Ma

[Kayke1]

Did anyone ever start a relationship with a younger man who is less financially successful?
I am a 41-year-old woman with three children — 18, 16, and 9. I am reasonably well-off. I have a well-paid job, one mortgaged apartment where we live, and another apartment that I rent out.
After my divorce, I’m not as financially free as I used to be, but overall I’ve done quite well for myself. I don’t live in luxury, and lately, with rising prices, I can’t afford much travel — but still, I think I’ve built a stable life.

A year ago, I met a man. I wasn’t planning to fall in love or start a relationship, but it happened.
He is 10 years younger. When we first met, he thought I was his age — he didn’t know I was older or that I had three children. I take care of myself and look younger than my age.
We started dating, and the relationship developed quite quickly. It wasn’t intense or overwhelming — not love bombing — but something calm and steady. The kind of connection where you feel peaceful in the presence of another person.

He comes from a very poor family and never had the opportunity to get an education beyond high school. When we met, he didn’t even have a driving license — he preferred riding a bike and never thought he would need one.
At that time, he was working offshore — three months away, one month back — and earning good money. He had only started this job about two years before we met.
We met, fell in love, and the relationship developed very quickly. He moved in naturally — not because he pushed for it, but because it simply felt right.
Then he went back offshore for three months, and it was incredibly difficult for both of us. During that time, he showed care in very thoughtful ways. For example, my dog’s leash was broken, and it was actually dangerous because the dog pulls a lot. I kept postponing replacing it, but he insisted on paying for a new one and sending it to me — which he did.
He is trustworthy, he never breaks his word, he is kind, gentle, doesn’t drink, and has high emotional intelligence.
When he came back, we decided that being apart like that wasn’t sustainable, so he chose to find a job locally. At first, he struggled, and I suggested a workplace where he eventually got a job. He has been working there for four months now.
Of course, he’s not fully satisfied — he wants more from life and wants to grow. We discussed many times whether he should go back offshore, but decided that kind of lifestyle is not what we want for our future.
He proposed, and I said yes. We are planning to get married.
He is also very good with my children — calm, gentle, never forcing anything. Even my daughter, who is usually very guarded and doesn’t easily warm up to people, gradually accepted him.
Financially, everything he earns, he brings into the family. From the very beginning, he suggested having a joint account and transferring his full salary there — which he does. I don’t do the same, and I still cover most of the major expenses. Right now, a large part of his income is going towards getting his driving license.
So he has ambition, he is trying, and I truly love him.
But I do have concerns about the financial gap between us.
So my question is — has anyone built a long-term relationship or marriage with a younger partner who was initially less financially established? How did it turn out?

Girl. If you couldn't afford a fucking dog leash, you can't afford to support a young husband along with your 3 kids. Retractable leads are not a budget ⛓️‍💥 ng expense. Do you take him to the vet?

Marriage does change things. You need professional legal and financial advice before your recklessness really harms your kids for life.

But he's better with your dog than you are so gift him the dog. Maybe he can train it to not pull.

I have a feeling this is a sort of third party reverse with op being the ex wife, and her ex husband having moved his very new younger gf in.

Because this is a scenario that millions of men have been in, giving little thought or consideration to the wellbeing or safety of their children let alone their future finances, all in the pursuit of shiny new fanny.

Quite

My husband is 10 years younger. When we met, he had almost no money, but was about to change jobs (from freelance proofreading to software development). I bought a flat, we moved in together. I paid the mortgage (so that he wouldn't acquire any rights to the flat), but split the rest of the costs. 5 years later, I sold the flat and we bought one together. During the 5 years he was able to save quite a bit of money (no rent). We married after being together for 13 years, now he earns quite a bit more than I do.
He originally invested quite a lot of resources for his degree next to his work but it paid off.
From my experience: it can work, but don't get married too soon and keep your money close until you're sure it's long-term

I agree with you. He had a well paid job, but OP didn’t approve so he had to find one local to her. Offshore work pays more due to risk and time away from families, so I’m not sure why it’s such a shock that a job closer to home for his skill set pays less. Especially as the OP clearly resents him for it

Hi OP, Yes a friend of mine married someone 7 years younger than her in her late thirties (she has 2 children from her first marriage). Five years later he had an affair and left her and she had to pay him half the value of her home (that she owned outright and was a valuable London asset and the only home her children had ever known) in the divorce, putting her into financial distress. She has had to go back to work full time and take in a lodger in order to make ends meet.
The phrase ‘marry in haste, repent at leisure’ I think was made for your situation OP. My thoughts would be to proceed hoping he is the real deal but protecting yourself, and more to the point your children, along the way.

