As I’ve mentioned several times, I get more email about my “older men, younger women” posts than all the other things I blog about put together. (Student crushes is a distant second, and chinchillas are third).
I got a long letter a couple of weeks ago from a woman in her late forties named “Debra” (not her real name). She tells a by-now very familiar story:
Now, here’s my situation. Within the past couple of years I’ve become
aware of a man a couple of years older than me. From what I can see,
this man is very much like me in many ways–in fact, so much so that
he could be my male twin.
I’m attracted to him. From a distance, I find him intelligent, thoughtful, humorous, honest,
emotionally open, openminded, and kind. And, up until last year, he
was like me in one other important way: he had no relationship. He was
an intelligent, witty man in his later forties, yet he had never been
married and made frequent complaints in public about how all of his attempts
at relationships with women (and he made it clear without using a
sledgehammer that yes, he was attracted to the opposite sex) had ended
in disaster.
Then, last year, suddenly something changed. Out of the blue, Mr. Sad
Sack began seeing a woman. A woman who lived on the opposite coast
from him. Two and a half months
after they began dating, she packed up all her belongings and crossed
the country to move in with him. As of now, they have been together
for a year, and have lived together for ten and a half months
Why do I come to you to ask you what you think of all this? Simply
this: He is 47; she is 22.
This is a long post, so more below the fold.
What I find myself stunned by is both a) how bad knowing he is so
apparently happy in this relationship is making ME feel about myself
and what I have to offer; and b) how disappointed I feel in HIM after
having learned that, despite what I saw in him and sensed about him
and his feelings about women in general, this is turning out to be his
definition of a “dream relationship.” Frankly, he struck me as more of
a feminist than this. He struck me as the type of man who would want a
woman who was roughly his equal–if not in accomplishment or
celebrity, at least in terms of respectability on her own terms for
what she had learned and done and her accumulated wisdom, maturity,
whatever. Certainly he has always appeared to admire and respect his
female peers in his business and not treated them in any sort of a
sexist or belittling fashion. It was one of the reasons he struck me
as being such a respectable, decent specimen of man. Now I find that
while he may admire peer equals and mature women of accomplishment in
his work life, what he appears to value of women in his private life
is not maturity and wisdom, but youth and worshipfulness.
I’ll break in here to note that I’ve blogged about this last bit before; in a post three years ago about Bill Clinton, I wrote:
“I came to the conclusion that Bill Clinton was, in many ways, like a lot of modern American men: he was only capable of treating women with respect when he was not sexually attracted to them. I’m obviously psychologizing here, but I am fairly certain Bill did not lust for Janet Reno, Madeline Albright, or Ruth Ginsburg! In the absence of sexual attraction, he could see these women as people — and thus cheerfully appoint them to high office and rely upon their counsel. Intellectually, he was very much a feminist. But if you’ll forgive the purple prose, like so many men, Clinton’s feminist principles foundered upon the rocks of his libido. He not only objectified Monica Lewinsky, he treated her shabbily; his behavior with Paula Jones was similarly puerile and offensive. (I am aware that there are other issues at play here like education, age, and class — but let’s leave those aside.)”
Debra’s friend is obviously different from Clinton in that he is pursuing a long-term relationship rather than a fleeting extramarital affair. That’s to the good. But the quarter-century gap between Debra’s friend and his new soulmate is still troubling, and Debra’s candid note touches on at least a few of the things that are so problematic about it.
No, I don’t think we have some sort of moral obligation to date solely within our chronological peer group. I don’t think, for example, that men in their late forties should refrain from dating women in their early twenties solely because women in their forties need suitable dating partners and don’t want to lose out to women half their age. Indeed, I’m not altogether comfortable with relationships between much older women and much younger men either, for the same reasons — it’s just that the Demis and Ashtons aside, they are far less comoon and thus far less of a feminist concern.
But I do think we have an ethical obligation to match the desires of our hearts and the longings of our loins (sorry, it’s Purple Prose Monday) to our broader commitments. That doesn’t mean I expect anyone to be able to turn their libido on and off like a light switch! But at the same time, I don’t believe we can “rest our case on the Gods of desire”, as the lecherous professor in J.M. Coetzee’s brilliant Disgrace claims to do. While we may not be able to help wanting what we want, we also have to ask ourselves how what we want fits in with our larger sense of purpose in this life. That sense of purpose, that sense of commitment to goals and ideals, ought to be sovereign — if not over our momentary longings, at least over our life choices.
What does that mean for Debra’s pro-feminist friend who has fallen for a woman less than half his age? Well, the story of the middle-aged man trying to rediscover his youth by making love and trying to build a life with a much younger woman is an old story. Traditionally, it ends badly for the man, often in the kind of disgrace and humiliation that Coetzee captures so perfectly in the novel that clinched him the Nobel. As much as it offends some of my readers when I say it, I’ll paraphrase Donald Justice’s words again: men at forty learn to close softly the doors of rooms they won’t be coming back to. Clearly, some men don’t learn that lesson. I’ve written about that before as well. Frequently, they end up getting dumped by the younger woman. It’s pretty darned hard to stay on a pedestal for long. Sooner or later, she’s very likely to say to him something like: “When I first met you, I thought you were so magnificent, everything I ever wanted; now I see you’re just another man.” She’ll walk away disillusioned and he’ll be left shattered, embarrassed, perhaps disgraced. The dirty old man is revealed to be a fool with knobby knees, erectile dysfunction, and a sad little belly with white hairs on it. It’s an old and familar story.
There’s no magic phrase to use to comfort those in Debra’s situation. Obviously, hers is a commonly heard complaint among women in their forties and fifties: men their age often seem primarily interested in younger (often much younger) women. We can talk about the various reasons why older men chase younger women (ego gratification, a desire to “redo” troubling aspects of their own past, the longing for youth, an unwillingness to be pushed by a peer, the desire to be both mentor and lover), but knowing why so many men make these decisions is often of little solace. Debra concludes:
I don’t know. I just know it’s so hard. And I can’t stop thinking, and
worrying: What happens to him if it’s not as great as it seems? Will
he be devastated? Doesn’t he deserve more? If she ever left him, would
he be destroyed? Would he learn, or would he just make the same
mistake over again?
And what if he IS happy? How do I, then, keep his bliss from making me
feel worthless? Have I spent almost 25 years going from “young and
dumped” to “old and no longer desirable” with nothing in between?
I feel cheated.
What do you make of this? Am I wrong to feel the way I do? Because I
feel a tremendous sense of guilt about it, yet at the same time, a
tremendous sense of anger and resentment. And worry….and, yes, love.
As perverse as it may seem, love.
It’s interesting that Debra uses the word “cheated”; it’s the same word that Pacific used in this controversial comment below my “closing the doors” post:
I suppose that, when I was younger, I was too picky when it came to looking for a mate, but at least I had the advantage of youth and could expect to find a young woman by default.
My preferences have not aged with the rest of me. Since I’ve never had anyone, I’m still looking for the young girlfriend I’ve never had. I feel cheated.
Pacific is 50, a couple of years older than Debra’s friend.
Debra feels cheated that the object of her affection, a male peer, is in love with a gal too young to remember when the first shuttle blew up. Pacific, older still, feels cheated because he never got to be with the young hot woman that society tells him was his due. Since they both feel cheated, are they both equally deserving of sympathy?
The feelings are similar. Both Pacific and Debra feel frustrated, anxious that they may now be too old to attract the people they really want. But Pacific’s desire for “the young girlfriend he never had” reeks of male entitlement. He doesn’t have a specific gal in mind, it seems, just someone “younger”. His preferences, he tells us, haven’t aged with the rest of him. As I’ve said before, I am convinced to the depths of my core that one key marker of maturity in adult men is to be sexually drawn to one’s peers:
For me, the truth is simple: since I hit puberty, I have never experienced sexual attraction to someone old enough to be my mother or young enough to be my daughter… It makes me instinctively angry, both on behalf of the girls who are all too often horrified by inappropriate sexual attention and on behalf of those “older” women who are forced to worry obsessively about losing their sex appeal as a consequence.
Pacific has failed to grow up in a vital area; I’m not in the least bit sympathetic to his feeling of being “cheated.” I am sympathetic to Debra’s, and not out of some reflexive sympathy for women. She longs for a peer; Pacific longs for a woman substantially his junior. Debra wants intimacy with an equal, Pacific doesn’t. And frankly, it’s easier to give direction to Pacific: “get over yourself and look for a woman in your peer group with whom you can have a real connection. If they all seem too ‘old’ for you, it may be that you’re not mature enough for them.” For Debra, the answer is harder — other than validating the righteousness of her frustration and her pain, there’s little solace I can offer.
None of us escaped our childhoods — or our later youth — unscathed. We all have our scars, our disappointments, our “coulda, woulda, shouldas”. We all have the story of the “one who got away”, or the road we didn’t take, or the opportunities missed. Many regret saying yes to things to which they ought to have said no; an equal number regret saying no to things to which they ought to have said yes. But at some point, people, we have to stop being hostage to our pasts. I’m sympathetic to Debra because she’s ready to move forward, ready for love, ready for commitment with a peer. I’m less sympathetic to Pacific because his readiness is rife with contingencies, starting with the age of his future partner. His readiness is more about compensating for what he feels was denied him than it is about building a life with a true equal and partner. It is often so with older men who chase younger women.
Sooner or later, she’s very likely to say to him something like: “When I first met you, I thought you were so magnificent, everything I ever wanted; now I see you’re just another man.†She’ll walk away disillusioned and he’ll be left shattered, embarrassed, perhaps disgraced. The dirty old man is revealed to be a fool with knobby knees, erectile dysfunction, and a sad little belly with white hairs on it. It’s an old and familar story.
Wow Hugo. Now you’re clairvoyant. You know exactly how this relationship is “very likely” to end. Of course, it’s also “very likely” that they could be together several years and be entirely happy with one another (they’ve already made it past that crucial first-year hump, I see), but that’s never a scenario you’re willing to accept, is it?
As for your silly little poem, well, obviously this younger woman wasn’t a “door” that was “closed” to Debra’s friend, was she? Debra, in the meantime, needs to pick up that book “He’s Just Not That Into You,” give it a good skim, realize that in life, you win some and you lose some, and move on to find another man. He’s isn’t the only one out there. This is a process called “growing up,” which Hugo seems to think is something only men need to experience.
In the meantime, I’m thrilled for Debra’s friend, that he was able to find a loving partner after so many years of loneliness and frustration. Of course, he evidently wasn’t aware that there were rules pertaining to whom he is and isn’t allowed to experience happiness with. But so much the better for him (and her), I’d say. It’s hard enough making love work, regardless of age, without having scowling, judgmental moral police wagging their fingers at you all the time, calling you a knobby-kneed dirty old man, and telling you you’re Bad Bad Bad for not doing it their way.
Heck, while I’m on a roll, I’ll pitch in a little more. Debra writes this to Hugo:
And what if he IS happy? How do I, then, keep his bliss from making me
feel worthless? Have I spent almost 25 years going from “young and
dumped†to “old and no longer desirable†with nothing in between?
Hugo praises Debra’s feelings for being “righteous,” (while lambasting Pacific for his supposed immaturity) and opines that the big difference between Debra and Pacific is that Debra’s looking for a relationship with a peer and “intimacy with an equal”. It’s painfully obvious from Debra’s own writings she isn’t looking for this at all. Debra, rather, is the textbook example of co-dependence. She had built up a fantasy of happiness based upon an image of her friend she had constructed in her mind, and a longed-for relationship with that image. When the friend didn’t follow the script, Debra feels cheated. His happiness, she says, will mean her misery. To paraphrase Hugo, Debra has failed to grow up in a vital area: she hasn’t realized that her happiness depends upon her, and not another. Expecting someone else to supply you with your life’s quota of “happiness” is the very definition of co-dependence.
Meanwhile, the evidently very happy and to-date successful relationship between Debra’s friend and his young lover is vilified for no reason other than the age disparity of the partners. Hugo’s doublespeak is in fifth gear here. He always says something like “No, I don’t think we have some sort of moral obligation to date solely within our chronological peer group. I don’t think, for example, that men in their late forties should refrain from dating women in their early twenties solely because women in their forties need suitable dating partners and don’t want to lose out to women half their age,” only to go on at great length to spell out that that’s exactly what he does think. Also implicit in Hugo’s writings is a condescending attitude towards young women as inferior, and a contradictory feeling towards older men who like them. Hugo attacks men who pursue younger women as immature; yet somehow, at the same time, they’re far and away the superior of the naive and easily duped young women they pursue, and able to win those young women only because the little bimbettes are too stupid to know better than to hook up with the Big Bad Wolf.
The long and short of it is this: Debra’s friend was not obligated to become her boyfriend simply because she built up an image of him as the perfect partner over which he had no control (let alone input), any more than any woman is obligated to become a man’s girlfriend because of whatever fantasies he’s contrived. Whatever the course the relationship between him and his young girlfriend takes, it’s not Debra’s or Hugo’s or anybody’s business. It’s a fact of life that one will occasionally make choices that will prompt those who consider themselves morally superior to you to condemn you. In the end, you are responsible for yourself, and you can’t be faulted because somebody who can’t face that responsibility is standing off on the sidelines wailing, “But…but…but…you’re mine!” Indeed, that ought to be a signal to get the hell out of Dodge.
What happens to the girl’s youth? if she spends her freedom years with a man in his 40′s 50′s when will she go through the sef discovery we all need. My niece went out with a man who said he was 29 when she was 17 – he looked much older. They were together for 2 years until he began an affair with her then best friend a saga of control the ensued involving my niece becoming thinner and less confident while losing touch with her peers. I am not suggesting that all age gap relationships are about control, but she lost her own youth for a while and I can’t help thinking that any young person needs to explore their own youth with complete freedom. Maybe Debra’s friend’s new girlfreind will be whistfully pursuing the men in their 20′s she’s missing out on now one day in the future.
Martin, take this as your signal to move out of Dodge. You’ve made it clear you disagree with my basic premises, and that’s fine — now, you’re getting repetitive. You are welcome, and indeed encouraged, to start your own blog. But you can join Mr. Bad on comment probation until the Fourth of July.
As a woman in Debra’s age range, what really struck me is that she is worrying about this man’s happiness and whether he’ll be OK, and all the while she’s tending to her own wounds. Why is she worrying about him? He’s a grown-up, he’s made his choices, and it’s his job to make the marriage work. It’s not her job to worry about him. I hope she finds a way to move through this pain and turn it into a way to feel stronger in her own self. She may come to consider the day he married this younger woman a blessing. She may grow from it, she may find a far happier relationship (with herself, first and foremost, and with others) and she may come to see that he would not have been the kind of partner she thought he would be. I just hope she moves forward into her own life, although I know that’s easier said than done.
Pacific seems to see a younger woman as a commodity to be acquired, sort of like saying he deserved to drive a Corvette in his 20′s, and now he wants one. I sound like Olympia Dukakis in “Moonstruck,” but all the young girlfriends and Corvettes and jet skis and whatever playthings do not turn back the clock, they don’t halt our mortality.
Perhaps this older man wishes children of his own. It is, in this case, a lot smarter to go with a woman of childbearing years rather than one who is late enough in life to have little chance of bearing children, if not post-menopausal.
