Advice on leaving your wife (Mr popular is here!)

[jamie000]

I know this will not make me popular but I have a very odd request, which is for advice on how someone in a relationship would prefer it to end. My DW and I have been on a rocky road for at least 2 years. We have had counselling but that made things worse as we began to realise we wanted different things. But we do have a very strong bond and we're pretty good parents to one DD so we've stuck things out. In between bad times we have had great times too as we've both made an effort to make things work, but now I feel we're at another crossroads. Our DD is leaving school. To be clear, she is my step-D and I have been a good step dad. The problem is my DW is older than me (48) and although this wasn't an issue 10 years ago it sadly is now. She talks about retirement, menopause, and things that I didn't expect to have to deal with for many years. I've come to think that actually I may want kids of my own, I'm not that old, my peers are still getting married and starting families and I seem to have aged prematurely. I feel like I should be thinking about kids and the future (my career is still growing) but my life is with someone who is planning retirement and slowing down at work. On top of that she has been very critical of me of late: too much work, not enough time at home, etc. Once a week (mid week) I go to the pub and stay untill about 10. I think that is reasonable but she is lonely and wishes I took her out more. But when we do go out I really don't think we have that much in common any more (it used to be DD that drew us together) and it pains me, as she is dear to me. Basically I think I love her but not in love with her. We have spoken about splitting up before but we've decided to 1) give it another go and 2) we shouldn't do that while DD is doing gcses. I want to go but I don't know if that is just an escape route instead on knuckling down, or if I just need to put more effort in, as she would probably say. Also, I wonder if I am going through my own kind of mid-life blip as I keep thinking about 30 something women and having kids etc... which was never on my radar 5 years ago. I'm confused. I need a slap in the face and some thought provoking comments.

A thought on your relationship with your SD - being taken for granted is a massive privilege. It demonstrates unconditional acceptance and reliance, that you're part of the furniture of her life. Most late-teens / early 20s go through a big self-discovery, establishment of adulthood stage, then start to take notice of the people that have always been there and make choices about spending time with them, then involving them as grandparents.

Sounds very much as though you have work to do on your relationship before you can conclude whether it's over, or just entering another phase. Remember your ageing may accelerate in your 40s too.

My own general observations are that some people work at relationships, so are good at them, others don't and are flighty and generally dissatisfied, always on the lookout for a new thrill (person, activity, career, whatever), or resigned and miserable. People can be good at relationships and go through more than one marriage but they both know why, behave decently and often remain friends.

Also, once a cheat, always a cheat.

The cheating tendency may lie latent for years - enough to raise a family with a younger woman even - but it doesn't go away.

This thread has made me laugh a bit. Do ALL men that trade their wives in for a younger model navel gaze quite so intensely? Are they really so invested in appearing to be The Good Guy to everyone around them and even randoms on a forum?

This is a shit thing you're going to do, you can't dress it up. You can justify it if you're truly unhappy and unfulfilled but that should be all you say to your wife "I am dissatisfied and hankering after what I think I have missed in life, you did nothing wrong, I am putting myself first that's the only reason I am leaving you". Because it is the only reason. I don't think people should stay in relationships where they're unfulfilled, I know I haven't in my life, but what they shouldn't do is try and put frills on it and make it any more than it is or put the blame of the person being left.

Good luck with being the oldest swinger in town

nicki. Yep. This. I have suggested before that the OP checks out Midlife for Dummies. It really will help him through this 'transitional' stage in his life. Great tips for partner-blaming, stringing along and the important message throughout that it is 'all about ME'.

This thread has made me laugh a bit. Do ALL men that trade their wives in for a younger model navel gaze quite so intensely? Are they really so invested in appearing to be The Good Guy to everyone around them and even randoms on a forum?

Yes, I think this is exactly what is so perversely fascinating about this thread. The OP is planning something entirely banal the equivalent of buying a motorbike and shouting I'VE STILL GOT IT, WORLD!!! but the fascination is the level of self-delusion involved. He'd cast Michael Fassbender with furrowed brow and tormented gaze in the film.

And I would still like to know why he didn't bring up the issue of having a child with his partner, who may well have been fertile up until very recently, or still might be. Women are commonly having babies in their 40s - I had one myself. It's possible she didn't want to, I suppose - though I suspect we'd have heard that from the OP as part of the spate of self-justification - but it also strikes me as perfectly possible that the 'I need a baby of my own' thing is part of the self-justification for 'I need a younger model'.

