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.

Notwithstanding all the other issues which I quite understand, it’s simply not true that a good career is not available to you. You could even retrain from scratch if you wanted.

The great thing about a high earning DH is the ability to pay for childcare. That is, of course, if he will agree to it.

I’m not asking for sympathy.

There's no such thing as a free lunch, or free holiday to the maldives.

You didn't marry him for money but honestly, probably did marry him for the glamour, success and a ready-made domestic establishment. In other words no slumming it in a flatshare like the rest of us in our 20s. But that comes with a price.

Why didn't your husband marry a woman his own age? It's the question for all age gap relationships. What did you have that a woman in her 30s doesn't have? Naive, malleable, willing to go with what he wanted, be that holidays or children or quitting your career for the family.

I agree with the pps, try to focus on what you've traded all that for. Wealth, a carefree life, minimal financial responsibility. Once your kids are at school, you can get your nails done and volunteer for the PTA between pilates classes. Just try to enjoy it because this is the bargain.

Tangentially: I do agree that sometimes divorce is best, or even the only option - such as with abusive partners. But as a child of divorce, I find this 'the kids would prefer their parents to divorce/the kids won't mind' attitude to be applied far too casually. Like many of my peers whose parents divorced, I'd far rather my mother and father had just tried to get along comfortably as housemates.

Instead, my mother married a man who was difficult, controlling, and abusive, and then ended up alone again after that man caused untold damage to the family, while my father hared off to shack up with another woman who hated us so only saw us in the holidays, and we lost his very high income and ended up growing up in near poverty due to him only paying the maintenance he was legally required to.

So I do wish people wouldn't throw that blanket 'the kid's'll be alright!' statement out there. As with anything, it's very much luck of the draw as to whether the kids will cope better or worse with a divorce.

There would be no issue with me returning to work, but he wouldn’t be ok with me working full time and not being able to do the majority of school drop
offs and pick ups.

The grass isn't always greener, as someone struggling to juggle work, childcare, housework, paying the endless bills with very little disposable income - I can confirm it is exhausting and even though DH are same age we are rarely intimate. Too tired! Also my 43 year old DH has had his health problems, which has entailed time off work and multiple operations and all the drugs. He is living with a chronic illness. Don't live with regrets, just make the most of what you have.

I guess the majority of women his own age were already married or with children.

I also think the kudos at work for having ‘pulled’ the new girl at work to be honest. He’s admitted there was talk of this at work.

But what about what YOU would be OK with? Move away from thinking about what HE wants to what YOU want.

You're not living his life. You're living yours.

"He wouldn't be OK with me..."

And this right here is why age gap relationships, especially combined with earning gap relationships and the sahm/high income dad combination, can never really be equal.

All your outgoings are dependent on his high salary. That's locked in now. Presumably your kids will go to private school (no judgement there, that's our choice too) so he can't reduce his hours. You have to do all the pickups and drop offs, it doesn't make financial sense any other way. It's a cage.

It's a golden cage though so just enjoy the luxury.

I think you're limiting yourself here, massively. You're making an assumption that you can't achieve in life which is just plain false.

You're in a position to buy in help, so do that and focus on getting back into work. Returnships are a thing. Do any necessary retraining and maybe hire a career coach to support you through it.

In some ways you've done yourself a favour by having kids young. They will only get more independent from here.

Have you told him you want a career? What is his attitude towards it?

It might be the case that divorce is in the future. But if you address the career issue first, you will be in a position of strength and confidence.

Unfortunately this forum is filled with women who have said this exact thing, and then it turns out his head has been turned and he's having a fling with someone else. There was a power imbalance in your relationship when you met (senior to you at work, already owned a house, better off financially) and it has worked in his favor to continue that now (your career has stalled, you have no pension, you're dependant on him financially) because this means he still holds all the cards in your relationship, if he chose to leave tomorrow he could fairly easily do so, whereas practically speaking it's harder for you. You feel adrift and powerless so I'd say that's the first thing to address.

Regardless of if you choose to remain in the relationship long term I would be taking steps to bring you to a more even footing today. Are your finances shared? Can you start putting away some money every month into a private pension for you? Do you want the career you stepped away from again in the future? I say this as someone who had to take 12 years out due to caring for a disabled child, and I've just gone back to my old full on, full time career. Yes I'm a good decade behind where I would be otherwise, but I did spend that decade getting management experience and working part time in other sectors that were more suited to my needs at the time, so I'm hoping I can establish in 3 years what I might otherwise have done in 10 career wise. I wouldn't have been able to consider it pre-primary school ages, but I always did a variety of qualifications while I was home with the kids that supported my return to work and I thought it might be really hard to get back into my former sector, reality is I got the first job I went for and they offered me a higher salary than they'd advertised. Your career is not just about a payslip to you clearly, it's independance, a sense of identity and self worth.

