Shockingly huge age gap, wwyd?

[Saponaria]

I'm am 40 and my partner is 67, so we have a 27 year age gap. We've been together for three years. It's the best relationship I've ever had. He is the most wonderful man and the most loving partner that anyone could ever wish for. He is incredibly wise, sexy, fun, and so much more!

He looks after himself very well, he is physically very fit and has a great body! Also great posture and dresses well. He could pass for 50.
He has had some health issues, cancer and heart problems, but he is fighting fit again now and has bags of energy and enthusiasm for life. He is a really positive, motivated and energetic person. Our sex life is fantastic and I really fancy him despite our age gap.

I am happily child-free, have my own home and work full time. My partner is retired and I see him at the weekends. We live separately.

I'm currently taking stock of the relationship and trying to decide whether to continue. The age gap was a big deal for me at the start but we have proved it can work, it's not something that either of us notices. We have so many shared interests and we're extremely compatible on multiple levels.

However I'm now thinking about the future. If you were me, would you continue with the relationship? Or would you end it now and try and build a life with someone that is more your age?

He has set the bar EXTREMELY high so I worry that I won't find anyone as wonderful as him that I am compatible with on so many levels. It's hard to imagine life without him.

Really need help and perspective!

In the kindest way possible, if you're questioning it on the internet, you know in your heart what the answer is.

Nobody who's happy and fulfilled amd sees a relationship going the distance puts it up for public debate.

You are right personalities do shift around this age. I wonder why. We each feel such a strong identity and sense of self but yet change so much

Honestly, if you don't want kids, the only real question is do you love him and do you want to be with him? I mean you might not ever find a younger person you love as much as you love him!

I guess yes realistically he's likely to die when you are maybe in your 50s or 60s, but honestly you don't know that will happen. He could live to 97 and you could die at 65 just a few years later. Who knows. Honestly I guess too, we only meet such a small fraction of the other people on the planet, like how much more likely are you to meet someone unmarried in their 40s, as someone in their 50s? I mean if he dies at say at 80 (82 being the UK average life expectancy for a man) you'll be 53, how much less likely is it you'll find someone else at 53 than 40?

Been there and done that. 20 year difference rather than 27 but hey...

He is on the cusp of being elderly. He isn't there yet, so you're not feeling the effects. But a 75 year old isn't the things you've described him as. Being with an elderly person is not the same as being with a much older person. Mentally, physically, emotionally, it's a HUGE change.

I would definitely NOT be with an older person again. I thought love was ageless but I was wrong.

Yes. I think that's a very good point.
OP, age matters to you. You refer to how young you are, you say people think you're in your "late 20s" rather than 40. It's an issue.
I would say that the quality of the relationship is more important, and none of us know what the future may bring.
However, I think the age thing is too much for you.

It's the best relationship I've ever had. He is the most wonderful man and the most loving partner that anyone could ever wish for. He is incredibly wise, sexy, fun, and so much more!

Either you believe that is true or you don't ?

Honestly ? I think you are massively overthinking this, the relationship works for you, you get to have space and company and great sex.

I know you say you are happily child free, but is it possible that your ovaries are clacking and making you think that if you were with someone younger you might consider having children ? I might be way off the mark but you are coming up to the last few years of being able to get pregnant and it might be unconsciously pulling you to reassess the relationship because you don't see him as Father material ?

I'm closer to your DP's age than yours and I think it's creepy that he started a sexual relationship with a woman so much younger.

@Saponaria I agree that a separate living style can work much better. It sounds like you have a really good relationship.

You say you think he 'wants a bit more certainty', but he's not offering equivalent financial certainty? He can't have it both ways, especially when he's so much older.

It's not that relationships are brutally transactional, but if he loves you he should be aware that he's going to die before you do and think about what happens after that and want you to be cared for.

I can see the conundrum but for me it'd mainly be decided on whether I really deeply loved this man or not. I couldn't leave a man I truly loved just on the basis of age - but, in my younger years, my judgment about who I truly loved was less reliable than it is now.

Hi, ask MNHQ to move this to the pregnancy section. I hope you get the advice you need. Good luck.

This. Enjoy what you have, which sounds like more than many people have.

I think you have a few things to consider. If you were to go back out onto the dating scene, do you think you would find a man who you clicked with in a similar way? Would you struggle to feel the feelings you have for him, for another man?

Also, age creeps up, quickly! My FIL was doing alright at 69. He had spent his life working physically. Had sore knees, but was otherwise fine. He was 14 years older than MIL, who seemingly over night became his carer, her life became about looking for signs of infection, and traipsing to and from hospitals when he would be admitted. He disappeared infront of our eyes in about 8 years. He's at peace now, and he's really missed but MIL has said quite a few times it was the loneliness that was hardest to deal with, as she was younger and her friends couldn't understand what she was going through having to care for, and face the reality that time was running out with her husband, sure they'd faced losses of their parents, but when it's your husband it's different.

Be happy and stay.

Sounds like you know your own mind. What's making you second guess? After 3 years is he thinking/talking about marriage?

There's a >20-year age gap between me and DH, but I'm the older one 😨😳😞

We are so happy together that we both feel if one of us dies, we just couldn't be arsed messing around with anyone else. We'd just lose interest with the first petty argument or weird comment. After a lifetime of feeling something of a misfit, it is such a relief to be in DH's company and he feels the same way about me. The way he describes it is that being with me is as comfortable as being with himself, and that's how it is for me too.

