| A ,
anonymous
writes: Hi - im in love with a man 17 years my junior. He's 29 next month & I'm 46. We met at work - I thought he was mid-thirties; he thought I was mid-thirties & by the time we found out the truth we were already together.We've had more than our fair share of problems. He had to leave 9 months into the relationship for work although he was always very upfront about this so I knew from the start that he would be leaving. In the event it was a nightmare with a lot of very serious arguing & fighting as a result of the distance & our seeming inability to split up. He's now living locally again. I was separated when we met after a long-term marriage and have four children the youngest of whom is only 8 years younger than him. But they like him & get on well with him and still have regular contact with their dad who is himself now engaged - also to someone younger! I had lived alone before this relationship & there was no-one else involved in the breakdown of my marriage - it basically just ran its course.Anyway after a really horrible & protracted divorce (4 court hearings!) I got my decree absolute last summer.I have my own house & he still lives at home with his family so there are some obvious mismatch problems - him with mum & dad; me with kids but we pretty much manage that.It's just that every attempt to 'live together' as a proper couple ends in seriously bad fights.I think he's too young & not ready & that I'm still too bashed in from the divorce.We are unable to split up & equally unable to last more than a week or two without a blazing row.The sex is great & when we work we're amazing - we've both never had so much fun but I'm now at the point where the arguing is outweighing this fun & I'm at a complete loss as to what to do - we are having couples counselling but even that's a joke because we take it in turns to keep missing it.We are so stuck.I'm very aware of my 'habit' of fighting unresolved from my marriage now re-activated my another relationship.Equally he comes from a home enviroment where arguing is used as a 'cure-all' or 'get out of jail card' i.e. dont want to pay the bill/ go to the wedding/ deal with something tricky?? Have an argument & get out of it under cover of fire!Please advise me - this is driving me nuts because if we are genuinely unable to resolve this fighting together with all the inherant age-gap what's the point???
View related questions:
at work, divorce, engaged, lives at home, split up, wedding Reply to this Question
Share |
Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
reader, Rebecca Batchelor +, writes (14 March 2005):
 You may both just be using the age difference as an excuse when it comes to arguing as it seems you both have unresolved issues that simply need to be resolved! Perhaps it would be an idea if you both go to separate counselling that isn't actually to do with your relationship but directed more at healing each of you individually. This could help you ultimately with your relationship.However, if you are both determined to make your relationship work, which hopefully you are, you wouldn't take it in turns to miss the counselling sessions you have already got up and running. Try to agree together that you will go to attempt to work the issues out.It sounds as if you have both lapsed into a habit with the rowing and it is futile. Next time you feel an argument coming on, agree to have a certain word said which means the argument has to end no matter what and that you both walk away from each other to calm down. Then, when you are ready to talk, allow each other a certain amount of time to have your say, say 15 minutes. The other one can't interrupt. You need to learn to listen to each other.This way, if you learn to ease the arguing, the good times will hopefully outweigh the bad.Age gap relationships can work if you make allowances for each other and compromise as well as understanding each other.Good luck.
|
