by ssn587 63 Replies latest jw friends
Any thoughts on marrying someone way younger than you?
My fear is how they will be when you begin to age extremely and your looks deteriorate. Will they stick by you? I know a person whose husband won the lottery so has millions of dollars. He is ten years older than her and she is seeking a way out of her marriage, and has even began to stray. So it all depends on the person. I am leary about taking the risk.....
Estephan
I owned a MH park at one time and we had some northern retirees- The man who was about 85 confided that he remarried his much younger wife after his wife died, because he needed someone he knew could take care of him. Within 5 years she came down with a severe debiltating disease that was going to out her in a wheelchair soon- so they sold out and moved to an assisted living-- and he was stuck taking care of his crippled 70 year old wife.- Plans don't always work out-
I'm glad you are happy. If you have a holistic connection and real love, then that is wonderful.
One thing though:
She is very very good to me and takes exceptional care of me.
I'm telling you this because I hope you are financially well prepared for this kind of thing. You have a young wife, who is a mother. You don't say how old you are. Hopefully you're still relatively "young" yourself and so strong and healthy that you will never have the following kind of issue.
My dad was 18 years older than his younger wife. She was 23 when they married. They had a good life together. He was a smoker though. He developed COPD. Their last 15 years together were hard. She took care of him and it took its toll on her. He became an old man with severe health issues, while she was still doing well and relatively young.
He broke a hip and as soon as he got home from rehab, he broke the other one while trying to get to the bathroom. He told me on the phone, "It's a good thing I don't have another one of these things." She ended up frazzled, burned out, somewhat resentful and depressed. After he passed away, she was very scared and suicidal. She had spent the last years being Dad's caretaker and she was worried that she would not be able to support herself and end up losing the home they had shared. They had used much of their savings and investments for his rehab and some nursing home aftercare. She said she had a bottle of pills saved up and was ready to take them if homelessness became an issue. All of us siblings wondered why she didn't consider their age difference and future issues when she decided to marry him.
They never had kids together. She never wanted to be close to us, her husband's children from his first wife. Her parents were gone and her only sibling was back in her native England.
I have a dear, cherished friend who is 14 1/2 years younger than me. I have told him I can't marry him because of what I have seen my dad and his widow go through. We were engaged once. We don't date other people. We still spend a lot of time together. I have told him, "I don't want to have old lady problems and for you to have to be my caretaker."
I urge you to stay as healthy as possible. I urge you to plan financially and insurance-wise, so that she has tons of help and is well fixed when you pass on.
If I ever re-marry, it's gonna be a Nordic or Japanese woman, no more Americans.
We American women are especially grateful to you for that.
I know of a brother who re-married within 6 months of his wife's death. He married a divorced sister, who was 25 years younger than him. He had cancer and was looking for someone to take care of him, although I think he really did love her. She, however, left him alone a lot and spent every weekend in another city visiting her kids and friends. When he began to get very sick, his only daughter had to hire an ambulance to have him taken from his house to her's, so he could be looked after and not be alone.
He died a year a and half after the second wedding, and she got everything, including his pension when he died. Financially, she made out like a bandit. She even refused to give the daughter some cherished items from the first wife. It was very sad.
I know of a brother who re-married within 6 months of his wife's death
Hey Hummingbird, 6 months, that's the norm for JW's, That situation you described reminds of a similar story, when her "latest widower brother husband" got sick and died, she didn't even show up at the funeral and she some how got hold of all his real estate properties instead of his two children, I'm sure they could've taken her to court, but I'll never understand why they didn't
Marrying within months of a spouse's death seems almost indecent. What could that possibly be about?
If it makes you happy, then go for it! I do think it would kind of bite for the younger spouse, though. Health concerns and random incidents can happen, but chances are the older one will die long before the younger one. There's also the fact that the older one will probably be running out of energy at a time when the younger one still has loads of it. If they're willing to live with it, though, it's obviously fine.
For me, though, the idea of being with someone who could have been playmates with my dad when he was a kid really grosses me out. Unless it was Viggo Mortensen. He can creep me out all he wants.
Sure, there are exceptions, and I applaud love and loyalty. But the simple truth is, who wants to be a caregiver during the years that they might have been bouncing around the planet like a pinball? It's simple math, and who would wish that for somebody that they love?
Speaking only for myself here...
After my divorce i vowed NEVER to marry again, let alone live with another woman. After dating (some for longer than others) women older than myself, younger than myself and the same age, one thing i did know was that i was never going to be daddy to someone elses children. I simply couldnt and wouldnt face raising someone elses children when i was not able to help raise my own.
So that left the dating pool a lot emptier in my mid forties.
But, as you know, i remarried indeed. To a woman who was not even born until after i had left home. Sometimes thats a good laughing point i might add. She was 27 and I was 44 when we hooked up, but I had known her (but not interested in her at all) from when she was 24. I was not looking for a 'daughter' nor she a 'daddy'. She just wanted someone to love her for who she was and I just wanted the same. We were both sick of being judged by people as broken and damged goods.
There is no 'power' over her. She was a women not a girl, and had been through her own shit enough to not take any from me! She completes me. If I lost her there would not be another. The only ones who's opinion would have mattered was her family, who, didnt raise so much as an eyebrow.
We are both aware and have always been so, of the 'age gap' but their is no generation gap in play. We simply are who we are, we enjoy each others differences. I bring to relationship more life experience in some things and she life experiances that i never had, I have helped her learn to be more self discaplined and money savvy, she has taught me to be more patient and openminded. I think sometimes i have learned far more from her than she from me...
We do not and will never have children together. That was the deal on the first day we hooked up, it was not negotiable and it was her choice to stay. She does not regret that. her life is full and happy, she enjoys being 'step mother' to two teenagers who likewise adore her. She has nephews and neices... her interests and passions are in art and music, not babies.
One day i will be old(er) and she may have to wipe my arse, maybe she will get ill and it will be the other way, who knows. It simply does not matter. There is no guarentee that two people of the same age will live long and happy and die at 99 one month between each other just because of some age unity.
I might live to 100 and she to 83.
The only people who think it 'sick' or 'not right' are those who obviously are not in that situation. Sometimes we fall in love with who we fall in love with.
So, if it works for you it works and who the hell is anyone else to place judgement on that?
Oz