1. I would not get married. Why the rush? It’s not like you will be having children. Give it a minimum of five years before you start to plan the wedding.
2. Keep your finances separate and ensure he fully pays his way. Do not subside him. Any subsidy to him is money you are stealing from your children as far as I am concerned.
3. Speak seriously, really seriously, about children. Why is he OK never to have children of his own? (and please, please don’t tell me you want to marry to rush into having a baby before your fertility window closes. If so there is truly no helping you). This minimum 5 year wait I advocate for will let him really realise what he is giving up.

The chances are at some point he will decide he wants his own children and he will leave you for someone who can give him that. I hope I am wrong but if you do have the rest of your lives to look forward to, what is 5 years or more in order to be sure?

That’s actually quite unusual. Because while everyone assumes everything automatically goes 50/50 it actually doesn’t. Often if a marriage is classed as a short marriage (which I believe is under 5 years), the court will often just return both parties to their financial state pre marriage. They also take into account any children. So I’m very surprised that a 5 year marriage would end in automatic 50/50. Was it because she put him on the deeds as a joint tenant rather than just the marriage?

This is ridiculous. You have been together a year, except after you met (presumably only a couple of weeks after as you said he used to be home for a month) he went offshore for three months, then on his return you moved him in so have actually only been in each others lives for about 8 months. I'd have barely introduced him to my children by now, never mind be living together and getting married. Why did he have to move in with you? What about taking things easy and just getting to know each other?

You are also in completely different stages of life, not just in age difference. He was earning a heap of money offshore and yet seems to have saved nothing towards e.g. the driving lessons which he is now paying for from a much lower salary. Why would he not have wanted to learn how to drive anyway? What has happened to all the money he was earning?

Don’t marry him - your children could lose everything. Live together etc but keep everything in your name. Don’t let your heart rule your head!

Hi op this all seems to be one sided with you. It’s your home he gives you all his salary if you marry and you die does he get booted out of the house even though he has put all his wages in to it. If this was the other way around you would probably be told not to put all your eggs into one basket. I think best solution is not to marry otherwise your basically saying if this fails I’m ok and your not. If you go ahead with the marriage you both need legal advice and if you love and respect him you would suggest this to him. Op you can’t expect him to give up all his rights then get shit on if it doesn’t work out.

If you get married, you will need to write a new Will. Problems could arise though if you got divorced as he would be entitled to half your assets. Is there any real need for you to get married?

He's a poor boy from a poor family. Have you spared his life from this monstrosity?

You are well and truly being played or else MN is yet again testing us. He is in this for the long term i.e. not to keep you happy but to see how much he can get from you. Well done on giving a joint Bank Account. Some parent you are.

Hey ChatBot how would you answer this

Thank you everybody for your advice.
IF divorce happens, he gets nothing, as there will be a pre nup (legal in my country, which is not UK). Yes, will update the will, as it makes sense. Also I have a life insurance, in favour of my kids, which must be updated too.

I'm not subsidising him. I do pay for my and my kids share. Actually he has been giving towards the family expenses. Yes, he is poor now, but there is a clear strategy and agreement between us, what must be done and terms.

Why so fast? As this is the most emotionally mature and loving relationship I ever had. Have you ever been with a person, to whom you don't need to say things twice? If you say once "that's not ok", a person listens and makes sure he doesn't ever do it again (because that's not ok with you, and he hates hurting you). Who ALWAYS keeps his word and never promises things, he can't do. Who is kind, gentle, loving and hard working? Generous to you AND your family? Yet is fit and good looking? I know I haven't. Until I met him. And fore sure, none of us has planned this. When we met, he literally could not talk. We are laughing, that he was like a sheep, answering on all of my questions "baaa and maaa".
He is truly amazing.
And I had my share of narcissistic, passive and generally immature men. So I know the difference.
Yes, who knows what might happen in 5-10 years. But you never know. And I know women, who were left by their rich husbands, husbands took the kids and left them with nothing. So age and wealth is not a guarantee of a happy marriage.

