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.

Main question really is do you still love each other? Make each other laugh? Have sex? Look forward to him coming home?

Sounds like he isn't a cruel man or anything, you've just fallen into a bit of a rut, probably driven primarily by the combo of 3 tiny kids and a very stressful job. It doesn't sound like all is lost, especially as you say neither of you would want to actually get divorced.

But you do need to both be willing to try and improve things, or you won't get any happier.

Honestly you are not really thinking this through.

Your kids will be fine, you need to get back out into the world of work now, you already lost a decade where most people get their experience and stability in a career. You can't wait any longer.

Even if you work part time, 3 days a week but full days and get your life back on track. Before you know it you'll kids will have left home, you will be 45 and you will be in a much worse situation.

Wonder if men talk to each other like this on forums….

The only way out is for you to get a job, but you are using the children as a reason not to do that. I know it’s difficult but millions of women do it. If you won’t then you’re stuck I’m afraid.

So why don’t you use the position your in as a chance to start a business or a hobby that could become a business? Would he support you for this? Focus on you and your needs. It can be really easy to lose yourself in motherhood and you may feel differently about him if you have time to put into things that you value.

failing that don’t stay in a situation that makes you unhappy. Children are not blind to these things and you deserve to be happy

You are not unreasonable for wanting out but you are unreasonable for regretting marrying him.

This

You’d be mad not to make a monumental effort to get your career back on track for your own financial security.

I kind of understand. I had a much older boyfriend in my late teens up until I was 24. I realised I still wanted to go out and have fun whereas he'd done all that and wanted to stay at home and talk about marriage and children.
Fortunately we broke up before either of those things happened but I do feel like I missed out a lot on things but you still have time to change things. There is no point staying together for your kids, do you really think they'll be happy growing up with parents who are unhappy together (and they will pick up on it)?
Do what is right, you know you don't want to be with your husband, he can still see the kids, you can go back to work.. It might take you longer to reach your goal but as your children grow up they'll need you less and you can work more.
Why did the two of you decide to have three children if you weren't happy before the first was born, was it an attempt to save your relationship?

What does he think is going on currently?

Is your marriage salvageable? Does he know it's broken?

You've had kids and are bored. Get a job and start making a career for yourself. Do that before you make any other changes.

But sit down and talk to him.

I think you're expecting too much from a relationship where you have 3 small kids. You must both be exhausted in the evenings, having deep conversations would be a bit much. I also think you see work as something that must be high earning or it isn't worth doing. You could get something lower paid which would work well around school hours and put most of the money into a pension. I work from home, mostly around school hours, and I do this.

This is what I’d do, you could go back to uni while all the children are at school to retrain in something you’re interested in. This will give you something for youself, but also be good if you end up spitting up so you have a recent qualification to start the career call rolling.

One question OP... when comparing yourself to your friends do you just look at the positives of their lives or the negatives too? I mean you say they are building their careers together. Are they working 9-5 or SAHMs? Because you could be building your career too but chose not to be away from your kids that much. I guess it's all about choices.

So decide what you want, and go out and get it.

I do have sympathy but I think life is just full of compromises. E.g. if you have the high flying career, you don't see your kids as much. It's just life.

I also don't think we should expect our partners to meet all our needs. So we can have shared interests with friends / hobby groups...and go home and tell our partners about it.

I think decide what's important to you now...is it retraining, more outside interests and hobbies, a job...and make it happen. Get dh onboard, surely he doesn't want you to be miserable.

Many people are really restricted because of finances. I know there's a power imbalance there but it seems like there's scope in the household income to make choices, retrain, get a nanny/babysitter etc.

Are you a qualified accountant? If not, you could study while at home with the children. It could be quite a flexible career ( although I'm not sure with AI etc), and it sounds like money wouldn't be an issue. Or you could study for something entirely different. The issue with having an older husband is that you could end up being a carer once your children are grown up. But I don't know what the answer to that is. YOu havent got a massive age gap, so you could go off and do your own thing once the kids have grown up. I presume you'd only be mid 40's by then

Not all, but SOME of this I've seen a lot among my social group in women who had kids young. Come 40, and there are some with newborns while those women with late-teens are rediscovering weekends away, being able to be more free for last minute work trips or courses. You are in the trenches right now kids-wise.

Some of your issues are easily fixable. A challenge outside the home but that gives you the flexibility that a job wouldn't could be volunteering for a charity, with a finance background I would imagine you could be an asset. You'd be meeting people outside of the school run, being challenged in ways you currently aren't and would get opportunities to learn and experiences that might help you return to the workplace one day.

