employment which can be very stable and rewarding if you play your cards right. It sounds as though you could afford to try this out carefully,

The issue of what to do with your marriage is tricky, but if you feel rather trapped and isolated by it then he must be feeling the same way, whether he realises this or not. You're not really "there" for each other except in the sense of keeping everything running smoothly. 💐