Age gap relationships, do they work

[blowinginthewind0]

I'm just turning 24 soon. I ended up falling for the man I started seeing at the of 2022. He was with his ex since they were teens and have 3 young children together but he decided to leave because she wasn't giving him enough affection anymore and communication broke down between them and he was sleeping on the sofa most nights. When he left we started seeing each other about 2 weeks later and I quickly fell for him, within another 5 weeks I was pregnant and our baby was born summer last year. He's 38 and I'm really happy and I've definitely fell for him but I do fear that he still has a lot of feelings for his ex especially as they were together over 20 years and sounds like they were each others best friends. They still have contact over the children but I still panic when he goes to hers to collect the kids etc and I'm panic about the 14 year age gap between us but it's going good so far and we moved in together just before baby was born.
Will this last seeing as he jumped from such a serious long term relationship with someone he shares so much history with and she was the same age as him to what he has with me now seeing as I'm a lot younger than her and got pregnant very soon after he left her. I'm head over heels about him but sometimes I question if he wonders about the age gap between us even though its not causing issues at the minute

Do not have more children by this man , history is going to repeat itself or give it another year and he be back with the ex .. you can't replace 20 yrs and he's just gone from a home with young children

That's exactly what I was going to say. What a mess. Poor kids.

But it's a huge red flag if a man gets bored with a relationship because someone isn't paying him enough attention when she is bogged down with three young children(of course she's bloody well not as affectionate - she's probably exhausted!) and moves on to someone else 2 weeks after the end of a 20 year relationship.

I agree with @mindutopia
This isn't about a theoretical age gap, this is about a man who selfishly walked out on his partner and 3 young children to have sex with a naïve 22 yr old.

What's done is done now, and people on this thread are being kind to you, but, really ???

Oh come off it. You want to be an adult then at least take some responsibility. Surely as a grown woman you know how sex and contraception (or lack of) work??? You got pregnant deliberately. Tale as old as time.

because she wasn't giving him enough affection anymore and communication broke down between them and he was sleeping on the sofa most nights

she wasn't happy at all with him when she heard I was pregnant so soon. She spoke to him like he was crap and made him out to be toxic

So, he may be reasonable and kind. But there are too many flags here - a lot of these older men who go for younger women want someone they can dominate/mould/control. And right now with one child you are able to balance their needs and his. But if you go on to have any more, expect the whole you-dont-give-me-enough-affection script to reappear.

But you willingly entered into a sexual relationship with a man before the bed was even cold on his wife’s side. That’s the point you should have wondered if it was a good idea.

And news flash - pregnancies don’t ‘just happen’

I actually feel sorry for you as you really seem to have been manipulated by an older man into believing he was totally blameless for walking out on his wife and children because he wasn’t centre of attention anymore

i dont think its about the age gap here. Its about the fact you swallowed up his cliché sob story thats as old as time. It sounds like his ex wife is incredibly dignified, and you and your boyfriend sound like a pair of dickheads. Who knows if it will last or not? Probably not, but i doubt his ex would ever trust him again anyway. I could cringe for you OP.

Seriously???

She had three young children and should have been putting in effort not to lose her man? Dear God. I don’t want to be mean becuase you have tied yourself to this man but seriously my jaw dropped reading that.

Of course she was annoyed when he got you pregnant. I think pretty much anyone would have been apoplectic.

Honestly this is all guff from him. Your best hope is that his ex is wise enough to tell him to get stuffed or he’ll string the pair of you along and whoever else he shacks up with down the line. This just sounds like a mess.

This isnt really about the age gap there's enough going on that should of got your alarm bells ringing op!

When you are nearing 40 op you will be a completely different woman to who you are now,will you be looking at 22 year olds as a potential life partner? Probably not. It's more common for a maturity deficit or manipulation going on.

Do not have more children with him. Keep your friends family and independence. Prioritise your financial independence from him. Be in control of your life. Counselling would be great for you op work on your esteem and insecurities all sorts.
All these posters are women that have either been with a similar man or seen women being screwed over time and time again by these kind of men. It's not from judgement but wisdom we are all saying this is not a good man.

Maybe in the future you could sit down with the ex and hear her side of the story. I imagine it's very different to his.

hes not manipulating me or controlling to me at all. I don't know why people are saying this. We had an unplanned pregnancy and I was bad timing I admit but he is good to me

Gawd if that is him he’s a controlling arse to boot.