I see no principled difference between Pacific and Debra. They both feel entitled to have someone else make their life work for them.
Happiness comes from within, and for a lot of us, too, once we find that center, we find that the “relationships” which so obsessed us for so long are actually rather unimportant. Or some find what they wished for later, when they are ready for them. And others only have regrets.
I empathise with Debra in that when a man chooses someone much yonger than you the weight of our cultural (tv etc) preference for younger women lands on you with full force and yes, it can make you feel worthless. I don’t think there is anything wrong with wanting to love someone. If her friend had left her for someone their age it’s my guess that Debra would not have felt half so bad. In darker moments these situations also make you feel like: ‘maybe I’m expected to go out with a man much older, maybe that’s what is there for me’ I have never been attracted to older men and this idea is stiffling.
Honestly, Debra comes across as a “nice girl.” There may be problematic elements to her friend’s relationship, and I feel somewhat sorry for her own situation, but when she’s coming from the perspective of having been “cheated” out of a potential relationship with him to which she’s entitled (but c’mon, what the hell was she doing all that time before he got into the relationship?) it’s impossible to address those properly.
What struck me immediately is Mr. Sad Sack’s complaints that ‘all his relationships with women ended in disaster’. If you’re almost 50 and, despite your desire and efforts to make it happen, have had every single relationship end in “disaster”….um, isn’t that kind of a hint that something’s wrong? As the saying goes, the only thing in common in all your failed relationships is you.
For whatever reason, he wasn’t interested in Debra. There’s nothing in what she says to suggest that if only she magically turned into a 22-year-old, that he’d be all over her.
And I can’t help but wonder about a bicoastal relationship that got serious after two and a half months, and that has only been going on for a year. I wish them the best, but I wouldn’t lay money on it.
I appreciate the time and thought put into this topic by all the members so far. I will say the intellect fails where the heart feels safe to tread. It is of no avail to analyze this issue of love and emotion, unless the goal is to capture love and look at it in a sterile museum. Instead, where the answers to these questions are best answered is in the field, living the life, taking the bite from the apple, and risking ones own heart.
There is eternal love, there is fleeting love, and realistically most love falls somewhere in between the two. To share love for a moment between two people is much more valuable to the soul than the ridicule and speculation of one’s peers.
We see a long history of paederasty throughout many civilizations. Although such behavior is generally homosexual in nature that is not always the case. The zeitgeist of the times in America may not be able to digest such behavior as normative within the mainstream culture, however, this does not change the fact that such behavior may be as common now as it was in ancient Greece. I would posit to say, it is so common that it is a natural form of behavior for humankind and always will be.
Personally, I am American, I live in Sweden, I am in my mid 30′s and have been divorced for 15 months. I find we live in a unique age. With the advent of the Internet and dating services everyone is equally equipped to find love. It is an egalitarian system. We see women in their mid 30′s who only wish to date men in their early 20′s. We see older men in their 60′s who chase women in their 30′s. Those women in their 30′s are quite capable of telling such men to take a hike or maybe some go for the silver haired pentioner.
In the past year I have dated women from 19 to 51. I date on average 2 times a week. Many of the women I date become friends and not lovers. It is possible that I have found 5 or 6 women who I can honestly say I could have long term relationships with. The women here in Sweden are very liberated and the divide between men and women is very narrow, I find it so much easier to make friends with Swedish women than American women, in fact so much so, that it is possible to develop a camraderie with women here usually only shared between men in the states.
In America people are still repressed sexually and I think thats where many problems arise from. Living in this liberal atmosphere it leads me ask the question, is marraige natural, is monogomy natural, what is the equilibrium of human nature and sexuality and relationships, and to what extent should society saction those who stray from the norm? Those questions lead me to beleive in freedom. The freedom for two adults to write a dictionary with their own definition of love, relationship, passion, sex, etc.
To have that freedom is powerful. To lose in love at times is natural. Yet, the heart is strong enought to heal itself. In fact, I worry, that if one over studies what is love, what should a relationship be, what is right, than one will never find true love because the entire time they will be filled with pre-conceived notions.
Therefore, I shall be out living life, searching for love, finding it, losing it, finding it again, and maybe if I am lucky find a person who is true for me for the rest of my days. And should such an event not occur than it is not a tragedy, the tragedy would have been if I never set sail to begin with. And for me that is what is natural but you will never find that within the confines of mueseum or lab.
Jeff and mythago, that is exactly what I was thinking!
I’m also sorry about the bitter pill of truth, but like many people here, I honestly believe that “Mr. Sad Sack” was “just not that into” her or she didn’t assert herself enough to win him over. I don’t think she got “cheated” out of a relationship, I believe it’s just green-eyed monster speaking over the evidence and her logic.
But I also have to ask, is she supporting her claims through on this sole relationship with a younger woman or his whole dating history?
However, if it is true that he’s the older man chasing after women half his age (which will probably then be a contributor to his romantic-relationship disasters), I will say to Debra, don’t YOU deserve better than that? It’s better not to stick around and pray that this 47-year-old man-child (and others alike) will change his habits.
It quite intrigues me how we simply categorize «older women» against «younger women» and then defend it in the name of feminism with the older men at the centre. WOW…is that how far feminism has gotten you? Seriously, I’m a young women, whose maturity surpasses most of the 40-ish women I know. Has it ever accured to you that not all women fit in the neat stereotype you wish to make them fit into?
Altough, I must point out that most men in my peer group who are very intelligent still prefer the girl with the miniskirt over a girl like me whose more likely to dress demurely, and I find THAT to be disgusting. I feel cheated on when an intelligent man passes me over (and our intelligent conversation) to go over and admire some girl’s cleavage. But as you see, this is not an age gap phenomenon. I would appreciate a more nuanced look at these relationships, because not all young women are sex objects and I refuse to fall into the dialect of old view feminism that think the basis of the older man’s admiration could never go beyond the youth and the body.
Frankly, I do wish there’s some truth to what I’m saying, because if not, it pretty much means that intelligent men, aren’t that intelligent.
I am just wondering what the appropriate age difference is then between a man and a woman? Or, at what age is someone able to make well-informed decisions about the person they get involved with?
My working rule of thumb is if either person is under 21, than an age gap of more than five years is problematic. If both are over 21, than the older partner should not be old enough to be the younger’s biological parent. I know, seems arbitrary. But age is most definitely almost never “just a number”, and we forget that at our peril.
I found this blog entry very interesting. As you know (or may not know–depending on if you remember), my current boyfriend and I have an 8 year age gap. I met him at 19, he 27–we became very close friends, fell in love, and a year later got together. I turn 22 in 2 months, and he just turned 30, and everything is as wonderful now as it was a year and a half ago. He’s taught me so much about life and I make him feel young. For us, age definitely is nothing but a number…but I guess it depends on the person and the relationship. All in all-he makes me incredibly happy.
As far as this situation goes…I think 47 and 22 can be troublesome. Personally I agree, that if the older partner is old enough to be a parent to the other-than it might not be such a great idea. Anything over 15 years is tricky.
Actually, I think Martin hit the nail on the head.
Hugo, what are your credentials for being the know-it-all decider of morals and all-round morally superior person? And why is it your mission to be a busy-body, frantically sticking your nose in everyone else’s business?
You aren’t even trying to look at this scientifically or objectively, you are simply churning through your own life problems in a narcissistic way. In the end, I think the wasted time you spend on all of these Oprah topics comes down to time spent obsessing about your own life.
JG, I suggest not reading Hugo’s blog if his writer’s perspective bothers you.
I’m new at this so I hope you’ll bear with me.
First it’s a pity about Martin, I enjoyed and agreed with a lot he said.
My wife left after 28 years to live with her older lover and “find herself.” After working through the heartbreak I went online dating for several reasons. I’d tried meting people at dance lessons and was interested in my own age group. I found all the women I met to be bitter to some extent and often they seemed to see me as a possession. Often they seemed desperate and insecure and I had to walk away from the dance which I loved because I couldn’t deal with the women there.I seemed to get on with women 10-15 years younger so when I went online I made my preferred age group from my own age to 15 years younger. I met some nice women including one 30 years younger than me. Over an 8 month period I talked to many women in the age group I had specified in my profile and thought I had made some friends, however in the end they were alll pushing too hard for a relationship except for the one young girl. Her and I continued talking as friends untill one day I realised that the only thing that was holding me back was her age. So what do I do, discriminate against her because of her age, sure it may not last, any relationship has that risk. I’ll take that risk because the one thing I’ve learned at my age is that happiness is the most valuable commodity on this earth and if we make each other happy for whatever time we’re allowed then it’s worth it. If anyone has issues with it then they’ll have to deal with them. If two people are happy together then to me it’s working and the rest of the world should butt out.
Ooops, I hope I haven’t offended anyone here but then I have to admit some of the prejudices here have annoyed me. Hey, it takes all types. I hope everyone here finds their own happiness
Francesca, I would imagine those miniskirted women would resentfully say that they’re just as intelligent–if not moreso–than all those more-modestly dressing women they know.
There are three things that really bother me about this situation. First, the author of the letter that prompted Hugo’s post is very clearly and obviously biased. She’s quite apparently jealous that the object of her affection didn’t choose her and is trying her best to come up with reasons that this man’s relationship is wrong. Therefore, accepting her words as entirely truthful and correct is problematic (not that I believe she’s being intentionally deceitful).
Second, the level of judgementalism (if there is such a word) on all sides here is really astounding. This man is not doing anything either unethical or illegal by anyone’s standard. We may question his judgement, but does the Bible not instruct us to reserve our judgements of others and leave matters such as these up to God. This whole evaluation of this man’s relationship strikes me as very un-Christian at its core and does nothing to help the woman involved. If this man is making a mistake, there will be consequences for him to live with. We don’t need to add our judgements to that.
Finally, it bothers me that this woman’s self esteem is so strongly tied to this man’s apparent interest, or lack thereof, in her. I’d suggest that rather than chastise this man for seeing a younger woman, we should be trying to help Debra separate her self image from the acceptance or rejection of others. I’d argue that would be the much more feminist and Christian thing to do.
Matt, if you know your Scripture you know that there’s a difference between “judgment” (saying something like “Johnny is a bad, bad man who is going to hell”) and discernment and accountability (“Johnny has fallen short of the mark, and we’re going to gently sit him down and confront him.”)
Of course Debra is biased. And maybe the guy doesn’t want to be with her for reasons that have nothing to do with age. BUT — and this is a big ol’ BUT — her sense of being aggrieved isn’t just personal to her, Debra; it’s tied into a larger grievance that many women in their forties and fifties have about their male peers who foist their attentions on to much younger women.
Saying “the heart wants what the heart wants” isn’t enough, particularly when we live in a culture that directs the hearts of men (and their libidos) towards the young, the impressionable, the vulnerable, those of unequal life experience.
And I still say that the best way to address that larger grievance is by ministering to the women and helping them to feel that their identities aren’t tied either to men who may or may not reciprocate the woman’s feelings or to the women the men show their attraction to. Making judgements about the man’s actions isn’t going to help. Building self esteem and eliminating insecurities will.
Also, for the record, I do understand discernment vs. judgement. I also understand discernment vs. gossip and I understand that this man isn’t here to defend himself and that his side of the story is not being represented. That part still bothers me and strikes me as being distinctly not the “best” way to focus our energies.
Hugo@22: “Saying “the heart wants what the heart wants†isn’t enough” – true, but loudly defining adult male sexual maturity as having the same tastes as Hugo Schwyzer doesn’t help much either. Just sayin’.
Matt@23: “I understand that this man isn’t here to defend himself” – Hugo made no comment on the man other than to describe the age gap as “troubling”. All his other comments were general. The comments have focussed on Debra’s attitude and perceptions. I don’t see anyone laying into the man so I’m wondering why you bothered making this comment.
I agree with Matt about self esteem and insecurities – but that works for both genders. Also it is unavoidable that a person’s self esteem is affected by what goes on around them and the way they are perceived. No – one can deny the interest many men have in younger women and the prestige with which girls in their early twenties are held. Even women news casters have a short shelf life (how does that correlate to the reproduction theory?) so just becoming older can dent a woman’s self esteem and make her insecure. I wish we were all emotional giants who could brush off a life time of conditioning – and that includes the men who think that women are only worthwhile for a limitted part of their live – but we’re not we’re human. Self esteem building would also help the midlife crisis man, in my experience it has always been the most insecure men who reach for the stereotypical ideal of feminity, slim large boobs, young, compliant. So yes better self esteem would help al parties.
As much as I can sympathize with Debra’s disappointment, I still have to say that dating the “wrong” person (whether “wrong” applies to age, race, religion, etc) is a choice and/or a mistake that anybody can make at any age — and people have the God-given right to make mistakes. He gave us free will. Therefore, there will be mistakes.
I find myself in the rare and uncomfortable position of agreeing with the Gonzman here.
Both Debra and Pacific need to learn to look in themselves for happiness, not others. It’s one think to sympathize with them – after reading these posts, I feel for both of them – it’s quite another thing to validate what is essentially a self-destructive attitude that they both seem to have.
Debra, Pacific, and heck, many of the posters here, especially Francesca above, may indeed “feel” cheated when someone they’re interested in doesn’t feel the same way, but that does not mean they are being cheated. You aren’t entitled to anyone’s romantic attentions. I was kind of astounded by Francesca’s post – using feminism as a defense for that feeling of entitlement – the idea that she’s somehow more deserving of love because she’s respectable is, on the face of it, anti-feminist, and moreso so is the idea that anyone’s entitled to love in the first place.
For myself: when I want to be involved with someone, and they aren’t interested, I used to feel cheated, now I just feel shitty. I pick myself up and move on. That’s the starting point for emotional maturity, being able to do that.
Hey I agree about Francesca – and was amazed at the level of mis – understanding and arrogance in her post. I had been using the ignore it and it’ll go away approach until now.
Oh and by ”it” I don’t mean the assertion that she is superior to multiple groups of other women – including fortyish ones. Not a good idea on a blog like this one. I am a mini skirt wearing fortyish woman!! (ok wiith opaques if it’s not high summer) who has a good deolletage she is not ashamed of!
Oh I meant, I do mean!!!
Oh I meant, I do mean those assertions!!!
I don’t know. I just know it’s so hard. And I can’t stop thinking, and
worrying: What happens to him if it’s not as great as it seems? Will
he be devastated? Doesn’t he deserve more? If she ever left him, would
he be destroyed? Would he learn, or would he just make the same mistake over again?
This is pretty sick, right here. It’s not just the way she treats this creep like a fragile innocent whose bliss may be shattered by some mean 22 year old, it’s the total blistering unconcern for the 22 year old herself. Picking up and moving across the country for a virtual stranger — let us emphasize that it was not him who broke and remade his life, abandoned his home and the physical proximity of all his other friends, who moved thousands of miles away for her, it was she who did that for him — is not the action of a woman who has much in the way of instincts for self-preservation, a woman who had much to lose, or a woman who had a full, satisfying life before she met him. What if he leaves her? Can she afford to go back?
Notice also that he began “seeing” a woman on the opposite coast. Well, no, if she was on the opposite coast, he could not, logically, have been seeing her. Perhaps Debra means he was emailing her every night for two months. That seems more likely.