Ah, penny drops - your peers. Yes, the people around you do reflect a version of yourself back at you - and are often a better measure of who you really are than your (everyone's) inevitably deluded self-image. Especially by your age, when people are not all unproven potential but have by and large arrived.

So, one answer is, look more widely, maybe make some new friends - choose friends who reflect who you really are. There are plenty of family-oriented people your age (even with successful careers too!).

The thing is though, your existing peers are family orientated - you stated this as one of your opening motivators for change. That's why they're all having babies now, with their established spouses and partners. Many of them will have wanted a family from the off and thought carefully about the point in their careers vs fertility that they'd attempt this. Somehow you didn't have the self-knowledge or foresight to think that through at the same time that they were actively doing so.

You see people who've remained footloose and fancy free into their late 30s, while you were busy being a dad. They see 20+ years of active parenting and a life of parenthood and family ahead. A goal they have been working towards for years.

They've probably been impressed by your early commitment. They probably envy your earlier approaching empty-nest 'freedom' too.

Do ALL men that trade their wives in for a younger model navel gaze quite so intensely? Are they really so invested in appearing to be The Good Guy to everyone around them and even randoms on a forum?

Ha ha, oh dear, based on the ones who've talked to me about it, the answer to that is a resounding yes!

At least we don't have any apparent religious angle here. That just adds a whole other level of introspection and self-justification.

Basically, so long as you've looked within yourself and felt a bit guilty, it's ok. Confession and absolution innit. See also 'I know I'm not a nice person...' translation 'This is just the way I am, can't help it, I've looked deeply inside and this is an expression of my true self. I cannot deny fulfillment of the full potential of that (rather fantastic) self, my first and ultimately only love.' Commitment to others? A sincere mistake, made when my self-knowledge was not so deep - but this is who I am now, and who I am is a good person trying his best

@flamingnoravera "You have choices, you made one when you married, deal with it." What does that mean? Its drivel

There you go- that is the real you. Calling me out for telling you to man up and make your choices. You are one sad fuck having to come to mumsnet to request permission for something you have already decided to do and which you know will cause pain and suffering.

Have my first FOTTFSOFAWYGTFOSM and a

It does seem to rile some people that I may find 28 y/os more attractive than 48 y/os

What a massive generalisation. You are only 9 years younger than her. But you fancy women 11 years younger than you. And you fancied her 10 years ago, unless she's massively gone down hill, she can't look that different.

Fwiw, I am 46 and I've met plenty of 26 year old women that I don't feel look better than me. I've got no wrinkles, I keep very fit, I still get dressed up. I've got life experience. I certainly don't feel over the hill, whatsoever.

Surely someone in their 20's is going to be a bit dull? I guess it's just a youthful body that these men want, and who cares if there's no interesting conversation. How sad. Personally, I have always fancied men my own age, so I find men in their 40's/50's attractive now, and well, men in their 20's just don't appeal, in fact they look like boys to me. I don't think men do this? Which I find odd if they have daughters.

Kylie Minogue - 48
Heidi Klum - 43
Jennifer Anniston - 47
Jennifer Lopez - 47
Mariah Carey - 46
Gewn Stefani - 47

Just saying

Stop talking about twenties vs forties. If you split up with your wife, what about someone your own age?

I have nothing against age gap relationships, but I do have something against the entitlement of some men that they can always find someone younger.

Well I've found this an interesting exercise anyway. For me it further confirms that 'goodness / family orientation / love / is as does'. Good intentions are pish. There's a reason why 'well intentioned' means 'misguided fool'.

It's amazing how many people use and consider self-confessed flaws as signs of rather sweet self-knowledge, vulnerability and capacity for change, rather than as a statement of who that person is, isn't it? We get wise to that as we get older though.

Me and DH have a male friend who will only date girls in their 20's (he's about to turn 40). None of them stick around for long. He brought one to a wedding, and she spent the whole wedding breakfast playing on her phone and texting. It was like having a child at the table. Anyway, here he is alone and about to turn 40.

It's amazing how many people use and consider self-confessed flaws as signs of rather sweet self-knowledge, vulnerability and capacity for change, rather than as a statement of who that person is, isn't it? We get wise to that as we get older though.

