Recently broke off a relationship with a man 14 years senior than me. He is in his late 40s with 4 children (late teens to mid 20s) from 2 ex wives (1st marriage was only a year and 2nd lasted 20 years) and I am in my mid 30s, divorced with no kids.
He was extremely charismatic, and had a successful career. He was caring, loving, affectionate, and great in bed... etc.,
However, the longer it was, the more red flags I started to spot.. We were together for about 2 years.
He had a history of cheating (on both ex wives) and I caught him lie to me a few times. He kept saying that he learnt as he grew older and people could change. It was convincible in the beginning but less and less so as I started to observe the following from him: he blamed his ex wife for one of his affairs as she wasn't "supportive enough" whilst he provided for the family; could get really moody and rude with random people; did not tell me that the children were from 2 ex wives until after we slept together (I always thought he was married once only); got annoyed if I didn't prioritise him all the time or most of the time, e.g. expected me to pretty much spend all of my free time with him. At first, it seemed rather sweet but after a while it became almost stressful as I had a life outside this relationship....
It was extremely tough to end it but my gut feelings kept telling me that it just wasn't right with him.. or selfishly speaking, I felt I didn't deserve all the "baggage" with these kind of red flags.
Not sure whether it was a mistake to let go.. but I feel almost relieved now that we are no longer together.