And surely because he has been in such a long term committed relationship should show he's an honest and loyal man. He spent all those years with her so I don't think he's looking elsewhere. We just happened to get together very quickly after their relationship was over. He wasn't cheating on her or anything. So it shows me I can actually have something very loyal and worthwhile with him because it's not like he's had a string of women during his life. He's a committed man

Of course he's good to you now. You're the young, new shiny thing. Give it a few years...

Yes, relationships fail. But you've clearly said he left because he wasn't getting enough attention. He sounds incredibly selfish. The fact that he was out dating within weeks of his marriage ending speaks volumes about his character.

In answer to your OP... I highly doubt your relationship will last.

@PinotPony but you hear of these things all the time. If a person isn't happy in a relationship they leave, and then someone else comes along and gives them that attention.
I haven't done anything wrong I don't think he has either. Yes the timing was quick. But if he wasn't feeling loved he was right to leave I think

He walked out on his wife and three young children, one of whom must have only been a year old. He immediately got together with a woman 15 years his junior and got her pregnant. All because he felt his wife with PND and three young children wasn't giving him enough attention.

His wife was clearly devastated.

Yes, he is in the wrong here. Unfortunately, you're refusing to look at the situation objectively.

It's not the age gap that's the problem it's how quickly he's gone from one long term relationship with kids to another...
My husband is 15 years older than me and it's worked very well. I don't think it's that big of an age gap... but then he had no previous children had never been married... we did all that stuff together as well as buying our first home etc.. so despite the age gap we were at the same life stage having the same first experiences. I think that's quite important
You've fallen for a guy whose had all these experiences you haven't had and that is going to be hard to cope with. Of course he has a bond with the mother of his other children and of course he will always be in their lives and want to see them.. unfortunately if you want to stay in this relationship that's something you'll always have to deal with and you are going to have to mature fast and overcome your insecurity

Dear me. What a sorry mess your child has been born into. You're only 24, you shouldn't have lumbered yourself with the responsibility for a child and the emotional mess with this awful man. What's done is done, but even if you "accidentally" got pregnant, why on earth did you continue with the pregnancy? The time for asking yourself all these questions you're now asking was then, and any rational person would have advised you to terminate. Certainly that's what I'd have been encouraging you to do if you were my daughter. But all you can do now is see how things pan out, but be prepared that you'll end up a single parent. I really can't see things lasting with this man, and not just because of the age gap.

All your comments OP show such a lack of life experience, lack of maturity and frankly its scary that you would bring a child into this world into this mess. The age gap is the least of your worries.

This post shows how naive you're being. Why does he need "attention"? He's a grown man, not a toddler.

If he'd left his wife, had a period on his own to adjust to being single, then started dating, I'd think more of him. But he's jumped straight from his wife to you. I suspect you're the distraction from his guilt at ending his marriage.

Yes they can work. But starting a family with someone after 5 weeks is quite a high risk way of finding out, regardless of age gap.

She had PND for Christ’s sake! It’s like saying a double amputee should have run faster! 🤦🏻‍♀️

He is the arsehole here, not his ex. She was suffering from a medical condition and he turned it round and made it all about himself. “She mustn’t want to be with me, wah wah wah” 😫 You sound like a silly little girl. Wait until you’ve get two more kids, and see how much energy you’ve got to be pandering to a selfish man-baby who has zero consideration for your well-being.

OP - the fact you’ve posted on an advice forum shows you've got doubts. However despite a pretty much unanimous response from women older and more experienced than you telling you they’ve seen this scenario many times before, you don’t seem to want to hear any opinion than he’s an absolutely wonderful man who was let down badly by his wife for not giving him attention and being up for sex whilst struggling with PND and 3 small children.

And it seems convenient that he was desperate for another child and you ‘accidentally’ fell pregnant before his wife’s side of the bed was cold.

I hope it does work out OP but I do foresee you being back here in a couple of years left holding the baby.

You have a very similar writing style to the thread about the woman who has been left after 20 years by a man who has immediately knocked up his younger partner. Neither thread sound like a real person but I suppose it's possible that one of the scenarios is real and the other is you trying a reverse.

More likely both are bollocks.

Let me just clarify this for you, it NOT going to end well.

there are age gaps and there are maturity gaps...and you have a case by of the latter in that despite your young age you are already more mature than him

You see the potential pitfalls and ask important questions, and he is just some perpetual man child who got a shock of his life that having children is time consuming

Saying this as someone with an exact same age gap in my relationship - don't bother, it's not his age, it's him, and he will stir more shit in your life than you can ever predict.