Embarrassed by our age gap

[Nomum1980]

Me and my DH have been together over 20 years and married for 12 , we have a happy marriage and have overcome a lot at the start of our relationship due to the age gap ( DH is 20 years older) we encountered unkind comments and people who I thought were friends basically wanted nothing to do with us but I accepted that was peoples opinion and just got on with things.

Recently I have started a new job and it’s a small team of people, when we were discussing relationships etc and a Co worker was asking about my husband I found myself lying about his age, this is something that I have never done before and I feel really ashamed of myself for doing it but I just didn’t feel comfortable discussing it, what I did has made me think that perhaps now I am starting to feel the age gap more than I realised , I do sometimes feel a bit jealous of couples who are similar age and have a family, I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that I would never be a mum and I do accept that but recently I just feel a bit different about things, sorry for the rant i dont have anyone to confide in.

Both people make the same vows in marriage and go into it knowing the age difference.

Arguing that it is the man's 'fault' for aging and that women are fine to look for a younger model because he should have just stayed at his "peak" at 40 until she caught up is weird. It assumes that the woman has had not agency in the marriage until that point.

OP, I am sorry you feel embarrassed by your husband just because he is older. Telling lies to coworkers is not a constructive way of dealing with it and likely to cause you more problems should they find out that he is indeed older and you lied to them.

Perhaps you need to get some support to come to terms with the fact that this was a choice you made in marrying an older man. Do you have access to any counselling?

Are you perhaps looking back on your relationship now you are his age when he met you and questioning it too which is why you've lied to colleagues?

I find any relationship where one partner is old enough to be the others parent unsettling and would expect a power imbalance or that the younger partner was vulnerable in someway or the older one wealthy or bringing something very special to the partnership? Would I comment on it ? - Absolutely not, would I pay attention in case my colleague showed signs of wanting to leave and offer support if we had that type of relationship - absolutely.

I’m sorry to hear what you’re going through it must be so difficult and upsetting.
Do you think it’s the age gap that’s causing you to have doubts about your marriage or is it the fact that you don’t have children? Please don’t take this the wrong way it isn’t meant in a negative or judgmental tone, but, it seems to me that the main reason for you questioning your relationship is not being a mother? And the problem with that is you could start to resent him or blame him for missing out on parenthood?
I was married young, I was 21 and he was 19. We’d been together for 5 years and we were married for less than a year before he cheated and left me 7 months pregnant and with a 2 year old.
Years later I met my last partner and we were together 10 years and had 3 children together. He was also 2 years younger coincidentally and, although I had 3 beautiful children in that time who I wouldn’t change for anything, I look back and regret spending so many years in a toxic and unhappy relationship. I’ve been happier since breaking up with him 3 years ago and it took a lot of strength and courage to leave and to accept and admit it wasn’t working but it’s not worth carrying on with a relationship when you’re not happy. You live once, this isn’t a dress rehearsal so my advice would be to really think about why you’re questioning everything and work out what is wrong, whether you think you can overcome regrets and continue in your marriage and then picture yourself leaving and what your life could be like and what you want from it. It’s not too late and I wouldn’t want my partner to stay with me out of habit or something. I hope you manage to figure out what to do and everything works out well for you regardless of your choice. Sending a hug 🤗

I also think it's significant that you're now the age that he was when you met. So he had all this time to live his life and not settle down until age 44, whereas you met him and settled down with a much older man at 24. That's bound to make you think over your decisions at this point, and even though you have to own them - as people questioned your relationship, you had ample chance to and chose to stick with him - you now have the benefit of more life experience (as he did when he met you) and may make other decisions going forward if this continues to be an issue that gains in importance to you.

It's not clear (unless I missed it) how the age gap is related to not having DC. Plenty of older men have DC with younger women so presume there's something else going on there, and again, that you've chosen him and no DC over the alternatives. However from what you say it sounds like you haven't got people IRL to talk to about any of this or whether you had or have any alternatives, and lying to your new colleagues about him is an escalation of that - not only not being able to be honest about your feelings and concerns but actively making things up rather than dealing with the truth of the situation.

So perhaps this is a positive to take from this, that you need to find someone to dig beneath the surface embarrassment with and see what's really going on. You've been the younger one with an older man for a long time, but you're no longer so young and can take charge of your life and what you want from it.

@Eleganz

That's not what I said at all. But yes, regardless of how mature someone in their 20s might seem, there is a huge gap in life experience between someone in their 20s and someone in their 40s.

Someone in their 20s has little experience of adulthood and the brain isn't fully developed at that age.

I would expect someone in their 40s to know much better. I'm still in my 30s and cannot imagine chasing after a young person in their 20s