So, Debra? No. No, he doesn’t deserve more. That poor young woman might deserve more, but she’s an adult, more or less, and she’ll have to work it out for herself. Maybe in between your sadness for not winning a creepy boyfriend and your creepily faux-maternal pity for a guy who doesn’t need it, you could spare a thought for the person in this situation who is almost certainly the worst off.
While I agree with most of your comment, I’ve gotta stick up for the LDRs here. There’s telephones, email, instant messaging, cameras, video – all sorts of good ways for people to meet and keep in touch over long distances.
Debra’s friend is obviously different from Clinton in that he is pursuing a long-term relationship rather than a fleeting extramarital affair. That’s to the good.
Hugo, this is so wrong it’s almost painful, and just like Debra, you’re obsessing over the precious Personal Development of the male participant to the total exclusion of considering what does or doesn’t harm the woman involved.
If you are a late teenager or a young adult woman, having a brief, consensual fling with an older man is generally not harmful. The worst that will happen is that you will feel stupid afterwards or come out of it with contempt for old men. But basically, so what. Even if it is a fling with a married man: you may come out of it feeling like a heel for making some other woman unhappy, and you should, but that, too, is a learning experience, and not a fatal one.
Now moving across the country for a strange old man at 21 (since she’s 22 now, she’d have been 21 when they “met”), disrupting or abandoning whatever familial or friendly structures you have in place, subordinating whatever educational or career decisions you would otherwise have made to the need to be near the Man (who does not make similar sacrifices for you, naturally), living with him two months after you first met him, which probably means letting him support you, at least in terms of rent, so that you can’t leave him without taking a drastic lifestyle hit…
Do you see where I’m going here? THAT will fuck you up. That is seriously risky behavior. It won’t kill you, but nobody in their right mind would see a woman about to do all this and not feel some alarm.
But from your perspective, a guy who talks a woman into this kind of mess is better than a guy who just wants to have a one-night stand with her. That makes precisely no sense. Unless, of course, the man’s spiritual navel-gazing is more important than the woman’s actual well-being.
While I agree with most of your comment, I’ve gotta stick up for the LDRs here. There’s telephones, email, instant messaging, cameras, video – all sorts of good ways for people to meet and keep in touch over long distances.
I, too, have started and maintained relationships with the aid of (or only with) email. I think that physically meeting people you previously knew only online is just fine, and of course I think that letters, whether paper or electronic, are a terrific means of communicating.
That doesn’t change my opinion that moving across the country to live with a guy you’ve known two and a half months and only or mostly from a distance is deeply messed up and fraught with more than the usual amount of peril.
yeah – I think the emphasis on the two older people as vulnerable may say something about the way we perceive younger women, somehow magically beyond human frailties and needs.
Sophonisba, I had to mull that over for a bit, and yeah, you’re right. I was too focused on the fella’s intent and not enough on the impact.
I’m a Christian and I try to approach matters of life from a Christian perspective. I think that every important relationship (not just romantic ones) should be brought before God in prayer. Honestly seeking the truth from God will reveal the proper course of action. It’s not about “rules†or “shoulds.†Rather, it is about relationship with God first and others second.
I try not to “close doors†that are open or to “force open†doors that are closed. I try to remember to ask God to close and open doors. He has a much better perspective than I do.
You are making some pretty broad conclusions here. This adult woman could have very well had none of the career or educational assets you mention. For her, a ticket across country and free rent might not sound too bad. It might get her out of an abusive home life, or some other poor living conditions that were undesirable. A little free rent would have helped her get a foothold in whatever city she landed in even if the relationship suddenly failed after a couple of months. No harm no foul, except for the guy, which nobody seems to be able to see him as a possible victim (chump) anyway.
Just because there is an older/younger component to a relationship, doesn’t mean that it is always the younger that is being taken advantage of ( or that either are for that matter).
In some, but not all cases, the older man’s selection of a younger woman as a partner is a signal to other men that though he is older, he is interesting and potent and desirable and attractive to young women. In that sense, the woman and her age are are not necessarily relevant in themselves, but are more relevant at what they point to in terms of underlying psychological desires – to appear and present one’s self to others, to ward off death, and so on.
Jeremy, I don’t understand your confusion. This entire post and the whole discussion that follows is about how this man and his relationship affects the woman who wrote to Hugo, Debra. Surely he would want to stick up for himself, especially considering that most here are taking an unfavorable view of that relationship. My point is that a relationship between two consenting adults should not be viewed as a problem no matter what we think of the participants’ judgement. Our society, as others have pointed out, tends to create a high level of insecurity in women who feel they can’t compete with society’s ideals. Debra seems to be very much caught up in that and THAT is what we should be addressing. Let’s forget about the May-December relationship. That’s merely incidental.
Matt, our relationships have a huge impact on those around us — what consenting adults do often impacts others,
For example, my third wife and I mutually consented to divorce. It was our decision alone, our private business — but gosh, that decision hurt a lot of other people who didn’t get to be part of the decision. Very few relationships, including older-younger ones, are truly private. I think divorce should be legal, and I think 70 year olds should legally be allowed to bed 18 year-olds. But we can bemoan divorce for its negative impact on others, and grieve what the sexualization of the very young by the much older does, even while we allow it legally.
Sophonisba, I’m blown away by your insightful comments. That phrase “creepily faux-maternal pity” completely nails Debra’s self-serving fantasies.
Matt, my point is that I don’t see anyone criticising the man involved, so why make a big thing about defending him? It only derails the conversation. And since Hugo used Debra’s email as a jumping-off point to talk about May-December relationships in general it’s hardly off-topic to continue the discussion (though naturally you’re free to talk about other things if you would prefer).
Since Matt doesn’t want me to talk about May-December relationships, let’s look at Pacific’s claim that “I suppose that, when I was younger, I was too picky when it came to looking for a mate”. There is some fascinating research that suggests he’s kidding himself.
Scientists who ran a speed-dating session discovered that people who were truly picky (ie. attracted to just one of their dates) usually had that attraction returned. The people who got no interest were the ones that expressed interest in everybody; they came across as desperate losers.
Sounds like Pacific should think again!
Scientists who ran a speed-dating session discovered that people who were truly picky (ie. attracted to just one of their dates) usually had that attraction returned.
I’d be cautious in generalizing too much the “usually had that attraction returned” part. My first thought in seeing this was, I know I was attracted to very few people, and I know fewer than half of them reciprocated. Then I realized that, first, speed dating inherently preselects for “available” (while in real life one sometimes gets attracted and then finds out about the long distance relationship), and, second, I generally only count people as having reciprocated in real life if things worked out for rather longer than needed to count in the speed dating experiment.
Lynn:
I’d be cautious in generalizing too much …
Good advice, but I claim credit for stating my claim cautiously (note my careful use of “suggests” and “should”). Anyway, to quote Linus Torvalds: “Yes, I overgeneralize. Doesn’t everybody?”.
I generally only count people as having reciprocated in real life if things worked out for rather longer than needed to count in the speed dating experiment.
Fair enough, but Pacific was complaining of never having had a date at all so I assume he hasn’t experienced reciprocation even as the experiment defined it. So it’s relevant to him even though you’re lucky enough to be picky about your reciprocity.
Fair enough, Jeremy
I do have one further comment, if the thread is not yet exhausted. What disturbs me so much about Debra’s analysis of her own situation is her lack of concern for the young woman, as I said, but I didn’t actually say why I think she should be concerned. After all, this person is a stranger to her, right? Why should she care what some stupid kid gets herself into? What’s it to her?
Well, I think she should care, because this attitude of hers is the precise mirror image of the older man’s attitude. What I mean by that is: Hugo’s argued (only somewhat persuasively, to me, but still) that men of a certain age should take a paternal attitude towards women in their early twenties; when someone’s young enough to be your daughter, you should treat her as though she might be: that is to say, respectfully, kindly, and with the full awareness that while she may be your equal in intelligence and spirit, she is not your equal in experience. To pretend that you’re on an equal playing field with her in sex and love is not just potentially harmful to them, but undignified and degrading to yourself.
Well, all of this applies to older women. It applies to Debra. And I think that for mature women to treat young women as competitors to be viewed with defensive hostility is as damaging, or more damaging to them, than for mature men to target them sexually.
For a woman over, let us say, 35 to treat 22 year olds as her romantic competition is really deeply disturbed. And it is a total cop-out to pretend that the actions of irresponsible men her own age force her into this attitude: they don’t. Yes, he may be treating this young woman as an appropriate target, but the whole point is that he is wrong to do so. Following his manly lead and treating her as some sort of romantic peer or rival, who may cruelly and unfairly abandon Creepy Old Guy, is undignified, ridiculous, and when accompanied by overt hostility, fairly morally bankrupt. Stewardship and care for the young isn’t just a masculine duty.
Sophonisba, I’ve never agreed with you more, save that we need to see the ways in which this rivalry is partly the responsibility of the women who engage in it but also the responsibility of the broader culture that creates and encourages it.
Being the person who kicked all this off, and seeing some of the comments here, I thought I’d thank Hugo and add some clarifications and comments of my own.
Martin calls me “the textbook example of co-dependence. She had built up a fantasy of happiness based upon an image of her friend she had constructed in her mind, and a longed-for relationship with that image. When the friend didn’t follow the script, Debra feels cheated.” No. I didn’t feel cheated specifically because of this situation and nothing else. It was more of a general feeling of “having been cheated when it comes to relationships,” period, than it was merely a feeling of having been cheated out of this particular one. More of a “final nail in the coffin” effect than anything else.
Martin also says, and others have echoed: “Debra has failed to grow up in a vital area: she hasn’t realized that her happiness depends upon her, and not another. Expecting someone else to supply you with your life’s quota of ‘happiness’ is the very definition of co-dependence.” Wrong again. I don’t expect anyone else to “make me happy.” The problem comes not from that, but from my feeling that I may never have an opportunity for a loving relationship with anyone, in which we both contribute to making it what it is, because I lack the basic “admission ticket” to such a relationship: call it exceptional beauty, call it youth, call it whatever you like. I never used to think that was the case. I always had some kind of blind faith that somehow I’d find someone who I liked enough and who liked me enough to make growing into love possible. Now, I find I’ve completely lost faith that it will ever happen.
I also did not build up an image of this man as “the perfect partner,” or think he was “mine” or that I had any sort of claim on him. Far from it. I would have liked to have had that chance, though, and it hurts to feel as if it is irrevocably gone. Anyone who implied I didn’t do enough to pursue a relationship with the man, or that I have made some sort of attempt to and been rejected (and hence should simply move on because the man has clearly expressed his lack of interest), also is not really aware of the situation. I’d rather not go into it here, but let’s just say that I haven’t made such an attempt with this person and I haven’t been rejected by him.
The Gonzman said “Perhaps this older man wishes children of his own. It is, in this case, a lot smarter to go with a woman of childbearing years rather than one who is late enough in life to have little chance of bearing children, if not post-menopausal.” For the record, he does, but I would dearly like to believe that even a man wishing to become a father doesn’t select a mate solely on the basis of acquiring the freshest eggs and baby-making hips.
Another small addition of fact: They really did date, in person, for two and a half months before she moved in. He is in a position in life in which the cost of the airfare was not nearly as much a concern to him as the wear and tear of the travel, which may well have contributed to the speed with which she decided to move in with him. (The nature of his job meant she was going to be the one to have to move.)
Sophonisba calls my concern about the man “pretty sick.” Why? Why do you call him a “creep”? Sounds like you’re passing judgment on him and you don’t even know much of anything about him. Sophinisba also assumes I have “total blistering unconcern for the 22 year old herself.” Not really. I do realize the position she’s put herself in by picking up and moving across the country for a virtual stranger. But at the same time, I think he’s the more vulnerable one in terms of what happens next. I know that will sound weird, but I think it is true…for reasons more complex than I care to go into. Put it this way: Financially, she won’t be destitute if this doesn’t work out–she’ll just lose her dependency on her boyfriend’s largesse and have to go back to being dependent on her parents’ largesse again. Either way, someone else will be footing the bill for her life because she is not capable of it as yet. Emotionally, however, I just have a feeling he is probably more deeply invested than she is…she’s young and her life is just beginning, whereas he may well see her as his “last dance, last chance for love.” That’s why I think she is more likely to leave him than vice versa, and he more likely to be devastated if this doesn’t work.
For the record, R. Giskard may be right in saying “For her, a ticket across country and free rent might not sound too bad. It might get her out of an abusive home life, or some other poor living conditions that were undesirable. A little free rent would have helped her get a foothold in whatever city she landed in even if the relationship suddenly failed after a couple of months.” Exactly (I suspect that to some extent that’s the case). “No harm no foul, except for the guy, which nobody seems to be able to see him as a possible victim (chump) anyway.” Again, exactly.
Then again, I do think there’s a serious danger, even if this relationship works, of her never finding out who SHE is as an independent person, and of never having the chance to find out whether or not she can make it on her own in life. Like many women of times past, she will be passing right from her father’s hands into her husband’s…do not pass Go, do not collect $200. This is one way in which I do not envy her. I know I can take care of myself in life. I have had more than ample opportunity to prove it. She may never know, or may only be forced to find out through unpleasant circumstances.
Sophonisba also refers to my “creepily faux-maternal pity.” All I can say is that “creepy is as creepy does.” If you’re determined to judge both the man and me as “creepy” without knowing it, there’s probably not a lot I can do to disavow you of the notion. But I assure you, my concern (not “pity”) is real and sincere. Whether or not you find it “creepy.”
Sophonisba also says “I think that for mature women to treat young women as competitors to be viewed with defensive hostility is as damaging, or more damaging to them, than for mature men to target them sexually.” Well, if mature men are going to make it so clear that young women ARE our “competitors” and “target them sexually,” what are we to do? Is it “deeply disturbed” to acknowledge what I see going on around me? I don’t understand this: “Following his manly lead and treating her as some sort of romantic peer or rival, who may cruelly and unfairly abandon Creepy Old Guy, is undignified, ridiculous, and when accompanied by overt hostility, fairly morally bankrupt.” I don’t think it’s fair to call someone “morally bankrupt” just because she finds it upsetting that a man she likes is involved with a younger woman. And, for my part, Sophonisba seems a bit too fond of referring to people who are not really known to him or her as “creepy,” “disturbed,” “morally bankrupt,” etc.
Leapfrog made some excellent points, I thought: “it is unavoidable that a person’s self esteem is affected by what goes on around them and the way they are perceived. No – one can deny the interest many men have in younger women and the prestige with which girls in their early twenties are held…just becoming older can dent a woman’s self esteem and make her insecure. I wish we were all emotional giants who could brush off a life time of conditioning – and that includes the men who think that women are only worthwhile for a limitted part of their live – but we’re not we’re human. Self esteem building would also help the midlife crisis man, in my experience it has always been the most insecure men who reach for the stereotypical ideal of feminity, slim large boobs, young, compliant. So yes better self esteem would help al parties.” Hear, hear.
Hugo, I do agree with you when you say “this rivalry is partly the responsibility of the women who engage in it but also the responsibility of the broader culture that creates and encourages it.” What to do about it, I don’t know. What I can say is that Hugo did not reproduce my entire message to him here, so there were things that went unexplained and unelaborated upon. Suffice it to say I know that I have no control over what others choose to do, and that I need to focus upon what I can choose to do for myself in the area of love and relationships. My inspiration for writing Hugo was to collect some insight into how I can deal with some of the feelings inspired in me by what others choose to do. It’s very easy to say “You shouldn’t be affected by what other people choose to do with their lives” and “What they do should have no impact on your personal self-esteem,” but it’s far easier said than done. That’s what I’m wrestling with. Life would be much easier if other people’s choices and decisions didn’t affect us much. But it ain’t necessarily so.