Whether your husband is by your side for any changes in your life is up to you, and him- talk to him- presumably he wants you to be happy too?

And get yourself a pension.

You can do that. You have a goal to work towards and I think you’ll feel better as soon as you start making a plan and taking some steps towards it. Start small with low expectations - do a short online course, volunteer for something a few hours a week, ideally something you care about or find intellectually stimulating.

What I would say is I think you need to forget the glamour/lifestyle you’re imagining if you’d stayed in your finance job. There’s a lot more to career satisfaction than that and you have a golden opportunity to find out what’s really meaningful to you.

Finally, I know the grass is always greener but it might help you to know that I read your post and felt quite envious of your problem! You have resourcing and a blank slate… In a couple of years your kids will be in school and someone else is paying the mortgage. This is an amazing position to be in!

So there would be an issue with you returning to work effectively. Unless you set up a business from home, even PT jobs impinge on pick ups/drop offs.

Of course if you had a nanny, she could do all those.

OP you sound so defeated, and you don’t need to be! You are so young! No, your life will not take the path you are now looking back at enviously- it can’t with 3 young children- but that doesn’t mean you’re stuck on the path you’re on, either! Go back to work, you will have a load of different challenges to navigate around managing it around the kids (and your DH should share equally in that)- but actually there is something SO satisfying about that too, and you will manage it and feel a sense of achievement in a different way than you ever thought possible. Don’t idealise your friends lives- they will have their own struggles too, everyone does- whether that’s infertility, job losses, infidelity, loss of loved ones, financial difficulties- I mean of course I hope none of these kinds of things happen to your friends, but the reality is they may well envy you with your 3 kids and lovely home, it doesn’t get you anywhere. Get a job, find yourself again; you might find things improve with DH when you’ve also got your own vibrant life rather than being a shadow in his, and if not you can cross that bridge then .

I felt much like this when my kids were little. It’s hard work being a mum to young kids whatever your circumstance's and normal to feel a bit dissatisfied with life and to wish you’d done things differently. I’d think carefully before throwing your marriage away. You might go through a divorce and then still be miserable.
In your shoes I’d pay the childcare, go back to work/training and see if that cheers you up. Something that is yours alone outside of the house. If you do divorce you’ll need an income/purpose.
You seem to be blaming everyone else for your dissatisfaction but you made these choices, so really it’s up to you to make the best of them. Your circumstances are better than many, you could be a single mum with three kids relying on benefits after all. Tight diamond shoe syndrome.

In your op you said that you never felt equal to him financially. How can you complain when this was likely one of the reasons that attracted you to him?
My parents have a similar age gap, my mum met my dad when she was 18. Great marriage but she’s now a carer for my 95yo dad. Do you have it in you to go the distance?

Reframe this. You’ve got three children, close in age, that’s a major achievement. If you’d have gone the other route you may have had a brilliant career but then struggled with years of infertility, it can be soo much harder to conceive in your 30s.

Spending years saving for a house deposit whilst paying rent is a slog, and can take years. If you divorce now you’d get enough money for a sizeable deposit.

Your kids are at primary school freeing you up to build a career. Work on building your economic independence and autonomy. When you’re ready to leave you’ll be able to.

Perhaps the tipping point will be when he gets sufficiently fed up with the lack of excitement and has an affair. And the future beyond that will be different, whether it’s just transactional sex, and leads to a series of those short, intense highs. or whether he falls deeply in love with another woman, perhaps nearer his age, perhaps unencumbered by primary-aged children. For my ex, the fact that his affair-partner colleague’s child was an independent adult and she never had to consider school holidays or babysitters, was a huge part of the attraction; I was always fitting around the children, he felt he was down the line in my priorities. And I no longer enjoyed experimenting in bed, as we did pre-children, and his lover apparently did.

They were together a few years but now he is settled with a lovely woman, another former colleague, who never had children of her own and is a wonderful stepmother to our AC and step-granny to our DGC.

Less likely, perhaps, is that you will have the affair that ends your marriage, but I’d be surprised if you’re still co-existing in this sad and dissatisfied way by the time your kids are leaving home.

Think of your pension income in your own old age. You may be a comparatively young widow with no financial worries, and I don’t wish that on anyone, but you need to be realistic about how your 50s and 60s look.

OP, you do come across as quite passive in general. If that’s the case, just be aware of this characteristic and dont think it would magically change if you weren’t with DH. 3under 6 is really too intense a period to be making big plans if everything is broadly ok day to day. Once the littlest is coming up to school start time, think what you’d like to retrain in and go from there.