I don’t want my daughter to repeat my mistake and marry an older man

My parents were concerned when I started dating a man 30 years older than me, but like many of their generation, they were reassured by him being comfortably off. My mum said approvingly on our wedding day that he’d “always look after me” and he does. He was also very young for his age, energetic and enthusiastic, which was what had really attracted me to him.

We have two children – now adults – and our daughter has been seeing a man almost 30 years older than her and has told me she thinks they’ll marry. But I’m not like my parents and I don’t want to give her my blessing. In all honesty, I want to stop her making the same mistake I did, but I have no idea how to do this without sounding as if I’m complaining about her dad.

Our marriage was really happy until about 10 years ago, when I started to feel our age difference in a very negative way. It rarely crossed my mind when the children were young as he was as hands-on as any other dad, and when he retired he was still busy and happy. Now I’m in my mid-50s, happily working part-time and full of energy for all sorts of activities, but my husband has become a very old man.

He has lots of friends who are the same sort of age and most of them are far fitter and livelier. I’ve tried to get him to walk with me, go for days out or away for a weekend and he’s just not interested, to the extent of getting annoyed at me when I suggest it. He snaps at me to go by myself if that’s what I want – so I do, but it’s not as often as I’d like.

I worry about leaving him for any length of time, but it’s hard to be stuck indoors with someone who’s ground to such a halt and doesn’t enjoy life. Food and TV are probably the only things we enjoy together now and I’m constantly aware of the age difference and a depressing – and already looming – future where I become more carer than wife.

I don’t begrudge him any help with washing, dressing or anything else, but I hate the way he seems to have just given up and is also so grumpy. I asked our GP if he could be depressed but she just shrugged and said old age comes to us all, along with aches and pains.

I’m really concerned about our daughter, who’s a couple of years younger than I was when I met her dad; her partner is also very young and attractive for his age. He has adult children too, and while I’m trying not to sound materialistic to my daughter, they’ll obviously inherit a good amount.

I’ve tried to be tactful without being horrible about her dad, but she ignores me and says things like, “But you two are really happy” or “Your age gap is bigger than ours”. And I want to say, “I’m looking after an old man and dreading the next 10 years of being trapped – this could be you!” but can’t without making me seem that I hate her dad.

I don’t think she realises the reality of my life with her dad because she only sees him for short bursts of time, so I’m going to ask if she could stay for a week so I can go away with work. Since I can’t spell it out to her, maybe living with the reality will force her to rethink her own future.

I want to tell her, ‘I’m looking after an old man and dreading the next 10 years of being trapped – this could be you!’