Did he give any opinions first, or was it all you with him replying “oh my God, me too”?

I actually was trying to listen to my wits, and convince myself that this is stupid, to start a relationship with a younger man.
So it was the opposite, mostly him. He fell in love first, I needed some convincing.
And I am not an easy person to live with. I have some traumas myself. And was pushing him away. We agreed to listen, when it's our traumas talking, or we really mean something. In that way he is more mature than me.
I read before, that once you meet your person, in their presence your nervous system calms down. That's how I feel with him. Never on edge. When he is near, I'm calm and content. Never thought I'd experience that.

Even I have spotted this as AI. Try better.

AI checker says entirely human… at least for the latest response

Take his age out of the equation. You are loved up, which is lovely - except you have kids. They need you to think with your head not your heart (or your vagina). You’ve mentioned that he was like a sheep agreeing with everything you said - that rings an alarm bell to me. It sounds like there’s love bombing occurring. He’s sweeping you off your feet. Your known each other for 6 months but only spent a max of 2 months together before you moved him in, he should have said no to his crazy that sounded, you definitely shouldn’t have suggested it even if you didn’t have kids at home! Truth is, you barely know this guy. Of course he’s happy to put all his money into a joint account - he barely has any! But you’re seeing this as a good thing?

My husband is 14 years younger than me, been married 16 years together 20, he was not even working when we got together, just bummed about, I had my own house, good job and finances. He got a job, moved in with me, we had 2 kids now are 14 and 12. I still work full time, but he has excelled in is work and is a highly paid manager. Im hoping to quit work in a few years time, life is rosy and we got there, good luck OP, it can work !

Can you rewrite in your own words, this is word salad AI.

The issue is not that he is younger than you, or that he earns less. Neither of those are deal breakers.

But the speed at which you moved him in is very concerning, and when combined with the age/finance gap, it feels very off.

What does marriage signify to you op? You don’t need to answer me on the thread if you’d rather not, but I would urge you to write out what it means to you. So that you can then set that apart and consider what you know about the financial and legal implications of marriage, its protections and, the limits of those protections.

Those are two different things and jumbling together isn’t wise, even though it’s our cultural conditioning to do so.

One of the purposes of marriage is to safeguard dc financially but it was designed for a situation with a male earner, and a tiny chance of divorce. In your situation you have to look closely at how your dc are best protected financially. If there were only two adults to consider, it would be simpler.

In terms of decision making, you have to give more weight to what can legally happen to your assets (on death, on divorce) rather than on his current spending habits which he could change on a whim. I’m not saying this to be cynical. It’s just that as humans we are far less rational and logic in our decision makings than we think we are.

There are lots of ways to organise your lives and finances together - marriage shouldn’t be the default in circumstances marriage wasn’t designed for without careful consideration of alternatives.

It’s lovely that you’ve found someone and get to experience that deep calm - dh and I connected like that too and it was like discovering there really was gold at the end of the rainbow. I had no idea I could feel that way. But I’ve also realised that both of us grew up with dps with narcissistic traits and maybe the calm feels so special because we both had to be hyper vigilant as dc? I’ve come to recognise that we’re both damaged. We still have a lovely relationship but what felt picture perfect at the start was more complex than I thought when I was still looking through a lens of fairytales.

It sounds like this man wants to commit and do right by you and your dc, and he might be very supportive of setting up your lives together in a different way. Your first priority has to be to your dc - and if the genders were reversed I’d be making this point too. Again the concept of marriage with all its associations of romance and commitment and true love isn’t a template for subsequent relationships - you can’t put a partner first and foremost while you have dependents because you’re not free to do so.

Thank You SO MUCH for a thoughtful advice. Very good points. ❤️

I'd tell him to find someone else. You aren't worthy of him.