As someone who was involved in a short-term extramarital affair with a woman 35 years my junior (gasp!), I couldn’t agree more with Hugo’s statement that “that sense of purpose, that sense of commitment to goals and ideals, ought to be sovereign — if not over our momentary longings, at least over our life choices.” When I think back on this relationship the adjectives “pathetic,” stupid,” and “foolish” come to mind. Simply put, there really IS no fool like an old fool. Thank you Hugo for helping me to “close softly the doors of rooms [I} won’t be coming back to.”
I’m going to try to reread this thread and post a longer comment later, but for now, I can’t for the life of me imagine what “slim large boobs” would look like. Could you make ballon animals out of them?
Sorry.
No, wait, I’m not sorry.
Try pamela anderson
This is a blogg, not an academic paper – typos are tolerated, but yes I suspect they’d make good giraffes at childrens’ parties. (no offence to Pammy etc)
The Gonzman said “Perhaps this older man wishes children of his own. It is, in this case, a lot smarter to go with a woman of childbearing years rather than one who is late enough in life to have little chance of bearing children, if not post-menopausal.†For the record, he does, but I would dearly like to believe that even a man wishing to become a father doesn’t select a mate solely on the basis of acquiring the freshest eggs and baby-making hips.
Depends on your priorities, Debra.
As a mid forties guy with “the operation” behind me, I don’t tend to select partners based on their fertility. In my younger days, before I became a father, fertility and the willingness to have children was a linchpin. I wanted to be a father.
It’d would have built up resentment otherwise.
I find myself in the rare and uncomfortable position of agreeing with the Gonzman here.
It’s not fatal. Come to the Dark Side of the Force….
Hey Gonzman – there is adopition, in many ways a far more satisfying option and something I may consider in the future.
In my younger days, before I became a father, fertility and the willingness to have children was a linchpin.
Willingness to have children was certainly a linchpin for me, in my younger days (and then I wound up with the marriage that’s infertile, and the husband who developed multiple chronic illnesses, so that adoption is looking out of the question for us as well). I can understand why a guy would rule out from the get go women he didn’t think he could be a parent; I did the same. What I can’t understand is why a guy would simultaneously think that being a father is enough of a priority that he’ll rule out women beyond baby-making age, and also that he can wait until he’s past a woman’s normal baby-making age to settle down. To me, that seems like a stupid way of prioritizing your life; whatever one may think about the desirability of May/December relationships, they’re not a thing a guy can count on having as an option, unless he’s rich. Guys who are serious about being a father should do the same thing as women who are serious about being a mother – look to marry while still in the normal childbearing years.
(This is a general comment on attitudes I’ve seen in some men; it doesn’t sound as if procrastinating marriage while still wanting to be a father is Debra’s friend’s biggest problem.)
Why do you call him a “creep� Sounds like you’re passing judgment on him and you don’t even know much of anything about him.
Debra, re-read your post. Do you not see that your attitude here is heavily flavored by your attraction to this man, and that you are dumping a very large and unfair share of your hurt on this young woman? If she’s losing an opportunity to be an adult, this man is doing his level best to help her lose it.
Lynn, word. It seems especially weird to hold the attitude that Dad’s entire contribution is to get Mom knocked up and to pay the bills, and that she, being younger, will be the one who has the energy to do all that childrearing stuff.
Why do you call him a “creep�
As a 24-year-old, if I had a 47-year-old trying to date me and a woman his age being hostile towards me about it, I would probably go hide under my bed and yell at them to go see a shrink and figure out their dysfunctions without involving me. It IS creepy when I have much, much older men hitting on me, because I always know they can’t possibly have anything in common with me to form the foundation of a healthy relationship with. I would hope that a woman his age would recognize that and at least have some concern instead of being hostile.
No more than I see the attitude here heavily flavored by the desire to vilify this man and relieve this young woman from any and all responsibility for her own personal decisions. She , an innocent young victim, and because of him, she’s somehow unable to make responsible choices concerning her own agency.
Not surprisingly , Ive known many women and more than a few men that did not fit this mold. Young women that had an amazingly clear idea of how to run their own lives, and men ( of all ages) that were amazingly foolish where women were concerned. But moreover, I haven’t known any women whose decision making skills somehow began failing because their lover’s age exceeded a magical number.
I tend to think of a 21 year old woman as being an adult, however, it she was somehow losing an opportunity to be a more independent adult ( and I don’t necessarily think this is so), it was her own decision to do it. She could have just as easily hid under the bed with Brooke.
Hey Gonzman – there is adopition, in many ways a far more satisfying option and something I may consider in the future.
For some, it is an option. Others crave children of their body.
What I can’t understand is why a guy would simultaneously think that being a father is enough of a priority that he’ll rule out women beyond baby-making age, and also that he can wait until he’s past a woman’s normal baby-making age to settle down.
To be blunt – because he can. While fertility does occasionally falter in later life, most men remain fertile. It is an option for him; the biological clock ticks nowhere near as loudly.
To me, that seems like a stupid way of prioritizing your life; whatever one may think about the desirability of May/December relationships, they’re not a thing a guy can count on having as an option, unless he’s rich.
And a ,man more established in a career – or operating a thriving business – will have more time to devote to being a father, and not require a second income which often creates hardship.
Guys who are serious about being a father should do the same thing as women who are serious about being a mother – look to marry while still in the normal childbearing years.
In your opinion.
And a ,man more established in a career – or operating a thriving business – will have more time to devote to being a father
More time than what? Than a stay-at-home dad whose wife who has a career? Than a man who is not running his own business? (C’mon. Are you really trying to tell us that being a business owner is something for leisure hounds?)
You’re also conflating the biological clock with the reality clock. Lynn isn’t arguing that men become less fertile as they age; she’s pointing out that a man who is sure he wants to have biological children will be more likely to find a suitable mate if he’s around the same age as said mate.
R., is there a reason you’re arguing that two dysfunctions make a function?
Debra, thanks for your response – it provides a lot of balance and context.
Sophonisba also says “I think that for mature women to treat young women as competitors to be viewed with defensive hostility is as damaging, or more damaging to them, than for mature men to target them sexually.†Well, if mature men are going to make it so clear that young women ARE our “competitors†and “target them sexually,†what are we to do? Is it “deeply disturbed†to acknowledge what I see going on around me?
I would say in general, it’s probably not a good idea for mature women to look around at younger women and see an army of potential threats in the competition for mens’ attention in the dating world[*].
However, in this specific situation, among the specific parties involved in the situation, age is absolutely a factor. Just as if, for example and by analogy, Debra and the male involved had in common a minority religious practice such as Hinduism while the other woman were an evangelical Christian, then religion would be a factor.
[*] except in Age of Love, that reality show, where that’s the whole point…
However, in this specific situation, among the specific parties involved in the situation, age is absolutely a factor.
It’s not a factor in the potential for a relationship with Debra, though; Mr. Sad was not interested in her before the young lady came along.
hey Gonzman – I really appreciate your point of view. How does the baby thing relate to men in their 30′s pursuing much younger women? Granted, fertility declines a bit, but research has put 34 as the optimum age for a woman to reproduce due to increased emotional stability and ability to carry out the job at hand. So why do some men in their mid thirties still idealise much younger women? I appreciate what you are saying about soem people craving children made from their own bodies, I don’t – but hey, I suppose some do. Also, many younger women I know don’t want children any way. And what would the older man pursuing a child bearing age woman do if his catch turned out to be infertile, would he leave? It seems a bit extreem to go for someone of 22 when you are almost 50 just in order to have children – many women in their 40′s reproduce. If it’s so he can have many, many children he’ll be knackered – and so will she. I don’t believe love is that premeditated – real love lands were it lands, not were the most eggs are.
And those two dysfunctions would be?
Both are exercising options that in your opinion are foolish. Geez, I know lots of otherwise smart people that occsionally do things that I think are foolish. Happens all the time. Doesn’t make them dysfunctional.
The thing is, I don’t have a problem with their decision. I hold them both accountble for it and I don’t see the harm in the decision they made. Both have gained from it, and both have the potential to lose from it. But isn’t that inherent in any relationship? Don’t we all take a chance?
What I see here is two sides of the same coin. On one side I see Debra, angry that Sad Sack is dating a much younger woman, and on the other I see the women here angry that Young Girl is dating a much older man. The only difference is who you are holding accountable for it.
I can understand Debra’s sense of loss. What I don’t understand is the Feminist stand that Young Girls intellegence and sense of agency suddenly takes a hit because the guy she’s interested in is above a certain age.
For the younger feminists here, maybe it’s a “Ewwwww” moment. Fine. Thats your choice. It’s not everyones choice but it is fine that it is yours.
But for the more mature feminists, what is it? Something similar to the sense of competition that Debra feels? What do Feminist have to gain by limiting women’s choices in who they find desirable?
The other reason you might not want to date a younger woman is that she might decide she’s not ready for kids and push back having them until she herself is in her 30s. Happened to an (ex) friend of mine. Got married at 21 to a 31 year old, they were planning to have kids right away. Well, she ended up part-timing at a daycare and decided she DIDN’T want kids anytime soon. Now? She’s 28 and he’s 38, and they’re still together, but they still don’t have kids, much to his chagrin.
Getting back to the Perhaps this older man wishes children of his own. It is, in this case, a lot smarter to go with a woman of childbearing years rather than one who is late enough in life to have little chance of bearing children, if not post-menopausal. part, isn’t it smarter for a woman who wants children to go for a man who will be better able to help her raise them and is more likely to be around to help her with them as they grow up? I think that a younger man is more suited to that task in general.
I’ve personally never been anything but creeped out by the men my father’s age who hit on me. I’m 27 now and I’ve always liked men my own age. The couple of people I know who did like older guys had both serious daddy/family issues, as well as a taste for finer things (call it what you will) and liked being “taken care of.” I’d prefer to be on the same page as the person I’m with, however (and I am).
What I don’t understand is the Feminist stand
When you assume there is a single, capital-f Feminist stand, then yeah, you don’t understand.
In response to my comment about Debra’s hurt feelings, you decided that would be a great launching point to whine about those mean feminists.
Indeed, that particular “Feminist stand” isn’t my stand, and I consider myself a feminist.
I think certain kinds of age disparate relationships are unwise: I think it’s unwise for a young person who hasn’t yet been self-supporting to rush into a relationship with a much more financially established person, without having established any ability to stand independently. I think it’s unwise for someone who wants kids to wait too long to settle down, even if that person is male, because you generally can’t count on attracting people very much younger than you as you age. I think it’s stupid for men seeking to date younger women to turn to older women with arguments that amount to, “You have to understand, we need to date younger women because you guys are all so unpleasant and bitter” (as some men do). Just go ahead and try to date whomever you like, but don’t go around insulting some other set of people and expect them to like it (not saying that’s being done in this thread, but it’s happened in other threads on the age issue). Oh, and don’t bother arguing the biological inevitability of your choices, because, a) not every man inevitably goes for much younger women, and b) if a relationship is actually equal and mutual, it doesn’t matter. Etc.
But all those things said, once people are over the age of consent and assuming that neither has any special fiduciary relationship to the other, I don’t have any hard and fast rule either about older men getting involved with younger women, or about older women getting involved with younger men. From where I sit, some May/December relationships of all sexual combinations work, and I don’t have any particular feminist obligation to oppose them all. And as a middle aged woman, well, I already have my husband; it’s no skin off my nose who likes whom.
Not at all, Myth. I am not referring to some kind of Big F Feminist stand. I’m going by the comments in this thread as well as comments from past similar threads here and elsewhere. It’s not exactly an uncommon thought pattern here ( Lynn, I stand corrected on you). I think I can pretty well figure out who here is pro-feminist ( you are, right? ). I am not out to attack Feminism ( with the capital F). Doesn’t mean I can ‘t question your individual ideas, or the collective ideas of the feminists (little f) in these threads. I pose a question from what I observe here. You don’t have to respond to those questions if you don’t want to.
Lynn, I find myself in agreement with most of what you say, however unfortunately, these conversions eventually do get around to discussing the motivations of of the older men that seek young women and vice versa. Each man ( with the small M) has his own reasons that I am sure are important to him. We might not find them compelling, but there you are.
Likewise, the discussions as to what motivates women’s choices usually pops up and as with men, describing these choices in a public forum can be hurtful to some.
Nobody wants to be made to feel inferior and no group wants to be painted with the color of its most disrespected member. It’s poor manners to do so and throws a wet blanket on reasonable discourse. Would that everyone show a little more restraint.
Hey Giskard. I feel a bit labelled here, are you lumping all the women in together? because I am not angry with anyone in this situation, I can’t speak for anyone else. My concern for the younger woman stems from my own experiences with older men who have hit on me through the years and yes – it may feel safe etc to them, but I have found it extremely unnerving and an element of trust in whatever relationship we had disappears. I also know how much my 20′s meant to me. Being free – travelling etc with peers and finding out what I wanted from life, and establishing life long bonds (so far!!). Ok so we’re all different and I’m glad of that. I also know a few women who have been involved with older men for various reasons (and men with on older women). There’s always been some kind of parental element, or a reworking of a prior abuse. And I suppose they’re working their lives out – just like we are here. But I’m not angry with anyone in the situation held up for discussion by Debra and as to wether or not I’m a feminist, isn’t that distracting from the main issue?
Also – it’s good of you to be so concerned about the feelings of others, but I should think the only person who could be hurt by a discussion of the situation above would be Debra – as the other two parties presumably know nothing of this blog. Debra is an adult and I’m sure she wouldn’t have sent her story to Hugo if she didn’t want an honest, public, commentary.
And we continue to see interesting comments here…I’m going to comment on some of them in the order in which they arrived, if no one minds.
The Gonzman: “In my younger days, before I became a father, fertility and the willingness to have children was a linchpin. I wanted to be a father. It’d would have built up resentment otherwise.” Why resentment? Would it be fair to “resent” a woman just because of some incapability of her body?
