Your survival guide to falling in love with a MIDLIFE MAN
They’re grumpy, disillusioned — but soppy at heart. Here, with brutal honesty, the man behind TV hit Cold Feet presents...
On paper, I’m possibly the last person to tell women what to look out for when embarking on a relationship with a man in midlife. I’m not utterly unqualified. I am a man in midlife. But I’m happily married — the last time I started a new relationship, John Major was prime Minister and the Spice Girls were about to become household names. But the fact is that I’ve spent the past 19 years immersed in the world of a single man who’s now staring down the barrel of 50 — adam in Cold Feet, the ITV drama I created about a group of Manchester-based friends navigating life and love.
For those who aren’t watching the current series, adam, played by James nesbitt is a charming, easy-going guy who turns 50 in two weeks.
His age is significant; his vital statistic, if you like. Because, don’t be fooled — as simplistic as most men are, a man in his 50s is a much
more complex beast than he initially appears. Adam has started a new romance, with his very attractive neighbour, tina.
But the honeymoon is already over because, well, because starting a relationship in middle-age isn’t the millpond that the young and newly-inlove might hope to enjoy. It’s more like the wake behind a car ferry. In the North sea. During a storm.
Baggage. emotional baggage. Male or female, you don’t reach middle-age without accumulating a few scars along the way.
Adam has had more than his fair share. Not only is he a widower, he’s also a single dad to a teenage boy, with all that that implies.
so, tina’s not just getting Adam, but 16-year- old Matthew, too. they’re a package deal.
And that’s the situation likely to be facing most people beginning a midlife relationship.
Not only do you have to expect it, I think you almost have to prefer it.
Because if your new partner could have had children, but has managed to stagger into middle- age without spawning any, you have to wonder why. And you have to wonder how he’s going to feel about yours.
SOMemen might claim they’ve chosen to be childless because they don’t like the world their children would be born into. Nonsense, I say!
I accept that your world view may lead you to eschew air travel, for example, but to pass up your best shot at immortality? No, I don’t buy it.
Other reasons a man may not have had kids. (And remember, we’re talking about men who could have.) One, he’s gay. Fair enough. And if that’s not a dealbreaker for you, I wish you every happiness.
two, he has some genetic issue he doesn’t want to pass on. Again, fair enough. Good on him, even.
three (and, I suspect, the most likely reason), he’s never wanted to share the limelight. If this is the case, then run for the hills.
kids are the physical manifestation of emotional baggage. But, like an iceberg, it’s the bits you can’t see that you really need to look out for — the previous loves.
the French have a saying: ‘We love but once, and that is the first time’.
In Adam’s case, that seems more than likely. Rachel, his first wife, was the love of his life. tina will be hard-pressed to compete.
‘ Compete’. A deliberate choice of word. But here’s something women need to accept about men, and which sets the sexes apart.
Men are, by nature, competitive. We can’t help competing and comparing ourselves, not just to others, but to our earlier selves.
‘Am I as happy with this girlfriend/ wife ( delete as appropriate) as I was with the last?’
Women, I suspect, are more forgiving, more willing to close the door on the past.
But men tend to have half an eye glancing backwards.
It would be understandable were a woman in tina’s situation to worry about how she stands vis- a- vis her partner’s former love.
But it’s a futile exercise. she can’t begin to compete.
Rachel died in a car crash and, just as JFk was a great President, and James Dean never made a bad film, Adam and Rachel’s love was extinguished before it had a chance to become mundane, or everyday.
In the world of Cold Feet, tina, too, has emotional baggage — enough to attract a surcharge on easyJet.
LIkeAdam, she has been widowed. their common experience is partly what draws them together. that sense of recognition.
It’s not shared baggage, but rather baggage that looks strikingly similar, an asset in a new relationship. For most couples embarking on a new romance midlife, the bond they share is hopefully not the death of a spouse but, in all probability, the failure of a previous relationship.
Personally, I always find it astonishing when someone badmouths a previous love.
Don’t they realise how badly it reflects on them? even if you take their account of their ex’s shortcomings at face value, it brings into question their judgment — why didn’t they spot these pitfalls in advance?
Advice, then, to anyone, male or female, whose new partner bangs on about their ex. Caveat emptor . . . buyer beware. Blinded by love,
many readers will ignore these wise words. They’ll think: ‘ It won’t be like that with me.’ But why should it be any different this time around? People don’t change. Men especially. This is the single biggest tip I can give any woman who is contemplating taking on a man in midlife. What you see is what you’re going to get. You really can’t teach an old dog new tricks. When we’re young, we’re not fully formed. We’re malleable, like wet clay. The first time we fall in love,