Amen. I went out with precisely that in the form of an older, tormented, pseudo-intellectual punk postgrad when I was a student. In my defence, I was eighteen, and recently out of a convent school. Instructive, though. By 20, I could see that coming in the distance like a giant, self-deluded elephant.

OP. If the marriage is over, then it's over. No shame in divorcing if it's the end of the road and you end the marriage in a sensitive and fair way.

I'm guessing you have a comfortable lifestyle and that if you divorce there will be a 50/50 split of assets? Have you had a look at what you could afford to buy with your half? Then factor in a remarriage and children in your mid forties and the costs of supporting your new wife and children into your sixties. I've known several men who start again with a younger wife and family in their forties upwards, and it can be a big step backwards financially.

Not sure if you're still reading, but can I suggest that whilst you are leaving, you encourage your secretary to look for another job or really re-evaluate the boundaries here. Once you're a free man, the closeness, flirting and over-stepping of work boundaries which is already going on (let's be honest) could end up ruining more children's lives. Or you could also end up with her and bringing up 'someone else's' kids all over again. The relationship with your sec doesn't sound healthy, OP.

waves at jess and laughs hysterically at OP's misguided delusion

Barbara Windsor is 79 she married her husband in the year 2000. Her husband is 53. Age gap relationships between women and men do work. There are men who find older women very attractive. Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder.

If a relationship doesn't work for various reasons. I hope it works out for him because he could end up losing more than what he'll get back.

Finding 28 year old 'more attractive' than people your own age IMO is a sign of a superficial man given to objectifying women.

And yes that doesn't apply to people with age gaps who happen to fall for each other. It applies to men who say 'I find 28 year olds more attractive' as a blanket statement.

In this case we know it is a post secretary EA BS anyway because when he was 27 he was finding 38 year old attractive.

I do agree with offred it does sound like an all of a sudden attitude he has.

I usually find 50-year-olds more attractive than 70-year-olds and I'm not ashamed to admit it. But I would be ashamed if I married someone at 50 then left him at 70 purely because he'd grown old and I had a 50-year-old friend. If I did leave him I'd feel bad about it.

OP, why are you still hanging around here instead of letting your poor partner get on with her life without you? You've had advice on how to do it kindly. Can you at least fake it?

There, there, calm down dear.

You came here expecting to be unpopular and to be flamed for what you were about to say, and now that is happening you are chucking your toys out of your pram. Posting this on a parenting website of mostly women was bound to produce some responses you don't like. Perhaps your lack for foresight has shown itself here again.

You're not family orientated are you? Not really, because now it doesn't suit you, you want to destroy the family you have created. Fair enough if that's what you need to do, but at least be honest with yourself.

What are you hoping to achieve from this thread? You have made up your mind, why are you looking for permission? Just do what you need to do if you have made up your mind.

I'm looking forward to the update in a few week's time

Let's just hope the secretary doesn't go to HR to lodge a complaint about sexual harassment at work.

The first few pages of comments were both positive and negative. I knew when I threw the bread in the water they'd be a few friendly ducks and a few hissing geese, and that was all very useful to hear - like a counselling session (which is what I probably need). But now the piranhas have turned up and I have no more bread to give. Basically you only know a scintilla of my life and practically zero about what my DW is like but that hasn't stopped you (not all of you: you know who you are) from constructing a massive theory about the sort of shit I am. I hope it amused you but it just sounds like a 'burn him!' moment to me. I was thinking out loud ffs.

@ItShouldHaveBeenJess "I also don't understand - and you've avoided this question - why you didn't bring up the subject of having your 'own' children when it was actually viable?"

Would you like my tel number and GP records too? Mind your own business.

@Manumission "You're tying yourself in knots trying to write an 'acceptable' narrative that justifies you acting on your instinctive desires.
Then you are coming here seeking female approval"

I didn't for a millisecond think I'd get approval: that is what your swivel eyed narrative wants to believe. I was totally surprised that the first few pages of replies were quite objective actually.

jamie

If you consider these people to be gunning for you then stop giving them ammo.

You're either a genius or a madman for coming on here and stating what you've stated but don't act shocked that some of what your posts read like are earning you a toasting. Surely you've got enough feedback to inform your next steps?

Stop getting on your high horse whilst your integrity which you are hanging onto by your fingertips remains.

"Swivel eyed", classy.