Lynn Gazis-Sax: “What I can’t understand is why a guy would simultaneously think that being a father is enough of a priority that he’ll rule out women beyond baby-making age, and also that he can wait until he’s past a woman’s normal baby-making age to settle down.” Good point. One thing I think is going on here is that the man involved, whether or not he even realizes it, may be conflicted: he may be SAYING he wants children, yet at the same time not actively going about pursuing the type of relationship in which children would be likely to arrive soon–and I don’t mean in the fertility sense. As was said in some later comments, parental readiness isn’t just about bodies; it’s about being psychologically ready and having reached a point in one’s life in which one is willing to make the commitments and sacrifices required of being a parent. Has this man imagined himself contributing equally to the raising of this child? Or does he see his girlfriend/hopefully-wife-to-be as shouldering most of that burden? And is that what SHE wants? So far, she is holding off on marriage or engagement, and I can’t help but wonder whether this might be why. They might not be on the same page with this–especially because what I see in him right now is that he is ramping UP his career, not slowing it down–taking on more and more work, rather than slowing down. I wonder if subconsciously he’s expecting that into his 50s, he will be able to continue to ramp up his career while his girlfriend will be happy to surrender whatever career dreams she was taking a mild stab at prior to his coming along, and exchange them at a very young age for marriage to and support by a wealthy man while she does all the work of raising their children. It speaks to that dichotomy Hugo was suggesting in his reply: a man who seems to respect women in general as equals, but who wants a traditional stay-at-home partner for himself. Is this the new version of the old “madonna-whore complex”? I wonder.
mythago, when I asked why there seems to be an assumption that the man is a “creep”: “Do you not see that your attitude here is heavily flavored by your attraction to this man, and that you are dumping a very large and unfair share of your hurt on this young woman? If she’s losing an opportunity to be an adult, this man is doing his level best to help her lose it.” I agree with you on that point, but I don’t think that makes him by definition a creep, nor does it mean I am dumping an unfair share of my hurt on her. I think it’s possible for an older man to be unwisely involved in a relationship with a younger woman without being, by definition, a “creep.” Nor does all the blame fall to her. They’re both adults. I would say the same thing to Brooke: maybe SHE would think it “creepy” for an older man to hit on her, but obviously, it was music to the ears of the young woman of which we are speaking.
R. Giskard: “I see the attitude here heavily flavored by the desire to vilify this man and relieve this young woman from any and all responsibility for her own personal decisions…I tend to think of a 21 year old woman as being an adult, however, it she was somehow losing an opportunity to be a more independent adult (and I don’t necessarily think this is so), it was her own decision to do it.” Exactly. Then again, she may think she still has that opportunity. She may not realize that having a lover who pays all the bills while she pursues her life’s ambitions is no more independence-fostering than having Daddy pay all the bills. Or she may simply be dazzled by the “glamorous life” she is enjoying as a result of her relationship with this man, and not really be too concerned about it. She may not have yet realized that her reluctance to settle down, get married and have kids means this relationship may eventually be forced to a crisis. Or she may not care, because she only plans to string the man along for a few years with the promise to marry him “someday” until she’s successfully achieved her purposes with him, and then move on. I don’t know. (But I do know that if that’s the case, she’ll still be a 20something young woman with her whole life before her…and he’ll be 50something and no closer to his goals of marriage and parenthood than he is now.)
Tyler D: “I would say in general, it’s probably not a good idea for mature women to look around at younger women and see an army of potential threats in the competition for mens’ attention in the dating world. However, in this specific situation, among the specific parties involved in the situation, age is absolutely a factor.” Precisely. Prior to seeing this relationship happen, believe me, I didn’t lose sleep worrying about competing with younger women for men my age. And that’s exactly why I find it so upsetting. It’s tough enough for women my age to try to find a decent man our age when our PEERS are our only real competition (simply because of the numbers game; so many of the “good ones” are married or gay, and so many of the bad ones are either divorced and bitter or just plain losers. Of course, I’m sure the men say the same about us). When you wake up one morning and realize that you can’t even hope to establish something with a middle-aged man with a receding/graying hair and a considerable paunch because he has some young blond thing on his arm who adores him…what do you do? And can you refrain from wondering whether or not, in her case, money served as an extremely powerful aphrodisiac?
mythago: “It’s not a factor in the potential for a relationship with Debra, though; Mr. Sad was not interested in her before the young lady came along.” Not entirely a true assumption in this case. I can’t go into why, but making this assumption isn’t entirely fair either.
leapfrog: “many younger women I know don’t want children any way. And what would the older man pursuing a child bearing age woman do if his catch turned out to be infertile, would he leave? It seems a bit extreem to go for someone of 22 when you are almost 50 just in order to have children – many women in their 40’s reproduce. If it’s so he can have many, many children he’ll be knackered – and so will she. I don’t believe love is that premeditated – real love lands were it lands, not were the most eggs are.” I couldn’t have said it better. This is my philosophy: While I would love to have a child with a man I truly loved, THE LOVE FOR HIM WOULD HAVE TO COME FIRST. The child would be a manifestation of that love, not a reason for forming a relationship with that man in the first place. And truth be told, if I loved the man and he really wanted a child and I could not give him one from one of my eggs, I’d do it with a donor egg if I had to. It would still be HIS biological child, and it could even come from my body. It would still make me the mother of the child of the man I loved. (Not to mention the adoption option. It seems to me that people who choose adoption, all Mommie Dearest nightmares aside, are easiest able to truly distinguish their desire to raise a child lovingly to adulthood from a mere desire to populate the earth with Mini-Me’s.)
R. Giskard: “What do Feminist have to gain by limiting women’s choices in who they find desirable?” I think you’re asking the question from the wrong end. I’m not saying it’s wrong for young women to find older men desirable. I would just think that they might ask themselves why this is, and be honest about it. Do they truly love the individual man they have found, and he just happens to be twice their age? Or do they just enjoy it as an ego trip? Do they see an older man’s greater financial security and status as something they can piggyback on through life, rather than having to make their own way in the big scary world out there on their own merits? Are they playing the very old, very UN-feminist game of trading on their youth and looks to achieve wealth and social status? Because to be quite honest, I think that even those who don’t deliberately set out to do so can make the mistake of doing so without really thinking about it too much. In a way, they are prostituting themselves, if only they are honest about it. Yet I’m sure both they and the supposedly enlightened men they are with would be horrified to hear that statement. (“How can you say that? How can you say that just because the man pays all the bills for a woman who is living with him that we are no better than a prostitute and a john? We are in LOVE!”)
Katie: “The other reason you might not want to date a younger woman is that she might decide she’s not ready for kids and push back having them until she herself is in her 30s. Happened to an (ex) friend of mine. Got married at 21 to a 31 year old, they were planning to have kids right away. Well, she ended up part-timing at a daycare and decided she DIDN’T want kids anytime soon. Now? She’s 28 and he’s 38, and they’re still together, but they still don’t have kids, much to his chagrin.” Again, exactly. I think this might happen in this case, and the man in question doesn’t have ten years to waste for his girlfriend to be “ready,” unless he wants to be 60 and still have no kids. And not to put too fine a point on it, but what shape are his sperm going to be in by then? Everybody can’t be Tony Randall in this area–and even Tony Randall got to enjoy his kids for only a few years before he died.
Katie adds: “The couple of people I know who did like older guys had both serious daddy/family issues, as well as a taste for finer things (call it what you will) and liked being ‘taken care of.’ I’d prefer to be on the same page as the person I’m with, however (and I am).” Good for you. I wouldn’t be the least surprised if “daddy/family issues” played a role in this relationship. They play a role in a LOT of relationships–not always bad, but also not always good.
Lynn Gazis-Sax again: “I think certain kinds of age disparate relationships are unwise: I think it’s unwise for a young person who hasn’t yet been self-supporting to rush into a relationship with a much more financially established person, without having established any ability to stand independently…I think it’s stupid for men seeking to date younger women to turn to older women with arguments that amount to, ‘You have to understand, we need to date younger women because you guys are all so unpleasant and bitter’ (as some men do). Just go ahead and try to date whomever you like, but don’t go around insulting some other set of people and expect them to like it…Oh, and don’t bother arguing the biological inevitability of your choices, because, a) not every man inevitably goes for much younger women, and b) if a relationship is actually equal and mutual, it doesn’t matter.” I couldn’t agree with you more. I see that dynamic here, although I have no idea whether the man is using “but the women my age are all unpleasant and bitter” as part of his justifications. He could be, though–and it’s an unfair stereotype.
leapfrog again: “I also know a few women who have been involved with older men for various reasons (and men with on older women). There’s always been some kind of parental element, or a reworking of a prior abuse. And I suppose they’re working their lives out – just like we are here. But I’m not angry with anyone in the situation held up for discussion by Debra and as to wether or not I’m a feminist, isn’t that distracting from the main issue?” (I think it is, somewhat, myself. We’re discussing the motivations of people here–some of us from a viewpoint that could be called feminist, but how is that worse than discussing them from any other viewpoint?) “Also – it’s good of you to be so concerned about the feelings of others, but I should think the only person who could be hurt by a discussion of the situation above would be Debra – as the other two parties presumably know nothing of this blog. Debra is an adult and I’m sure she wouldn’t have sent her story to Hugo if she didn’t want an honest, public, commentary.” For the record, true. Unless the parties in the relationship do some Googling on some topic related to relationships like theirs and happen to find this by accident, they aren’t going to know that any of this is about them specifically.
For the record, I haven’t been hurt by anything said here. I do think people need to think twice before assuming the man is a “creep” simply because of his relationship. As I said before, the young woman is of legal age, not statutory rape age. And simply because a young woman reading about the situation might think a man of this age hitting on her was a “creep” doesn’t make him one. I think to characterize all older men who hit on younger women as “creeps” is to deny them their humanity and to assume that their motivations are always sexually based, or always based on desiring to hold the power in the relationship, when there could actually be a number of factors involved. Such as the man’s emotional immaturity in the area of relationships, or his very real fears and anxieties about a full peer relationship in which he would be a woman’s equal (rather than his being a domineering brute who enjoys power trips and abusing and intimidating others). In fact, if anything, what helps me emotionally in looking at this relationship and coming to terms with what bothers me about it, it is my attempt to regard it realistically, rather than demonizing either the participants.
The way I see it, I have three choices:
1. Regard him as a creepy abuser who secretly hates women who deliberately chose a much younger, more naive woman for a relationship because he needs someone to keep under his thumb;
2. Regard her as a seductive nymphet who deliberately set out to snag herself an older, wealthier man so she could get a free ride through life;
3. Regard him as a man who’s been extremely successful in his career but far less successful in his private life, who fell easily for the charms of a naive young woman who promised him love, and her as a naive young woman going through some life crises of her own as she set out into the world, who found in a wealthy, successful older man a soft place to fall, a hero to admire, and a well-cushioned “launching pad” for her foray into adulthood.
I suspect the closest to the truth is 3, with both elements of 1 and 2 containing grains of truth. He may not be a creep, but he may truly find strong women, capable of being his equal, troubling or intimidating in ways of which I was previously unaware. She may well enjoy “la dolce vita” and have found falling in love with someone who could continue to provide her with it easier than going out and trying to earn it herself…and this could be but the first of a series of relationships in which she sponges off men. What’s most likely is that she feeds into his need to feel loved and needed, to be a mentor, and, yes, is already in a way feeding his desire to be a parent (he may not realize it, but he is, in a way, “parenting” her). At the same time, he feeds her need to be loved and supported by someone who is a heroic figure to her like her father, yet is not her father, yet plays the lover/father role equally (whether or not she wants to consciously acknowledge it) and prevents her from having to “pay her dues” by living in a shoebox apartment and eating ramen noodles while she tries to get a toehold in her chosen career.
Hugo may be wrong, but I can see this ending just as he suggests: with her getting that toehold, growing up, and outgrowing him, and him being left feeling like an old used tissue, wondering where he went wrong. Or, the other way: She goes along with his plan, marries him, has his babies, and then realizes, years later, that she missed out on the whole experience of being a young struggler who earned her place in the world on the sweat of her own brow–and now, she wants to go back and earn it. Either way, who gets hurt the most? Him.
Of course, none of this is guaranteed. Theirs could turn out to be the greatest love story of all time. He could mentor her lovingly and successfully into her career, hold off on marriage and kids until she has reached a certain stage in her work life and is ready, shoulder his share of the burden with a smile when she’s ready to be a mom, and they could end up on the cover of every magazine in the country as the paragon of successful couplehood. But what I ask is: how likely is it?
As for me, all I ask for in the meantime is that there be a man out there my age with intelligence, wisdom, integrity, and a sense of humor who’s not intimidated by the thought of being with a woman he doesn’t have to feel superior to, whether in terms of age, career accomplishments, whatever. Oh, and who doesn’t need a youthful, rail-thin, perfect body to sexually arouse him, either. (And yes, receding hairlines, graying hair and paunchy waists are welcome.)
The way I see it, I have three choices
You have a lot more than three choices. You are closer to the situation than any of us, but you haven’t said anything about what your would-be lover and his young partner think, or whether they’ve said anything to you about their feelings for one another.
You also don’t seem to be interested in recognizing that you’re an unbiased observer. Everything you’ve said comes back to the man you love and how you’re sure he’s going to suffer in the end, and your opinion that the young woman is using him (deliberately or unwittingly) is not very thinly veiled.
There are reasons I havn’t said anything, mythago. First, I don’t know what they think, and second, because they haven’t said anything to me.
And don’t you mean I’m a BIASED observer? Believe me, I’m well aware of that and I recognize it indeed. And yes, I freely admit that I believe the man is being used. No veiling it. I’m sorry. I do. I can’t help my opinions.
You know what, I wasn’t going to respond to mythago’s last comment – but the ‘sister’ (and I mean that in a 70′s disco way) in me is insisting (plus this blog is a tremendous distraction from PhD work). Of course Debra is biased, that is the whole point – she is putting her personal point of view and all of us have every right to that. She isn’t discussing some litererary text but responding to a delicate lfe siuation she obviously knows much more about than any of us could hope to, because she is in it. And we do not have the right to expect any more information than she has been open enough to share with us already.
Any how, thanks for the very honest letter Debra – I had a similar experience recently and this discussion has helped me to get a handle on my own circumstance.
And don’t you mean I’m a BIASED observer?
Yep. I R good typist
leapfrog, I’m not asking Debra to tell all; I’m noting that it’s a little odd to say, in essence, ‘because you don’t know all the facts, which I won’t tell you, you’re wrong.’
Debra, I’m not saying you’re a bad person or wrong for having feelings. I’m not there and you are. All I’m asking is that, if you can, to recognize that your views on who is being used and why are awfully colored by your love for this man and your resentment of his lover.
I guess where I break most fully with Debra is on the issue of “being used”. It’s not that I’m patronizing the much-younger woman that he’s with, but I fail to see how a man of nearly fifty can be “used” by a gal half his age without at least his tacit consent.
I’ve certainly run into young women who are seductive towards older men. I don’t question their motives much, but dang, if they aren’t usually as transparent as Saran wrap. If my own longing to be thought handsome and still-young and vital and heroic blinds me to their agenda, that’s 100% on me.
Hugo! As you have often said, men are just as damaged by patriarchy and the fetishisation of young women as women themselves. This man could be going through a genuine chrisis – and as Professor Pat put it ‘there is no fool like an old fool’ and older men are often left in trouble after these liasons end. Debra does not know the girl so she won’t have the same level of concern – she does know him though and it sounds as if she’s done that age old human thing of developing a soft spot. It takes time to come out of that and view things with detatchment.
As for consent – and both the man and the young woman are consenting – giving consent of any kind doesn’t immune anyone from getting hurt. Hugo – you seem to me to be a very enlightened man with highly developed emotional processing skills, and a happy marraige. Unfortunately, there aren’t that many of your kind about. And I’m sure all this has taken alot of effort on your part, but not everyone has that kind of strength. Good to get your input, and thanks for the fab distraction!!!
btw I think it is logical and more than reasonable to say ‘you’re wrong because of further information which I can’t give you here.’
btw I think it is logical and more than reasonable to say ‘you’re wrong because of further information which I can’t give you here.’
