On Age Gaps
“Men age like fine wine. Women, not so much.”
Last August, I ended a four-year relationship with a man nearly 15 years older than me (I’m now 42) and while I’ve flourished, healed, and grown since then, lately I’ve been feeling new emotions surface, specifically anger and resentment towards him. This was initially perplexing because I considered him a nice/good guy. But, today, more than a year after being broken up, he told me he still loved me and always wanted to be married to me, but continued on and eventually made a shocking statement that I will never forget. He said:
“Men age like fine wine. Women, not so much.”
Wow.
Let me preface with the fact that I’m sexy af and get hit on regularly by guys 15 years younger than me. His statement, though, validated my years-long intuition surrounding his behaviors throughout our relationship, which revealed how he perceived females, but what’s disturbing are all of the other things that a man reveals by saying something like that, which are painfully illuminating to hear and absorb as a woman. Especially as a woman who was once dating him. But statements like that are what eventually lead to Epstein’s Island and serve as fuel for the continued war on women for simply existing as we naturally are.
A balding man in his mid-fifties, approaching sixty, saying that men improve with age while women deteriorate is participating in and perpetuating a belief system that conveniently elevates himself and all men, as well as their interior worlds, above women.
Such a statement reveals a coarse apathy to equality in life experiences, as well as a disregard for two people of the same age, aging together, cultivating a genuine connection. That sort of perspective discounts authentic love with a woman. A man with that mindset really just wants a young body to fuck and follow him around in public, “elevating” his self-image.
An age gap isn’t necessarily a bad thing, either, but when power is misaligned or disproportionate, personalities are a mismatch, or when two people cannot ultimately form a cohesive bond, or mutual understanding of one another, or trust of one another, there isn’t an anchoring of security or genuine 'relatedness beyond whatever superficially keeps the two together. It was easy, for example, to drink coffee in the morning and eat dinner together, travel to fun places, stargaze, but beyond adventures and mundane routine behaviors, the bond wasn’t deep or fundamentally secure.
I couldn’t bloom and grow in ways that I was naturally being pulled to, I couldn’t talk about all the things I loved, and I consistently felt like a mere accessory to his lavish materialistic lifestyle. The draining feeling that all of my energy and time would be going to him, via texting and messaging, or at some event, became tiring and exhausting. My interior world remained neglected and starved for basic nourishment while his seemingly thrived. For four years, I was anxious, broke, frustrated, insecure with our relationship, and unbelievably lonely. I was simultaneously processing a move across the country, followed by a wave of deaths, loss of income streams, including the deaths of my beloved dog and companion of 17 years, my father, two close uncles and aunt, and my stepdad. Grieving in ways I never had before, yet for some reason, I had convinced myself that the relationship with him was worth continuing, believing in, and working on.
Dating a man who is in a different season of life — he’s actively retiring and approaching sixty, but I’m entering my peak years — meant my life and its scope of possibilities would become greatly narrowed and dependent upon someone who is in a totally different place in life. Not saying it couldn’t work with the right bond and love, but I’m just not there yet mentally. I’m also deeply impassioned by music, so the thought of never dancing with a man again (he doesn’t dance) or singing songs with a man I love (he doesn’t sing along to songs) or laughing until it feels like my ribs are about to shatter (we never laughed hard together) just crushed me. I simply couldn’t continue going along with whatever the relationship was. It started to feel like an arrangement that benefited him far more than it did me. I couldn’t ultimately relate to someone who didn’t sing, dance, cry occasionally, or laugh at himself. For two people to work, age gap or not, there must be equality, reciprocity, and mutual understanding.
When he (essentially) said that women get uglier and less desirable as they age, he implicitly established a misogynistic power hierarchy in which a man’s value is permitted to survive — and even increase — with age, experience, wrinkles, history, authority, and accumulated identity, while a woman’s value is disproportionately dependent on retaining the physical markers of youth.
As a woman well-seasoned with experience and confidence, self-respect and hard-earned wisdom, being romantically involved with a man who says something like that is for me now simply out of the realm of my desire wheelhouse. He lost any remaining sex appeal that he possessed. But the fact that he made such a demoralizing statement about women aging as he is treating an ever-growing bald spot and thinning hair was the comedic relief I needed to mentally survive the moment. He made it known throughout the relationship that he was attracted to youthfulness in a woman, but to go so far as to diminish a woman’s value based on the fact that she naturally grows old revealed how dark and narcissistic his intentions are.
When attraction is rooted substantially in knowing someone, those experiences actually deepen desire because the body and face of your woman becomes inseparable from her history and biography throughout time. But as for him and his expectations of intimacy, his statement points towards a devaluation of vulnerability, hardship, and growth that comes as a result from living life and sharing life with someone else. This is what relatedness is all about. Relating. Relation-ship.
His apparent belief is that a man's interior life becomes increasingly relevant and powerful as he ages, while the woman's interior life somehow becomes less valuable or honorable, this reveals his actual perception of women. It also reveals that he has an extraordinarily impoverished understanding of attraction and love.
This also revealed that he believes time becomes flattering when applied to him, but disqualifying when applied to women. I cannot stress how much hotter, smarter, and more dangerous I am at age 42 than I was at 22. I feel as if my life has only just begun in so many ways. I’m peaking creatively, intellectually, financially, spiritually, physically… I look at my reflection in the mirror at this age in an entirely different way than I did in previous decades.
In fact, the idea of being in a romantic relationship with an older man at this point is far less desirable than it once was. Conversations with him were like talking to a boomer. I look back and realize that most of his appeal came from all the stuff he accumulated and surrounded himself with, including his car collection, which I enjoyed. But all the cars, stylish home goods, and bespoke clothes eventually lost their value. They became a symbol for what he didn’t have, which was a rich interior world. I’m not one to dismiss a potential mate based on age alone, but I’ve reached the wisdom which teaches that a woman’s interior world is to be learned from, certainly not something to be unseen, unappreciated, undervalued, misunderstood, belittled, or impoverished. What is of utmost value is not material wealth or status, but the richness of one’s inner world.
But truth is, an ideal relationship isn’t about age, but is rather based on becoming one with someone else’s soul… to dance and sing with… to learn and grow with… to share pain with… to support and laugh with… to play and pretend with… to imagine and create with… to understand and listen to… to travel and experience life together… to relate with. As a happily maturing 42 year old woman, my sexy ass will always remain open to that depth of magic and love.
And to end on a wise and experienced note:
“I’d rather be with a broke man who loves me than a rich man who don’t.”