Leaving a good man for more excitement?

[Featherkin]

Been with my partner now for many years, I love him and I think this could just be my age, menopause looming and the sense that my options are really limiting now but I keep having this fantasy of moving out, getting my own place and dating and falling in love again. I never used online dating as it didn’t exist last time I was single and I always thought it looked so much fun and exciting.

But then perhaps it’s just stupid as I’d be poorer, I do love my partner and I’m sure someone else’ would have him snapped up if I left and I have read women and men get these mad yearnings at this age due to hormones and life stage and that it is best just to ride it out if you have a basically good relationship.

Anyone else felt like this, what did you do?

“all about middle aged fat men expecting women to be under thirty, size eight, wealthy and aching to nurse them in their dotage while they pick their yellow teeth and fart into the sofa..”

@Autumnweddingguest ye gods really??? Well I really am better sticking to the man I have. I do love him it’s just this time of life it feels like a door is slamming shut on me and it’s scary.

As suggested, keep it with your DP. Suggest something simple as a start, go out for a coffee/tea or a walk. No family distractions and not huge costs. Talk about things you want- social life/travelling/hobbies - see what he wants too, and if you can make plans together.

Meet Your OH at a bar and pretend to be strangers. WAY more fun than OLD which is GRIM.

I think this is the closest to how I feel actually, yes to wanting to be seen and not just taken for granted as wife, mother, daughter, daughter in law, cook, housekeeper etc. It’s not as bleak as that but it’s just a bit meh. I read about love languages and my DP is very much acts of service which I love but I could do with just a bit more romance now and then.

But it won't be as exciting as with a stranger.

Most marriages are dull - that's the reality of life.

Bringing trauma into your life (which divorce does most of the time) doesn't seem a good substitute to me.

What a wise observation this is.
You can shake up your life a bit without smashing everything apart.

I think I saw this on an episode Modern Family!

As fantasies go, the one you've described sounds about as achievable as going to wizard school. I wouldn't blow up your real life for that.

You've had a lot of difficult stuff going on and life has changed a lot. It's natural to imagine turning back the clock or waking up in a different life where none of this is real, but acting on those thoughts tends to be unhelpful.

If you've had a run of bereavements, have you had any grief counselling to talk through your feelings and reactions? Some of your feelings do sound a bit like grief reactions, for your bereavements and also your younger self and pre-pandemic life.

Jeez OP, online dating in yur 40's. You'd be in for a nasty shock not a fairytale.

I will take a look at the dating threads to see what it is really like then! I suppose when I think of it I really don’t know many single men in their 40s and not even any married or not that I’d want to date or if I would they have too many issues that I know it would never work. So I suppose that is just how it goes then!

The door slamming shut is a feeling I and an awful lot of other women I know had around that time, @Featherkin. The end of options, possibilities, opportunities; the feeling that you’ve ‘made your bed’, and that the end of your fertility somehow marks the end of everything else, that you’re now resigned to just slowly becoming another invisible old woman; that your life’s achievements (or lack of them!) are now set in stone, and you have no option but to trudge into the twilight in your dull, comfortable marriage and your fucking dull, comfortable shoes.

Except all of this is a bullshit illusion. Honestly. You don’t need to dump your DH and shag some loser to rediscover and reassert yourself.

Read some of the post-menopause threads if you need convincing that the ‘third age’ can truly be one of freedom, happiness and possibility. The Gen X women ahead of you grew up with punk - we’re not all getting sensible haircuts and sliding off quietly to die. Your fifties, sixties and beyond can be an exciting, amazing time of life - you just need to let go of a few of the things that defined the younger you, and embrace a few different things that will define the older you. And once you’ve made peace with that, the sense of liberation is brilliant.

I think a lot of people felt like this after Covid, OP - listless, lacking energy, not quite knowing how to pick up the pieces after everything was so disrupted. In your case, your time and attention since has sadly been taken up with other matters, and it's maybe only now that you're resurfacing and really engaging with moving forward again? Just a thought, there may be an element of that in all this.

Otherwise, it sounds like you've got a pretty decent DH there, so I'd hang onto him if you can. It's wonderful as you go through later life to have someone who gets all your private jokes, and shares memories and joint experience going back decades. From what I can see, OLD looks pretty grim on the whole, though some people do get lucky. Really talk to your husband about what you can do together, and also think of some things you'd like to do on your own - either things you loved in the past, or new challenges. Plan a break together if you can.