Sure, but it’s not logical nor reasonable to say “you’re being unfair and I can’t and won’t tell you why, so you’ll just have to go by the information I, from my biased perspective, choose to share.”
As I’ve said, I’m only viewing this situation through the lens of what Debra tells us, but it seems pretty evident–without needing more details–that she is being extremely generous towards the man she loves and not very much so towards the woman *he* loves.
It’s not that I’m patronizing the much-younger woman that he’s with, but I fail to see how a man of nearly fifty can be “used†by a gal half his age without at least his tacit consent.
Yeah. And if the young woman has any sense of self-preservation at all, she won’t make any lasting commitment to him, and she won’t have children with him. If she’s resisted an engagement or a marriage, that shows a lot of good sense on her part, even if it means she doesn’t meet the masochistic self-abnegating ideal Debra thinks proper for a suitable partner to this guy. It is normal and natural (though not required) for 21 and 22 year olds to have brief, pleasant, semi-serious liaisons that last for no more than a year or two, if that. It’s part of the process of learning how to behave as an adult in the world of sex and romance. If this guy expects “his” 22-year-old to be different from the normal run of 22-year-olds, to sacrifice her long-term interests for his just to suit his needs, because he’s ready to settle down, that’s hilarious but not really pitiable.
Debra, you’ve speculated that his supposed need for a younger woman is because she’ll offer him the awe and worship an peer won’t, but you seem to have the bozo on a higher pedestal than a naive young thing ever could. Viz. your objection to calling him a creep: he may be a charming, a sexy, an intelligent creep, but a creep, nonetheless, he remains. If the girl is using him — which I do not for one second believe — you must entertain the possibility that he enjoys being used. He’s not stupid enough to be blind to what’s obvious to you, surely, and he’s not so young that naivete would excuse his cluelessness. If she doesn’t love him, maybe being loved is not what he’s after.
Yet more interesting stuff…
mythago: I’m not asking Debra to tell all; I’m noting that it’s a little odd to say, in essence, ‘because you don’t know all the facts, which I won’t tell you, you’re wrong.’” Well, I’m sorry, I just don’t feel comfortable sharing them all. I wish there were more I could say to explain this, but I can’t.
“Debra, I’m not saying you’re a bad person or wrong for having feelings. I’m not there and you are. All I’m asking is that, if you can, to recognize that your views on who is being used and why are awfully colored by your love for this man and your resentment of his lover.” Oh, I do. I completely do. And that’s why I’m saying, I think your point on that subject is moot.
Hugo: “I guess where I break most fully with Debra is on the issue of ‘being used’. It’s not that I’m patronizing the much-younger woman that he’s with, but I fail to see how a man of nearly fifty can be ‘used’ by a gal half his age without at least his tacit consent.” Oh, I agree with you, too. Of course he’s consenting to being used. But I don’t think he BELIEVES he is being used. He really thinks he has found the love of a lifetime and that it is a relationship of full and free equals.
“I’ve certainly run into young women who are seductive towards older men. I don’t question their motives much, but dang, if they aren’t usually as transparent as Saran wrap. If my own longing to be thought handsome and still-young and vital and heroic blinds me to their agenda, that’s 100% on me.” Oh, indeed. I think that is exactly what is happening here. I’m not blaming her for that–it’s his blindness, indeed.
leapfrog: “Hugo! As you have often said, men are just as damaged by patriarchy and the fetishisation of young women as women themselves. This man could be going through a genuine chrisis – and as Professor Pat put it ‘there is no fool like an old fool’ and older men are often left in trouble after these liasons end.” Exactly what I’m afraid of. If this does end, he is going to beat up on himself like there’s no tomorrow–because he, too, will recognize too late what has happened.
“Debra does not know the girl so she won’t have the same level of concern – she does know him though and it sounds as if she’s done that age old human thing of developing a soft spot. It takes time to come out of that and view things with detatchment.” Yeah, I guess it does.
“As for consent – and both the man and the young woman are consenting – giving consent of any kind doesn’t immune anyone from getting hurt.” Bingo.
“Hugo – you seem to me to be a very enlightened man with highly developed emotional processing skills, and a happy marraige. Unfortunately, there aren’t that many of your kind about.” My point exactly. I don’t think this man is as “far down the path” when it comes to relationships as Hugo is, and that’s why he really does not see this as anything but paradise on earth.
mythago: “it seems pretty evident–without needing more details–that she is being extremely generous towards the man she loves and not very much so towards the woman *he* loves.” Actually, I think I’m being quite generous. I’m acknowledging that she may be going through some tough times in her life and have found this man a very soft place to fall, and recognized in him the same qualities I have. I’m also acknowledging that she may really and truly THINK that she loves him and not just for the safety and security he provides her with. I just think that at her level of age, intelligence and sophistication, not to mention the fact that she is one of the parties involved, her ability to see what is going on, and even to truly and fully love another person, is by necessity limited.
sophonisba: “if the young woman has any sense of self-preservation at all, she won’t make any lasting commitment to him, and she won’t have children with him. If she’s resisted an engagement or a marriage, that shows a lot of good sense on her part, even if it means she doesn’t meet the masochistic self-abnegating ideal Debra thinks proper for a suitable partner to this guy.” Whoa, whoa, whoa! Where did THAT come from? Where did I come out in favor of some “masochistic self-abnegating ideal”? I’m NOT–and that’s part of why I have a bad feeling about all this! I think she WOULD be making a mistake if she didn’t resist an engagement or a marriage…and if she didn’t realize that today, she would, to her regret, recognize it tomorrow.
“It is normal and natural (though not required) for 21 and 22 year olds to have brief, pleasant, semi-serious liaisons that last for no more than a year or two, if that. It’s part of the process of learning how to behave as an adult in the world of sex and romance.” EXACTLY! But I don’t think that’s what this man is in it for! He may well think they have a mature, adult relationship, and not realize that for her, he may be just the “relationship training wheels” she will ride with until she feels old enough to detach him and ride on without him–the “starter live-in,” if you will. I honestly think it possible that HE expects that despite her age, this woman is going to marry him, settle down and start having his babies–whether or not that’s in HER plan. And I think it would be disaster. (For the record–I think at MY age, marrying him and settling down to do nothing but have his babies would be a disaster! I would like to think that’s not what he would expect of any woman, but now I’m not so sure.)
“If this guy expects ‘his’ 22-year-old to be different from the normal run of 22-year-olds, to sacrifice her long-term interests for his just to suit his needs, because he’s ready to settle down, that’s hilarious but not really pitiable.” Well, to me, it IS pitiable–because I personally feel that if this man has his mistaken comprehension (and I believe it is likely mistaken) that this is what this woman is going to do for him if he “just gives her a few years” to get used to the idea, he is not making it out of “being a creep” but out of genuine miscomprehension of what the average 22-year-old woman today wants out of life. And I find that sad. You are looking at it only from the selfish angle–but what you have to realize is that for centuries, men have been raised to expect that a woman’s life and ambitions comes secondary to theirs. This doesn’t make them all sefish boors. It just means that they need enlightenment. They need to have the bulb turned on in their heads that makes them realize how presumptive and unfair this is. Older men also have to realize that today’s 22-year-old woman is not like yesterday’s–outside of those growing up in very confined, narrow social environments, who stay in those environments, most are not interested in marriage and children at 22. And even if they are, you don’t fall in love with them and sweep them away to another big city to live, and then expect them to restrict their ambitions to marriage and children.
“Debra, you’ve speculated that his supposed need for a younger woman is because she’ll offer him the awe and worship an peer won’t, but you seem to have the bozo on a higher pedestal than a naive young thing ever could.” So you say. You insist upon judging this man you know so little about as a “bozo” based on a single piece of information you have about him–that he’s madly in love with a younger woman whom he wants to marry and have babies with. Do you really think that’s fair? I don’t. And I don’t think I hold him on a pedestal. I think I have a pretty clear-eyed view of him. Why is it that if I refuse to believe your assessment that he’s a “creep,” that it must be because I hold him on a pedestal? I don’t regard men as either objects of worship or creeps, with nothing in between. I think it’s quite possible to believe a man not to be a creep without holding him on a pedestal. Maybe you don’t, but I do.
“Viz. your objection to calling him a creep: he may be a charming, a sexy, an intelligent creep, but a creep, nonetheless, he remains.” Is that so? Well then, explain to me why. List for me all the justifications YOU have for calling him a creep. Try to come up with one beyond his being an older man in love with a younger woman who may mistakenly expect her to marry, settle down and become a mother soon. I’m waiting.
“If the girl is using him — which I do not for one second believe — you must entertain the possibility that he enjoys being used. He’s not stupid enough to be blind to what’s obvious to you, surely, and he’s not so young that naivete would excuse his cluelessness. If she doesn’t love him, maybe being loved is not what he’s after.” As I said above, I highly suspect that either he doesn’t realize he’s being used (because he believes she sincerely loves him, or that she is capable of sincerely loving him when she may not even be old enough to know her own mind), or he does “enjoy being used” because he doesn’t think it’s going to matter–it’ll all come out in the end. In other words–”If the only way I can get a gorgeous young woman to marry me and have my babies is to be rich and successful…well then, so be it!” Then again, you assume “he’s not stupid enough to be blind to what’s obvious to you.” I say “Never assume lack of blindness in anyone involved in love.”
And you say “maybe being loved is not what he’s after.” I highly doubt that. You’re picturing a man who could go on for years as a serial dater of sweet young things…and I’m telling you, although I know you don’t believe me, that I don’t think that is what this man has in mind. I think if he could marry this woman tomorrow and put an end to all his wanderings in the dating/sexual wilderness, he’d do it in a heartbeat. You call that idealization on my part; I tell you, I honestly think it is true. And I tell you that I don’t think that if he is still living this kind of life at age 60, he will be happy. He may well be living it, at the rate he’s going…but we don’t always live a certain way because we are happy about it. We may live it because we don’t know how to escape it.
That’s what I think is the case here. Whether or not you believe me, whether or not you think he’s a creep, I think this is a case of a good man who is truly befuddled by what he does not understand about life and love. Ten years from now, he could be dating/living with a woman who is currently the age of my 12-year-old niece…believing her when she promises to marry him one of these old days…dimly recalling that that’s the line “Jane” used to give him way back in 2007, when he was supporting her while she went out on auditions, before she dumped him because he kept trying to get her to quit trying to be an actress and just marry him…Whatever happened to Jane? She got married about 2013 or so to some actor, and now they are both actors and have two kids…why is he still childless?…If only he could get “Jill” to realize he hasn’t got all the time in the world, and put away those paintbrushes and canvases and silly dabbling at trying to be an artist, and say she’ll marry him…Could Jill dump him too, after she’s sold a couple of paintings and gotten a show? No. That won’t happen. Jill isn’t Jane. She’s different. She’s special. He thought Jane was special, but in the end he had to add her to his list of disasters. But Jill? She’s not like that…She DOES love him, and she WILL marry him and have his babies. In a year or two…She just needs some time to get used to the idea. That’s all…
I’m kind of late in this conversation, but after reading the post and reading the comments, I have one thing to say.
We all love our friends, and as friends, we all recognize that we’re all faulty in some way, but our faults don’t get in the way of our love for each other.
I have friends that are very similar to this man- not necessarily in age, but in having a string of relationships where they pick relationships with a high likelihood of disaster from an outsider’s point of view. Some learn from failed relationships and move on. Others get bitter and resentful of the opposite sex. Some don’t learn and optimistically keep making the same mistakes, diving into subsequent relationship of similar probabilities with renewed abandon. Regardless, we don’t stop loving our friends based on their love life.
Since we still love our friends, you don’t stop worrying about the when you feel that they are in a bad situation- but at the same time, there’s a certain point where you just have to back off and let them be who they are, and just be their friend.
Those that are trapped in an unfortunate cycle can seem tragic in some ways, but I’ve found that those that are set to repeat the cycle are often blinded by what they feel is their own goodness/abilities and also often in a pursuit based on what they need and want, rather than searching for a relationship where two parties work with each other. It seems his desire for kids and a younger wife is overwhelming his best judgments, and he’s choosing to project his desires on a woman rather than looking for a woman that is looking to settle down. In many cases, these projection scenarios are subtle power/control issues manifesting with a kid glove.
continued…
There are many men and women that often love to “clip a bird’s wings,” so to speak. They are attracted to the freedom and vivacity that people often possess at a younger age. At the same time, they want to cage them and project their lives onto these younger partners. A part of that comes from low self esteem- these people often do feel more special when they can bend someone to abandon their dreams and settle for their vision of a life together. Regardless of intentions- because their surface intentions may be good- the fact remains that these people are often willing and wanting to stifle the dreams and progress of their younger partners in lieu of their own.
I think Debra is too fixated on the man being a “good” man. Just as with all of us, being “good” does not mean that we’re not prone to harmful behaviors toward self or others, nor should our “goodness” be an excuse for those behaviors. A person that would stifle the dreams of a much younger partner to bend to their will may still be a good friend, but he does not make a good partner. A lot of gentle, kind people can be be gently but persistently domineering and stifling. It seems that this man is fixated on living in his own fantasy through projection, rather than actually having a real relationship with a real human being and a peer.
His desire to ease his loneliness and satisfy his desire for progeny is unfortunately getting in his way of making sound choices for finding a compatible partner. This is a scenario that affects both genders. Women make this mistake as well. People sometimes go in search of a spouse and a parent for their future children, and not a partner that they can live and work together with.
In the process of trying to trap a free bird, he’s built a cage for himself that he can’t seem to escape. At the end of the day- he’s really not different from the men that prowl clubs and complain when “hot chicks” won’t “spread their legs” for them. His complaint is just a gentle version.
While he may think he’s being idealistic, and he may have convinced Debra of his good nature, this man not only does not understand life and love, but has no interest in doing so. He may be a “good” friend, but he’s a shallow and emotionally immature partner who has failed to mature along with his biological age. I have no sympathy for him, and he is the source of his own misery.
More time than what? Than a stay-at-home dad whose wife who has a career? Than a man who is not running his own business? (C’mon. Are you really trying to tell us that being a business owner is something for leisure hounds?)
I have a manager. I am not a micromanager. And in my mid-forties I have plenty of leisure time. My work is done to live – not the other way around.
Successful Business Owner =/= Workaholic
You’re also conflating the biological clock with the reality clock. Lynn isn’t arguing that men become less fertile as they age; she’s pointing out that a man who is sure he wants to have biological children will be more likely to find a suitable mate if he’s around the same age as said mate.
Says who? Assuming I hadn’t had a vasectomy, and wanted more children, It’d be very easy for me to find a woman willing to be their mother
hey Gonzman – I really appreciate your point of view. How does the baby thing relate to men in their 30’s pursuing much younger women? Granted, fertility declines a bit, but research has put 34 as the optimum age for a woman to reproduce due to increased emotional stability and ability to carry out the job at hand. So why do some men in their mid thirties still idealise much younger women?
Physical fertility is at a higher peak in the twenties, I’d suppose. We’re much more animals than many of us are comfortable in admitting, and to think this has no measure in attractiveness…
I appreciate what you are saying about soem people craving children made from their own bodies, I don’t – but hey, I suppose some do. Also, many younger women I know don’t want children any way. And what would the older man pursuing a child bearing age woman do if his catch turned out to be infertile, would he leave?
