A relationship with a younger man has built to something more serious than I expected.
It's not a huge difference by some standards (I'm 57 to his 49) and at our age is smaller than it might have been when we were young, but is it still a difference. For example, the music of our youth is not the same. I was married long before he left school. I was raising children while he was having his wild years. Cultural references are different. At this point that's more interesting than it is a problem though.
However, as he seems to be becoming a permanent fixture in my life, I am concerned about what I've seen in other age gap relationships as people go through middle age and towards retirement.
For example a friend who is 10 years younger than DH retired much earlier than she would have chosen becuase it felt like "now or never" to have any active retirement years with Dh.
A man who's wife is now late 60s, to his mid 50s is finding that she doesn't want to "do" anything just as he's finding he has the time and money for travel and adventures they could never have when younger.
I'd hope to retire in the next few years. DP is unlikely to for c.15 years.
I'm not finding menopause too bad atm, but my experience of friends and family is that women can suddenly get old, and the active 50 something has changed a lot by late 60s.
We don't plan to live together or merge finances. I have my own life and could have an interesting active retirement without him, while he's still working (as I would have if we'd never met) but will I want to go off on adventures without him? I'm worried about what happens if I'm old and decrepit by the time he gets his chance at retirement.
Otoh, life's short and DH didn't live to be 55, let alone 70!