Good luck.

Edited to add I agree with the poster above - I'm in my early sixties, and I'm having a blast. Everyone finally has time to get together and have fun again, it's like being back at Uni! So far this week I've had or been to three parties, and I was singing opera and songs from the shows at one of them! 🤣

I'm 33 with two kids and I can assure you dating is fucking horrible 🤷☺️

Have a chat with him, maybe he'd like a bit of a change of pace but hasn't mentioned it. Find something you can do together thats out of your norm.

I'm a married man in my 40s and I've had similar struggles at times. I think it's partly because the early days with my wife (when we were in our early 30s) were so exciting and fun, whereas now most of my time seems filled with responsibilities. One thing that I've found helpful is to be able to talk with my wife about this, and she agrees that it would be good to find more time to have fun with each other. It's still difficult to find that time sometimes, but it's comforting that I can feel like we're both trying to find ways to bring more of that excitement back into our lives.

Do you find that you're able to talk to your DP about this and tell him that you would really like to do some adventurous or romantic things together? Not like "hey, we never do anything" but like "I think you're a great guy and I would really like to do xyz with you"?

If you don’t have time for holidays due to family illnesses, how will you have the time after leaving your DH? Or is it mainly his family where there is this issue? With no DC at home, I would invest that energy in your marriage as he sounds great and a catch.. surely you could go away for a weekend / spice things up in the bedroom. Just talk to him. Honestly, I met my lovely Dp online but I would say majority on men online were horrendous in their 40s! I was42 when I met Dp however it was at a point where I was going to give up!

I know someone who decided she could do better than her DH, she had an enviable, comfortable life with him. He was a good, hardworking man, they had no issues she was just bored. She told him she wanted a divorce, no discussion but a couple of years later and she's wanting him back. Definitely a case of grass isn't greener.

How about suggesting spicing things up to your DH, OP? Easy enough to find sex parties or swingers online (I assume!)

thanks to some ex raver friends DH and I recently took up a new hobby of recreational drugs. Sounds mad but the last year has been lots of fun. We’re both over 50.

give him a range of options and say he’s got to choose one.

and book a holiday !

Leaving for more excitement and fun glamorous online dating at 46 - is really silly thing to do.
All my divorced friends mid-40+ are having really awful time dating. Those men you imagine dating simply do not exist.
You’ll get 50+ men with all kinds of insecurities and ED.

That said - it it really common to feel this way in peri. Something about out hormones making us wonder - is this it..:
So plenty of women doing stupid things and exploding otherwise OK, but not ‘exciting’ enough relationships. Only to end up miserable. Or having a few years of ‘fun’ with younger men, and then back to being alone.
Their men, meanwhile get snapped up almost the moment they put out a profile…

I’d say - if you H is oK and there are no other major issues - figure out a way to make your life more fun. Talk to H - maybe he will be game for whatever you come up with…

what door is slamming shut? The chance of that rush of excitement when you fall in love? I reckon that dooir probably has shut if you are in a good marriage. But you can get rushes of excitement from doing things that challenge you and going places you have longed to see all your life. That's how i get my kicks these days. I'd rather be with DH who is a good man, despite his faults, who loves me, despite my faults, and open new doors through challenges and new projects that really create a buzz and make me feel alive.

I suppose it is not just that but also youth and its endless possibilities, yes that door did shut years ago in reality but its like I've only just noticed. The with the generation above me getting old and dying makes me realise how short life is. My grandmother died when she was my age, my Aunt recently died very suddenly and she was only 20 years older than I am now.

No absolutely not for me, nothing against it of course if its all consenting adults but not my thing. Our sex life is actually pretty decent.

Hahaha ha
..no.

Online dating is shit show.

If you want be be single, fine. But don't leave expecting to find better.

Gosh op, your husband sounds pretty decent and you have a good sex life. What else are you missing here? There were no decent men my age so I tended to date much younger but knew I had no intention of settling with one of them nor they me really. Are you basically not in love with your DH. You need to define what “excitement” you want really but hedging your bets on a man is pretty unreliable.

I'm sorry: this has got to be a wind up. Nobody's this clueless.