Some might. I know of more than a couple marriages which have ended due to one spouse being infertile, and the other wanting children.
It seems a bit extreem to go for someone of 22 when you are almost 50 just in order to have children – many women in their 40’s reproduce.
Seems silly to me no matter what the reason – young women tend to bore me to tears; I much prefer a woman in the 35 – 50 range, myself
If it’s so he can have many, many children he’ll be knackered – and so will she. I don’t believe love is that premeditated – real love lands were it lands, not were the most eggs are
We’ll just say you’re much more of a romantic than I am. Among the reasons to get married, love seems among the stupidest to me. “Lust on Steroids” tends to fade.
Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing, and in my experience a confusion between the two never goes unpunished.
The Gonzman: “In my younger days, before I became a father, fertility and the willingness to have children was a linchpin. I wanted to be a father. It’d would have built up resentment otherwise.†Why resentment? Would it be fair to “resent†a woman just because of some incapability of her body?
Wasn’t a question of fertility. I wanted children. I wanted to be a father. So I didn’t engage in long-term relationships or make emotional investments in women who didn’t want them.
Not an insignificant number of those women compromised their lack of desire to be a mother in order to have relationships – and wound up resenting the men they got involved with. They felt those men “owed” them something. I’m honest enough to see that if I had sacrificed fatherhood for a woman, likewise I’d have felt the same way.
Says who? Assuming I hadn’t had a vasectomy, and wanted more children, It’d be very easy for me to find a woman willing to be their mother
Not being you, and not knowing you in real life, I won’t presume to know how easy it would be for you to find a woman to be the mother of your children. But I do have a rational basis for my statement.
1) The number of men is nearly equal to the number of women.
2) Most women prefer to choose a man close to their own age (perhaps slightly older, but not a whole lot older). Only a minority prefer much older men.
3) The set of men who prefer much younger women is a larger percentage of the male population than the set of women who prefer a much older man. Significantly larger.
Therefore, unless you are a man with an unusually high ability to attract a mate (particularly rich, handsome and with looks that age well, whatever), your ability to attract a fertile mate will decline sharply as you age, and, if you really, really want to be a father, you had best not delay marriage beyond the normal fertile years of a woman.
Two caveats to this argument:
First, it applies to men who would need to find a much younger woman to have a fertile marriage. Most 50-year-olds won’t be able to persuade most 22-year-olds to become mothers of their children. But lots of men may be able to persuade a woman, say, five years younger to be the mother of their children, so a man does have a little more time to settle down than a woman. Just not as much as he sometimes thinks he does, if he overestimates his appeal to younger women.
Second, it applies to men who really, really want to be fathers. Men who simply want to get laid may well be able to get their wish for rather longer than men who would have wanted to be fathers, since a younger woman who prefers older men is always free to sleep with more than one of them. And, as others have mentioned, there are young women who are willing to have brief starter relationships with older men, who will, on reflection, prefer to settle down with people closer to their age, that they have more in common with.
FWIW, I think, after nineteen years of marriage, that I’m rather more of a romantic than you, but rather less of a romantic than Debra.
Gonzman – I know how physically attractive youth is!! without doubt. But I also know that I too would be bored to tears, within hours, of a man of 22. Don’t forget, men are at their peak as regards fertility at that age too (why else do you think the diet coke man looks about 22????). I wasn’t referring to physical attractiveness, but readiness for children and marraige.
Also, you may think you could fnd a mother for your children in the blink of an eye – but are you talking about quality here or just a baby carrier? most women I know, who are emotionally prepared for motherhood would run a mile if the prospective father told them love would not be a part of the equation. I know plenty of very long and happy relationships that begin with the first flush of love and develop into something more sturdy, but that element of romance is necessary.
You know what – I’m 38 and mid 40′s seems pretty old to me, in the upper reaches of the men I think of as potential partners. If I were looking just on the grounds of parenting potential and not love, you’d be off the list. When your child would be 15 and going through teenage traumas and making your every second hell – you’d be 60!! most people in their 40′s find that hard enough.
Oh, also – if it is right for men to seek out only women with the most eggs in order to start a family, then is it also right for women to only look for men with the most money and then fleece them for it when their loveless union ends in divorce? That is thge traditional set up isn’t it – younger woman, older, richer man. Or it could be that the old man pops his cloggs ala Anna Nicole Smith (not someone I’ve ever seen as a role model funnily enough).
Gonzman – One of the greatest problems with the English language is that we don’t have enough words for the different kind of love we experience and I think this may be the source of our misunderstanding here. Love is very much a real thing – I don’t mean infatuation.It’s funny you should use the phrase ‘lust on steroids’ because I think that fits your idea of us being ‘more animal’ than we care to admit and lusting feverishly after young people. Ofcourse we are are anilmals, we are human beings – probably the most faulted and destructive species on the planet – and we also have possibly the most highly developed intellect, something that needs satisfying just as much as our bodies.
Other species don’t idealise younger females exclusively – orangutangs idealise older females infact, and I suspect wolves die off before they become physically infertile anyway – both male and female.
If I were looking just on the grounds of parenting potential and not love, you’d be off the list.
You’d be wise to do that anyway, considering my vasectomy!
I’m done, as far as children go, I’ve had and raised mine. After years of hard work, if I liquidated everything, my net worth would be in the lower 8 figures, my retirement is set when I decide to take it – and who knows? One of these days when I get another buyout offer, I may say “Write the check, here’s the keys, and have fun!” I have no significant personal debt. In short, I have mione, and I see no reason to risk it in marriage.
Even were I the type, any woman would be wise to move on anyway. I’m bloody impossible to live with, being a three-time loser as far as trips up the aisle goes, I have come to just accept that. I’m independent, not amenable to compromise, and have grown to value the notion of being able to do as I please, when I please, without having to check with someone or negotiate with them. Sometimes my idea of a rollicking good time is to turn off everything but the Bat-Phone (My emergency line for work and the kids) get a stack of books, and just read – alone. Hell, I fish at times with no hook on the line just because I can point and say “Ssssssh! Fish!” It’d drive some poor woman batty. Why would I want to inflict that on anyone?.
Our host here – many other people – they value the whole marriage/relationship thing. Good on ya’ll. And good luck with it. And I really do mean that. And so long as that takes nary a crumb from my table – nor puts it there – it’s none of my business. Shave your head, dye yourselves brilliant crimson, and live on a mountaintop in wedded bliss with a potted plant if that makes you feel good.
I have done a brutally honest self-assessment of my priorities in life, of things I want to change and do – and marriage, forever and ever with the white picket fence, et al – didn’t make the cut. It is not for me, it provides nothing IMO for me which I do not already have in abundance being single – friendship, companionship, sex – the whole shooting match.
Your priorities are different? Great. I won’t presume to tell you what makes a successful marriage, but I am qualified as all get out to tell you what will contribute to a failure of it – chief of those being incompatible goals in life. And I am not just talking a difference of opinion, but things which are fundamentally opposed, where one will have to surrender a part of themselves. For instance – I am a hunter, and a devout carnivore. I could live with a vegetarian, even someone who is a vegan. For me to wind up with a woman as committed to veganism and animal rights as Hugo is? Disaster. Same with children. I don’t want any more. A woman who does? Why would she want to end up with me? One of us would win, and one would lose.
Debra’s problem? It isn’t a problem. It’s a misfortune. She fell for, and emotionally invested herself in, a man who had different priorities in life than her.
This is why I say that “love” is a dumb ****ing thing to base a marriage on, because it ascribes to the fundamentally unrealistic notion that “Love will find a way.” It’s great for a Hallmark Card. P!ss-poor for real life. It’s like my Tux. Flashy, sharp, and wonderful for an evening. For long term comfort, I can’t wait to get out of it. And that is marriage – not a sprint, a marathon. For 99.9% of the people in the world, the first bloom of passion fades, the fireworks go away, the roaring fire of new love banks to a comfortable glow. And too many people become addicted to that heady rush of a new relationship, so they keep seeking it over and over.
Slap the label of “settling” on it if you will, but you have to find something comfortable for your “forever and always.” I like “passion” as much as anyone, but I crave tranquility. I know a woman – hell, three – whom sparks fly between us, but it is high drama, and it drives me nucking futs to be around them for the long term. I tried an extended weekend getaway with one of them at the beginning of the year, and by the time we were coming home, it was all I could do to keep from making her ride in the trunk. And I know I drove her near insane too. We can have a great day outing or an evening, but living together? Marriage? It’s a chalk outline waiting to happen.
This is why I say – and I repeat – Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing, and a confusion between the two never goes unpunished.
2) Most women prefer to choose a man close to their own age (perhaps slightly older, but not a whole lot older). Only a minority prefer much older men.
There’s your operative term right there. And while I am no spring chicken, I’m not quite yet of the age where I’d have to seek out a much younger woman as a fertile partner, were I so inclined.
And for the record, I do prefer women to whom motherhood is not an issue, either having already had children or desiring none. I just regard my preference for women closer to my own age as a mere matter of personal taste rather than some virtue or failing.
I don’t mean sparks flying I mean love – where you sit together an don’t have to say anything, are just content. Where you accept each other completely. You seem to be confusing love with infatuation. Yes, worthwhile, marathon strength love is rare and it takes effort. I suspect that’s why so many of us are writing here.
I’d say you care quite a bit about relationships otherwise you wouldn’t spend so much of your precious tranqil time bantering with feminists on the internet about it. You come across as quite passionate about relationships. Also, I meant you’d be off the list bcause of your age alone even if you hadn’t had a vasectomy.
I am also happy single and look forward to my life with or without a partner, but am mature enough not to get myself entangled with people who will give me grief – ie those boyfriends from the past (none of whom I married) with whom the ‘sparks fly’, since when was that love?
There’s your operative term right there.
Sure. I didn’t say it was impossible for any man to get a much younger woman to have his children; I said that a man who really, really wants to be a father shouldn’t play those odds. I’m no spring chicken, either, but it’s not impossible for a woman my age to have children. I’m still short of menopause. Some women my age have children, without even resorting to fertility treatment. If a woman who really wanted to be a mother and had been foolish enough to wait till she was my age, she can certainly go for it and try. But, if she really wanted to be a mother, she was foolish to play those odds. A man my age who really wanted to be a father and still, for whatever odd reason, put off marrying has a somewhat better chance, because there’s a pool of women not much younger than him who are still more likely to be fertile than I am. But he was still foolish to wait, because his odds of parenthood have still declined. And he’s even more foolish if he waits longer.
If you really, really want to be a parent, you don’t just go for possible, you go for probable. The solidly probable. You pick, if you’re a woman, not just a man who could probably be talked into children (however otherwise attractive to you), but a man who shows real enthusiasm for the prospect. And, of course, to get pregnant when you’re still relatively young. And you choose, if you’re a man, to get married while you’re young enough to have really good odds of attracting really fertile women.
Since women are still pretty fertile in their thirties, this does still allow time for career development (even for women) before marriage. But one shouldn’t wait too long.
Gonz, are you actually saying that a 20-year-old man who is confident he wants to marry and have children would be more likely to find a compatible woman who wants children and is capable of having them if he waits twenty years or longer to start looking for her?
And the notion that ‘fertile’ and ‘mid-20s or younger’ are synonyms are just silly.
if you’re a man, to get married while you’re young enough to have really good odds of attracting really fertile women.
Gonz, are you actually saying that a 20-year-old man who is confident he wants to marry and have children would be more likely to find a compatible woman who wants children and is capable of having them if he waits twenty years or longer to start looking for her?
You can call it privilege if you want, and I am sure you will, but the fact is that even if you are younger than a man my age, the chances are he will be fertile long after menopause is a memory for you.
And my bank statement says I – or rather, men like me who might be so minded- could find a younger woman willing to tie themselves to an older man who is successful and established, and be a well off widow still young enough to enjoy the rest of her life. YOU may not do this.
There are plenty who will.
Sure, it’s a dice roll, but, it’s a dice roll which has at least a fair to middling chance of being successful for a man, and a chance which can have the odds padded with a little planning and work on his part.
And the fact is, women who become parents later in life are noteworthy. Men who do so are a dime a dozen.
Actually, it’s men who become parents earlier in life who are a dime a dozen. Men who start second families later in life are probably a quarter a dozen, but men who don’t have children at all until late middle age are probably rarer than you would like.
Again: you keep avoiding Lynn’s points, which is not “men of a certain age will never find a fertile young filly”. It’s that a man who truly wants a family hurts his chances significantly if he decides to wait decades until he’s got a nice IRA, and then to try and hook up with one of the twentysomethings he could be dating now.
I do, actually, know a number of men who waited until their mid-30s or 40s and decided that now that they’ve gotten the well-paying IT job, it’s time to find that cute young thing they never got to date before. And I assure you that they’re not having quite the easy time of it that you portray, perhaps because they’re not interested in a cold business transaction of a marriage. They want the house, picket fence, kids package, and they’re finding that the attractive young twentysomethings are interested in other attractive young twentysomethings–and the ones who are willing to overlook that for money are not, shall we say, prime soulmate material.
(No, I don’t think this is funny or deserved; I think it’s sad, because these are not men who think they are entitled to hot young pussy if they wave their bank statements around. They’re decent guys who just assumed that age wouldn’t affect them as much as it did–and didn’t most of us, as dumb young’uns, think the same thing?)
Well, as long as we’re playing the “I know many people,” doesn’t-prove-anything game, I know many men who waited to marry, built their nest egg, but when they got into their middle years they took a look at all the marriages around them–the ones that failed and the ones that may have “suceeded” in the sense that the two people are still together but miserable and the guy knows he’ll get reamed if he dares to divorce–and then decided, “Wow, I can’t believe I dodged that bullet.”
I still maintain that it’s significant that the idea of “’till death do we part” marriage was invented back when death was likely to part us in our mid 30s. I really don’t think we were meant to put up with each other as long as we’re trying to do it.
Chief – I’ve never directly responded to you before, but I find your commentary quite interesting as the daughter of a woman who was thrice hospitalized and held in lockdown for severe depression and suicidal tendencies. She tried to electricute (sp?) herself in the bathtub with a hairblow dryer when I was around six. Ten years later, she is doing quite well thanks to good medication and a husband who, although not perfect, stood by her in sickness and in health. The reason I tell you this is because I worry what affect your anti-marriage and anti-women views will have on your daughter (and son). You seem like a great dad, and I don’t think for a minute that I understand what you’ve gone through. But these are just my insights. My father is also an MRA type of guy, and from my point of view, much of his distrust in the female species seems more about his wife’s illness – and what it put us all though – and less about women at large.
and then decided, “Wow, I can’t believe I dodged that bullet.â€
No doubt. I know many women who feel the same. You’d probably call them man-hating bitches, though.
Mythago, I really like a lot of what you write and I tend to empathize with a lot of what you’ve been through (someday I’d like to have a non-defensive, non-snarky conversation with you about raising a special needs child) but your tendency to put words in my mouth (and others who disagree with you, I’ve noticed) gets tiresome. I wouldn’t call any woman who made the conscious decision not to marry a man-hating bitch, at least not on that basis alone. I respect almost anybody who stands on their own two feet and paddles their own canoe (though they probably have to sit to do that). This is why I respect first-wave feminists and libertarian feminists of the Ifeminist strain but have much less regard for more radical feminists who just want women to replace dependency on a man with dependency on a government program.