A PP's comment earlier about all the wheels dropping off at 70 gave me a bit of a sharp intake of breath because I'm not far off! And caring for my mum, now very frail, has sharpened my focus given me some depressing insights into what life for DH might be like one day. I would hate to be a burden.

I have certainly aged quite a bit over the past 15 years or so, but then, he points out, so has he. (But still...!!!!!)

We talk about it quite a bit, usually when I get back from visiting mum (!). His attitude is that I may well outlive him (genes are very strong in my family, not in his!), but as long as I'm recognisable as "me" he doesn't give a shit about what happens to me physically. He'd have fun pushing me around in a bath chair.

Mental deterioration, of course, is the real fear. He would still want to look after me, not trusting anyone else to do it properly, but I'm not sure I'd want him to do it!

I think there are pros and cons to any relationship. Only you can know if this is right for you.

I will tell you though that my grandparents married when she was 18 and he was 42 - they had a long and happy marriage until he died aged 88 and they were devoted to each other. She was obviously a fairly young widow but she never had a relationship with anyone else after he died - that was her choice, she said he was the love of her life and no-one else could ever measure up.

I have a decade on you OP and there is no way I could sleep with someone with the same age difference as my dad. He was incredibly young and active until his 70's but approaching 80 is declining. Won't drive on motorways, has developed a bit of a whiny voice and has health anxiety. I love him a lot but dear lord he is hard work. My FIL lived to 87 and was a lovely man but also had a lot ot health issues and again I would not have wanted to be his partner. My MIL is still going at 92 and is in very poor health. Love her to bits but very needy and her world is getting small as her friends have died so needs us more. You are young. Think about what you really want the rest of your life to look like. If you really don't want to have children (and it is not too late at 39) then you need to build the framework around you that will get you through. An old man might not be that. Best of luck whatever you decide.

I do love him very much, but yes the thought of being his carer worries me.

Statistically, you would likely to be a carer for your partner even if you picked someone the same age. Men have shorter life expectancies, poorer health outcomes, and higher rates of occupational illness. Then only way to have a higher chance of not having to care for a partner would be to have a relationship with a man who is substantially younger.

However I also worry about trying to get back into the dating game when I'm even older and will have even fewer options. If he passed away and I'm in my 50s it could be really tough.

There's very little evidence that women in their 50s, or older, have difficulty finding partners.

The idea that women older than 30 "hit the wall" and become undateable is a popular narrative on the internet which is propogated by people who want to indulge in schadenfreude, but there's almost no real-world evidence of women becoming undesirable as they grow older, and certainly I've never met an older woman who has had difficulty finding partners.

When she was in her mid-30s my SiL married a man 22 years her senior. He was dashing, good-looking, comfortably off and rather charming. He played tennis regularly, had a sports car, whisked her away on foreign holidays and showed her the good life.

She had to retire from work when she was 59 because he had a heart attack and stroke at 81 and needed constant care. 12 years later he's still going. He's 93 and she is 70, soon to be 71. Fit and spry, walks 15000 steps a day, but watching her last few good years sliding by while she's trapped caring for him.

They haven't had a holiday together for years because he is so unsteady on his feet and needs a shedload of aids etc to do anything much. He's doubly incontinent and she has to change him several time a day. He went deaf some years ago and he's depressed and shouty as a result. His medical needs dominate everything they do. His cardiac consultant recently announced that he's responded so well to medication that he could well survive long enough to get a telegram from the king on his 100th birthday.

This could be your reality too, OP. Have fun with your new man while it pleases you both but keep some boundaries for your future self.

If you are both happy together go for it, regardless of the age gap. Finding a soul mate is a rare opportunity and you are blessed if you have found it.
Sadly, health is not guaranteed and often the older partner can end up as carer or widowed. Life doesn't always pan out in the order we think it will. Good luck to you both.

Ultimately this comes down to whether you’re looking for a long-term relatiomship. Because this isn’t one.

what you’re currently in is a casual relationship which has no future.

you don’t live together and you don’t want to. So clearly being his carer isn’t on the cards for you. So what’s your plan when his health fails? Walk away? Because that fun loving man will be gone, as will the sex. So will you still feel the same about him without those things? I think you know the answer.

It’s different if it’s already an established relationship with a history. But this is supposed to be the honeymoon period, and you already don’t want to commit.too.

My close friend is 58
Her husband is 82. They have been together for years.
My friend has cancer and her prognosis is not good and he is now her carer.
No one expected that.
You never know how the dice you roll is going to land.
Do what makes you happy.

Best relationship ever?
Most wonderful man?
Incredibly wise, sexy, fun?

I don't mean to sound hard but you're 40 plus. I'm sure you've met the good, bad and the ugly and know what's right for you at this stage.

What would make this relationship better? If it's only his age, it would be insane to give up in it. You could get sick yourself before he ever does. Life isn't always foreseeable or fair.

What's your previous relationship history like? Do you self sabotage? Run when it feels too serious?

Are you genuinely concerned or repeating patterns?

Put the relationship down as a lovely experience and move on.
It is unsustainable, you've learned a lot along the way.
I'd end things.

There's no guarantees, I know a couple, he's 29 yrs older than her, been together 25yrs plus since her mid-twenties, she now has advanced ms while he's still fit