I’ve been trying to date people since getting divorced, for like 3 years now. Men and women our age are busy, poly, or pretty damaged with avoidant attachment. l'm now seeing a person 14 yrs my junior for the last 8 months. He's a cutie, but he wants a family and I definitely do not want any more kids. I told him to start dating to find his future wife, while still dating me, and if he finds her, i'll leave the picture, although now I sort of resent him doing it. Should I just break up with him?
Okay first of all, go off sis. Chilling with a younger man after a divorce is as much a rite of passage as introducing retinol to your nighttime skincare routine or becoming an obnoxious house plant person. It’s inevitable! As seen in many Netflix films! Sadly also shared is the experience of navigating the often disappointing wading pool of dating in your 30’s/40’s (50’s?!?) aka a veritable smorgasbord of confused, emotionally unavailable, avoidant style peeps. It’s ROUGH out there, and I see you.
I think, in many ways, the younger lover is a perfect match. Sure you’ll maybe have to teach some stuff but the sex drive is often similar and when we have arrived at a place where we recognize we don’t necessarily “need” partners, we can imagine the ways in which we could WANT them. Which is liberating! And fun! However, when it comes up against these more serious questions (aka wanting a family or not) it can often bring the relationship to this unavoidable place of choice.
I think the answer of whether to stay or go may be partly blocked by our collective bias that the goal of any relationship should be one that stands the test of time, when we know, and have been shown at this stage again and again, that many healthy, beautiful relationships end. (Even ones that do last go through these cycles of birth and death imo, but I digress).
It sounds like maybe you already know it’s time to let go of this one? And so maybe the better question is, do you feel any reason to stay? Ask yourself that. Enjoy the present and the fun and the hotness, (it’s summer, hellOOOOooo!), and as our girl Mary Oliver tells us, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.