Mermade, it’s not the female species I distrust so much as the lopsided divorce/child custody laws. This, combined with the fact that depression is either two times or four times more prevalent in women depending on whose statistics you believe means that I’m a big advocate of men thinking twice before making that unholy leap. My daughter will be raised to the best of my ability and loved regardless of what she does. My son’s autism is severe enough that I doubt he’ll have much interest in romantic relationships, yet is remarkably happy so far. I sometimes think HE’S the lucky one.
Still, your words were kind, and I’m glad things worked out well for your family.
This is why I respect first-wave feminists and libertarian feminists of the Ifeminist strain but have much less regard for more radical feminists who just want women to replace dependency on a man with dependency on a government program.
Um. If you’re going to throw around specific labels, a “radical feminist” is not one who wants to rely on government programs–I believe the usual terms for that would be something like “socialist feminist”, but I’m not up on my epithets. Radical feminists are the ones who want to tear down existing, patriarchal social structures. (The ‘libertarian feminists’, as far as I can tell, insist that sexism is all women’s fault.)
I’m not the one putting negative opinions about women in your mouth; you do that all on your own. I don’t know if you realize how much you make it plain that you think the female half of the species (save, perhaps, your daughter) are flat-out worthless and evil, but that’s very much the impression you give.
This, combined with the fact that depression is either two times or four times more prevalent in women depending on whose statistics you believe
I suspect, though, that some of this may be due to the same underlying problem manifesting differently in men and women. Alcoholism is significantly more prevalent among men than among women, depression significantly more prevalent among women than among men, and the two things are correlated and often run in the same families.
Both mood disorders and substance abuse can put a big strain on a marriage; I’m not prepared to say which one is worse to live with, since it probably depends on how bad a version of the problem you’re dealing with.
Speaking as a fellow spouse of someone with bipolar disorder (but with a husband who works very hard at managing his bipolar disorder, cooperating with his psychiatrist, etc.).
Chief, you know better than to start going after feminists here. Please folks, remember the rules.
Lynn-
A man might change his mind about having children. Heck, Hugo will likely become a dad “later“ in life.
I see what you’re saying, but the logistics might be a bit different than you have suggested. The marriage market for financially independent men like Gonz is WORLDWIDE. I’ve traveled a bit and assuming that a western guy is in reasonable shape and is gainfully employed, finding a younger woman to marry him is just not a problem. Even in gender imbalanced China this is so. (The weird thing about China is that it seems that so many of the highly educated women are interested in Western men . . . maybe because of the sexism of the traditional society?)
In this country you have to factor in that a solid 5% of men have done time in the joint and there are more exclusively gay men than exclusively lesbian women. Most of my female friends don’t want to date ex-cons and gay guys.
Maybe it’s because of this that I have noticed women in their late 20’s and 30’s open to the idea of dating older men.
On top of this there are many women between 20 to 45 who already have a child or two from a previous marriage/relationship but are also open to having more children. Some of those women actively seek out older men.
I think that many of the difficulties that a man in his 40’s or 50’s would have in the search for a younger woman would relate to unrealistic expectations about her appearance.
As a Christian I feel that every relationship should be subject to prayer and the guidance of God. If God brings an older man and a younger woman (or vice versa) together, great. If all the guy cares about is how she looks, that’s a problem!
I just wanted to come back to this thread to say that I’ve thought a lot about it and reached the conclusion that I need to make peace with what is going to happen between “Mr. Sad Sack” and this woman. If he is determined to marry her and she ends up eventually capitulating to his desires, and they end up happy, there’s not a lot I can do about it. If they don’t, there’s certainly no way I could have prevented both of them from having learned it the hard way. I only hope that they don’t end up producing any children who end up becoming hostages to that lesson learned, while they spend the rest of their lives having to cope with the sad fact of “joint custody.”
If this ends badly for Mr. Sad Sack, as I fear it will, and he finds himself devastated by the experience, there’s nothing I can do to prevent that, either. I simply have to trust that God and his therapist will get him through it, and maybe even get him to a place where he can make constructive decisions that will help him to have better odds for future happiness.
Right now, the way I see it, he’s taken a gamble that this long shot is going to work out–he’s assuming that because of the successes he’s achieved in life, the odds against this kind of relationship working in the long term simply don’t apply to someone like him, and that he can “have it all”–50 years of sheer freedom, and only then commitment, marriage to a sweet young thing, and kids later in life. He might be right, but if he’s wrong, I can’t spend all my time worrying about how he’s going to cope. That’s in other people’s hands–not mine.
Davev – there are also young men worldwide who wish to escape poverty or oppression via marraige, so that is not a gender specific phenomena. Older women with money can also find vulnerable or poor men to marry them. I have to say it suprises me that a Christian should think marrying for money or a passport is a healthy way to live.
I also have to say that most of the age gap relationships I now of consist of a women with a man who is bit younger – the women I know say younger men are less sexist, more open and more fun. Not bound down by expectations. I was only advised by such a lady last night – whose wonderful fiance is 6 years her junior ”try a younegr man – they are a lot of fun you know, he’s an angel”. The women I know would not consider dating a man more than a few years older than them – partly because there is a generational sea change in attitudes towards women. Older men are more lickley to be stuck in the mud.
It’s telling that the only contributors who think youner women are queing up to date older men – are, wait for it, men!!!
The only few relationships I know of where there was an age disparity were my father-in-law and a woman acquaintance/friend. My father-in-law is in his 70′s and his wife left him. She was over 20 years younger. In a letter she wrote to me she stated that she was 23 and had been raised that when you get married, it should be through thick and thin. She went on to state, “not always is this sound judgment…for your life or for your health.” She gave up her youth for him. She spoke of his controlling, manipulative, selfish, insensitive and agressive nature, and then expressed that she was “dying” in the relationship and very lonely. She said looking back she realized the toll it took. She said, “I look back, and it never was us, it was him or them…this is what I see now.” She wasted her youth on this man and he is bitter. He was in his 40′s when he met her. His daughter created a lot of problems in the marriage due to her manipulative conduct.
My own husband has often remarked about older man/younger woman pairings and construes that it must feel great and says something about the man to have the affections/attentions of a younger woman. It is an ego thing, because he talks of how attracting a younger person feels–that the recipient must really be hot. It is not a love connection.
The other woman was an ordained minister who married a man that she had known previously for 20 years. He was divorced and she married him. He was her 5th husband. She was about 20 years younger. When I met her he had suffered a stroke and she was embittered. He had money and purchased her material possessions and a nice home, but all she could do was complain bitterly about her lot in life. When I asked her why she married someone so much older, she said he looked so much younger and always seemed healthy. She claimed he lied to her about his health and she was so bitter for having to take care of someone who she thought would be taking care of her financially. She found another man shortly thereafter to marry, while he husband was near death and in the final stages of disintegration.
I had my share of inappropriate attentions from older men…so many, but I would have felt like I was sleeping with daddy and that would not have been a healthy choice for me. I also deserve to be loved and appreciated for who I am and I am not an AGE, but a living, loving, breathing human being. I have far more to offer than just an age.
…did you just ban “Martin” for criticizing your entry? That’s just…incredibly sad. I thought you made some good points in earlier articles, but this one, along with your reaction to “Martin”, leaves much to be desired.
Karen, I just went back and looked at this entry, and you seem quite wise to me. There is so much to be said for wanting to be loved as a whole person. Sometimes I wonder what it’s like to be on the other side: What is it like for a woman to be young and beautiful and have a perfect body? Do you discount the endless attention you get from an endless parade of men thinking that it probably has little value because so many of them, when they’re looking at you, don’t see you: they merely see reflected back at themselves a vision of youth and studliness and desirability?
Sometimes I think older men who chase after young and beautiful women think of them like that Mirror of Erised in the Harry Potter books. If you’ve read the books, you know what I mean. People look into the Mirror of Erised (“desire” spelled backwards) and see themselves not as they truly are, but as they would appear if all their hearts’ desires came true. I think older men look at younger women and they do not see a life companion, not really. They do not see another human being with dreams, ideas, needs, feelings, etc. What they see is themselves: themselves weighing less, with more and darker hair, a greater spring in their step…themselves not getting older. They fall in love, not with the woman, but with the youthful image of themselves that being with such a woman given them. And if they should ever lose her, they age overnight.
I don’t understand the appeal in that.
“Do you discount the endless attention you get from an endless parade of men thinking that it probably has little value because so many of them …”
Pretty much, yes. I never considered myself beautiful or possessed of a perfect body, but I certainly had a time in my life when I had way more men pursuing me than I needed, and I rarely took that pursuit personally. Especially not the pursuit by men who were much older; I assumed most of them just wanted any old woman who was relatively young and skinny.
There are exceptions, of course.
In this country you have to factor in that a solid 5% of men have done time in the joint and there are more exclusively gay men than exclusively lesbian women. Most of my female friends don’t want to date ex-cons and gay guys.
Maybe it’s because of this that I have noticed women in their late 20’s and 30’s open to the idea of dating older men.
Um, davev, didn’t you just contradict yourself there? An older man, having lived longer, is probably MORE likely to have done time, or to have decided that he is gay after all.
Debra,
I just reviewed this entry again too. I agree with you. I am also convinced that none of the older males that I encountered ever saw me as a whole person–a human being with dreams, ideas or needs. It was all about them and their needs, and even more important their need to feel good about themselves or get their needs met at my expense. I was a mere object to satisfy their ego. I recall one man who tried to lure me with the promise that he could take me out to dinner and to places that my “other boyfriends” would never be able to afford. This tactic backfired because of the suggestion that my affections could be bought. I didn’t view myself as he did, despite being inexperienced and vulnerable in some ways. Some females are willing to use males like this as well. I never considered myself beautiful or possessed with a perfect body either, but I was pursued relentlessly and received inappropriate attentions by much older males.
I do recollect a joke a male friend of mine sent me recently about the subject of age…It goes something like this…
A man and his wife, now in their 60′s, were celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary. On their special day a good fairy came to them and said that because they had been so good that each one of them could have one wish.
The wife wished for a trip around the world with her husband.
Whoosh! Immediately she had airline/cruise tickets in her hands.
The man wished for a female companion 30 years younger…
Whoosh…immediately he turned ninety!!!
Gotta love that fairy!
In August of this year, I married a man twenty-seven years my senior, whom I have been with for five years (we met when I was twenty-three). Both our families attended the wedding and genuinely support our unusual union. He has no children and we do not wish to have children together. Our relationship could only be described as loving.
Am I looking for a father figure? Perhaps, as I lost my father in a car accident when I was four. Is this necessarily an unhealthy or even sick desire? I don’t think so. However, I don’t see my husband as a father-substitute and we don’t relate to one another that way. Sure, I value his stability, his brilliance (he’s the most intelligent man I’ve ever met), his kindness, and his inate goodness. He’s financially-stable, but not super-wealthy. I’m a CPA, so I’d have a comfortable lifestyle without him.
I don’t for a second think he “took my youth away”. He’s introduced me to places and people I probably never would have encountered had I not fallen in love with him.
I think Debra’s “friend” could me genuinely in-love with a younger woman–for reasons other than her tight thighs and naivete. Really, there are some 22-year-old who are far more contemplative than their older sisters and whose outlook on life some older men might find refreshing. Debra should get a life of her own and stop worrying about a situation she can’t change. Love is found sometimes in places where the head doesn’t want to go but the heart does. This does not always lead to a bad outcome.
I have a lot to say on this subject, so rather than post it here and use up Hugo’s bandwidth, I’ve posted it on a separate web page. You can read it by clicking on the blue “Pacific” name above.
However, any comments will, of necessity, need to remain here on Hugo’s blog because my page is not comment-enabled.
Hugo, this is a piece of disgusting double moral. These two people both think they deserve a relationship with someone. They don’t; nobody deserves anybody’s love, it comes to us undeserved if it does. There are no better or worse reasons for believing that it’s somebody’s duty to be your partner; there are no good reasons at all. Because you didn’t get a girlfriend when you were young isn’t a good reason. Because you happen to be in the “right” age isn’t, either.
(I’ve read Debra’s comments and this really is my impression of her. I haven’t read Pacific’s answer.)
Also, there’s a bit in the end of your text that doesn’t seem to make any sense:
“And frankly, it’s easier to give direction to Pacific: “get over yourself and look for a woman in your peer group with whom you can have a real connection. If they all seem too ‘old’ for you, it may be that you’re not mature enough for them.—
If he isn’t mature enough for women in his own age, isn’t a relationship with someone younger exactly the thing he should be doing? After all, the younger woman probably is less mature as well. (If they’re equally immature, the more chances they should have to have “a real connection”.)
No, I’m serious, even if my wording may be a little sarcastic. I’ve seen this argument before and I’ve never been able to understand it. I wonder if it’s actually nothing more than an attempt to insult.
For the record, I am a young-ish woman not in a relationship with any man of any age.
Urra, you’ve totally hit the proverbial nail. I humbly admit that I am no more deserving of sympathy than Debra. But please, let’s not forget that Debra deserves no sympathy, either. She needs to grow up and get over herself.
Once again, Urra, kudos to you for your valuable insight regarding levels of maturity. And for the record, I hereby forfeit my sympathy card because it no longer suits my game plan. However, doing so does not change the fact that Hugo’s analysis of my problems reeks of unadulterated tripe. Or at the very least, fallacious reasoning regarding maturity, male entitlement, and a host of other problems. Still, I maintain that he’s eminently entertaining in a manner bordering on the Kingesque.
And one more thing, Urra. I’m surprised that you’re not in a relationship with anyone. You’ve definitely captured my heart with your insightful analysis. Again, kudos!
Pacific,
I’m curious why were you “looking for someone around 15 years younger”.
I totally disagree Im dating a man much older than i am and we have a great relationship.
Karen: as I’ve already explained on my lengthy post on a separate page, I want a younger woman because I’ve never had one. Not to mention the fact that I have more in common with younger women than with women in my peer group, because younger women and I more easily match up with similar levels of life experience. A 35-y.o. would be good; a 32-y.o. would be terrific. Of course , there are certainly other factors, in addition to age, to consider.
Pacific,I am a 36 year old and I have been with my wonderful husband who is 63 for 8 years now. He has helped me raise my 16 year old daughter and we have an adorable 3 year old plus a baby due in October.Let me say that this is great.we both sacrificed something for our love. He supported my dream of finishing school and financially while I know that I will be a young widow but Hey, I would rather be with someone I truely love for 20 years than to be in a lifetime of a crummy marriage, so to everyone here on this board including Debra, TAKE THAT!! By the way I bring in an IT salary and my nubby is a college professor that makes less than a school teacher in pa. SO, I loved him cause he is a damn great man and he loves me cause I am a great gal. Debra wants this guy to fail in this relationship! I hope those to people get married and make it work. Peace and love at any age, Tina P.S. It is the hottest sex ever!!! Bada Bing,,,,
TinaLouise, congratulations on your wonderful marriage. You sound like you’ve found what you really want. I know that Hugo would be the first to say something like “Exceptions do not disprove rules”; however, Hugo hasn’t proven any of his own rules in the first place. Personally, I don’t know that I would actually want someone that much younger (27 years) than myself, but stranger things have happened. Say hi to Gilligan and Mary Ann for me.