People grow apart. Sadly sometimes relationships run their course. Would you consider separating? You only get one life.

Why do you say that you can't go back to your career OP? You haven't said what you did, but I'm guessing law, banking, management consultancy, that kind of thing? If so, you should investigate 'returnships'. This is something that no one in your generation will be talking about, but many professional businesses have established programmes to help women back into the workplace when they've been out for years having babies and being SAHMs.

EDI (equality, diversity and inclusion) policies are standard across the board now and that includes women who have dropped out of the workforce and become economically inactive through circumstance and who need support, opportunities and retraining to get back into the workforce. I myself benefited from such a programme when I returned to work last year after 17 years being a SAHM. You can only have been out for 6-7 years or so, which is not a huge amount of time, particularly when you consider it as part of your overall working life. So don't assume that you are unemployable! I thought I was and if I'm not, then I can promise you that you aren't either. You're a young woman with your whole life and career ahead of you. Seriously, you have no idea of what opportunities are available to you, but they are out there.

You could afford to pay someone to do the majority of school runs.

Is he controlling or are you letting his 'harumph' over things like this hold you back?

I wouldn’t want to work 9-5 (or longer) whilst the children are still young. As much as I’d love to get back to a proper career, I just wouldn’t want to use childcare this much especially as we don’t need the money. Also DH would be paying for it so he would have to agree.

Right now I’d love to start training/gaining experience in something so that I could return to proper full time work in a good position in 10 years or so.

I'm not sure what you mean.

OP has done a lot of things right. She protected herself legally by getting married before having children. She has been married for approximately 7 years which means in the event of divorce she will have at least 50% of everything that has been accumulated during her marriage (both earnings and asset growth) so it is very likely, given her husband's work in financial services, that she is a millionaire, and therefore has a higher net worth than 99% of women in their early 30s.

With the benefit of her experience, she is now reconsidering her choices. She has options to pay for childcare, retrain or go back to her old profession. She is in a strong position and has choices. She can move on with her life and develop good co-parenting relationship with her current husband. She hasn't done anything wrong and marriage is not a prison.

Exactly this.

Nah, that kudos was limited to "pulling" you. If it was purely for streetcred it would have been a fling then he'd pull the next new girl.

No, he domesticated you pretty quick. He wanted a relationship where he was in charge and could have the family structure he wanted with someone too naive to argue.

I’ve never had the experience of saving up and buying a house with a partner

I think you may be romanticising this aspect of it, if nothing else. Life is a struggle for many people financially; so many don’t even get on the housing ladder these days and have to live in insecure and extortionate rental situations indefinitely. Not exactly great for their relationships.

I'm not sure you're being honest with yourself here when you say you didn't marry for money.

This "much, much, much more senior" man took you to "the Maldives, New York and the Caribbean all within a year of meeting".

That's not your average bloke with an average income is it?

Your relationship began to deteriorate after the first baby, and then you went on to have two more.

Is that something you would've been happy to do if he was stacking supermarket shelves and topping up his wages with UC?

Whatever you decide to do about the relationship, being honest with yourself is the best place to start.

We all make decisons we regret OP.

Don't beat yourself up about that but find a solution.

He must be 50 now and you are early 30's, you barely see each other and the spark has gone.

You have a whole life ahead of you still, get back out to work now. Even part time and find your new life.

You would do yourself a good favour OP if you sat down this afternoon and watched Educating Rita and Shirley Valentine.

OP, I think that you need to reframe your mindset. Lots of people lose themselves when there children are very young and have to deal with housing /financial challenges etc
I am not being insensitive but everyone's life can look more exciting if you keep on comparing.
Parenting young children dampens your libido.
Please reflect and treasure what you have.
I know several friends who weathered the storms of parenting and feeling disconnected from their husbands and came out OK when the harder parts were over.
You are in an extremely fortunate position. You can reinvent yourself when kids are a bit older.

3 kids in a short space of time is hard. Take a beat, try and rediscover what you had. Give it time, try and work out how you can become more fulfilled. He’ll/could be retired in 6-7 years if he’s been successful and can help with the kids more? You can then have your turn.

You're contradicting yourself a bit here. You don't need to justify working to earn money, it is so much more than this.

You are a separate person in your own right. You don't exist just to facilitate your other half's career or do school runs. Millions of us use childcare and our children are absolutely fine.

A fulfilling career is about you living your own life, for yourself. You will also need it if you divorce him, which I assume you will at some point given your description of the state of the relationship.