Can there be everlasting love with a younger man?

July 28th, 2006 • Related • Filed Under

Why is life always about conclusions, closure, the end results and the ending? Why don’t people actually appreciate living for the moment? Every self respecting self help book and guru is now advocating that we go on the new track and stop to smell the roses but yet do we really? Why are we taught to be objective and clear minded all our lives? Do we ever work without the reward or promotion in mind and love without the end in sight?

Sure, many people fall in love and get married, have kids and the whole rigmarole that goes into a “relationship” but, if we were honest with ourselves, how many really “fall in love” with the person only after ensuring adequate compatibility of this person to ourselves in terms of hobbies, interests, objectives in lives and financial security that each can provide. And what the final ending will be if all or some needs are not met?

Recently, I met an old friend who told me that she is seeing a younger man. An explosion of chemicals in the brain caused by hormonal imbalance due to a very, very early premature pre- menopausal state according to her made her mind go just a tad off tangent), they connected and had been going out for the last three months(wow, brave girl, I thought silently).

So, what is everlasting love? Is it a decision or is it fate? I know of a couple of mixed race, met at sixteen years of age in the 1940s, fell in love , got married, lived a happily married live with children and grandchildren and died in their eighties, two weeks apart from each other, because the remaining spouse couldn’t envisage life alone and prayed daily to also be taken away soonest possible. Peace and together again Uncle and Aunty C, death due to unknown cause.

What makes a couple still gaze lovingly at each other after 40 years of marriage and the husband still tells the wife that she is still as beautiful as ever, motherly looking as she is? What makes a couple stay together despite all the fights that borderline on hatred, borne out of the difficulty in their daily lives… but yet when one needs the other, seemingly unconsciously there is that unspoken and unwavering love and support. There is they say a very fine line between love and hate and that the only way to know real love is really in times of need. Though the latter is definitely not an exemplary relationship that will make movies and tears well up in anyone eyes. Do successful marriages and relationships?conform to the societal formula, where the man is breadwinner and older more responsible party, who holds the marriage together?

When I listen to this stories, I wonder if I, so jaded by societal norms and expectations, where we ooh and aaah at anyone married to a rich successful spouse and look at our lesser selves miserably if otherwise, can ever be brave enough and allow myself to fall in love with a man who is not richer and more successful than I. Automatically though not necessarily, an older man is presumed to be older, more mature and financially and emotionally stable. And yet this ideal man and I are so compatible we cannot help but gaze lovingly in each others’ eyes for the rest of our lives? Define rich and define success right? So if I allow myself to defy societal expectations, it means that I can marry any age, any religious denomination and any form of kinky and perverse habits without thoughts of self preservation whatsoever. Am I right?

And just for a moment there, I entertained the idea of what it would be like to venture into a relationship with a younger man, thirteen years to be exact? One friend says, why not? If he really loves you, it can work, her aunt did it and is still happily married after ten years. It is, she says, really how I feel about it. Another friend said, no, because women age very quickly after fifty and he will still be thirty seven years young, a man in his prime. Although it would be okay, if we started early like maybe if the woman is in her mid- thirties, but in my current scenario the poor chappie will only be kid of twenty, right out of school. Not even trusted by most governments to exercise his voting rights err… his judgment, to choose a leader who will lead the country morally and efficiently … I would be very much a cradle snatcher (sigh)…

But back to the dilemma, when I am sixty four and he is 51 years, will he still hold my wrinkled hand and tell me I am beautiful, wrinkles and gout and all? Or will there be more nubile fleshier pastures? Well, Paul McCartney got his answer on his 64th birthday, Heather called it quits and walked out holding half his assets in tow but not his hand. Ralph Fiennes broke up with his older woman girlfriend after more than a decade together. For Demi Moore and Ashton Kutscher, time will tell.

What would be my biggest fear, if I were to get involve with a younger man? The fact that he will have many younger choices, is one. Or maybe I have to downgrade since he may not be able to keep me in the “manner that I am accustomed”, whatever that is. How will I feel wearing the pants in the family, because bossy as I am, I still like to feel taken care of. Maybe, I will not be able to satisfy him sexually as I grow older or when my hormone kicks in on the reverse. Can he keep up mentally and emotionally or will I bore him with my clumsiness as I age? Is it fair for him to carry the burden of my emotional hang-ups, with a decade more of days lived, oh boy, there definitely are some! Is love really enough, then? Even if this man, right this moment, can make me feel so loved that the age difference, the years of life experiences and economic difference just melts away and it is enough to just bask in the love and attention of this person; not younger, not older, just as he is and more importantly just as I am. Yes, I’m the confused and immature one here…

If I were really honest to myself, my biggest and deepest fear is probably being abandoned in my twilight years should said fella changes his mind while he is still young enough to get a fresher replacement. Logic and statistics tell me that this could happen to any relationship and I also could be a perpetrator in the abandoning department, but somehow most women, I believe due to our lack of inner security perhaps and the blasted Cinderella syndrome, we believe if it is with a younger person there is a higher probability and propensity to be abandoned.

Younger men , as young as twenty some years, it would seem have no issues with bedding older women and they are up for it even if it is a good looking 50 year old woman. It is an issue of the male ego and sexual conquests, just like men who have relationships with women twenty years younger than themselves.? That they can still do it and that they are desirable enough for a more sophisticated woman is a challenge, but a committed relationship…hmm.

So, is it true then, that there is no happy ending in sight for most women who have relationships with much younger men? Is this yet another form of women’s inequality in society despite us trying to? prove otherwise by going out with younger men and that if the men can, the women can too, but to that end …at our own peril.? That to? love and defy convention, live for the moment, risk scandal , be called a fool for keeping the younger man and then be dumped and be called a bigger fool and served her right , how desperate can she get at the end of it? Or should she just live life and let love do the leading and enjoy the rose garden, after all there are no guarantees in love and in life?

Marriages break down, even the most promising looking ones, people can die prematurely due to cancer and SARS and from any forthcoming new age disease, so why not throw caution to the wind and just live…eventually all roses wilt anyway…so should we judge the end results , why not just enjoy the journey…. Maybe I am looking only at certain prototypes and not giving enough credit to true love and compatibility and the integrity of the person and most importantly, insufficient faith in my own judgment.

As with all great relationships, it is really about two people and it is actually quite oblivious to society’s expectations; younger older? true love? wonder if Aunty and Uncle C will agree… That a lasting relationship is based on trust and doing things together, based on friendship and a decision to stay together and so many more X factors notwithstanding and age not necessarily one of them.

So, to Demi and Ashton, good luck and every happiness. Paul, you hang in there, old man (I mean that affectionately) and Ralph Fiennes, you fiend, I hope she left you and not the other way round… to my dear friend, bon voyage…

Anyway, it was a good thought to ponder while waiting for this dastardly long traffic jam to get moving again…better think inane thoughts then show my finger at the &(*&($#$ car that just cut in front of me…, finally, we’re moving, phew-ww.

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