THE MIDULTS
Annabel Rivkin and Emilie McMeekan
QDear A&E, I am a 56-year-old professional guy, married with a couple of older teenagers – I have provided very well for my wife and children but I am invisible to them all. A year ago I was working in a university town and sat at a table in a café with a 22-year-old student. We started talking… It is now a year on, I still see her very regularly and I am not sure what step I should take. She says she loves me and wants to be with me but I am wary of words. She is a really nice person so I need some thoughts —
ALet’s start here: it is OK to want more. That’s nothing to be ashamed of. But “wary” seems to us to be putting it mildly. This situation requires extreme caution, extensive introspection and meaningful communication. Do not explode your life because you are unwilling to have difficult conversations.
Families get stuck. We assume our role and everyone drifts along until one person decides that they need something different. You have been the Provider. You talk about you wife and children as one, so it seems as though you are experiencing a “them and me” flavour of resentment and neglect. First of all, we are all invisible to our teenage children. They are too busy struggling to become people to notice our wants and needs. Our job, according to Lisa Damour, author of Untangled, is merely to be the “side of the pool” to them: they kick off, swim to the deep end and come back for support when they need it. Your marriage is tightly bound to them but, in the end, a separate entity.
Who knows how your wife is feeling. She hasn’t told you. How is she supposed to appreciate the neglect you are experiencing? You haven’t told her. She is not a mind reader. People will sometimes ask for a divorce rather than have a difficult conversation; they will burn their own house down to avoid saying: “I feel disregarded, unseen and unappreciated.” A therapist once told us that if you directly ask for what you need in a relationship, people will usually respond to the best of their ability. Guesswork won’t get anyone anywhere.
You are in attention deficit. You are wandering through the desert of midlife and this young women is your oasis. Or is she a mirage? Get close enough and she might turn out to be just more sand. Clearly you need more than your current domestic situation provides. That doesn’t necessarily mean you need something instead of it. The university student could be symbolic of your need rather than the solution to your predicament. You are at a midlife crossroads and she represents the power of possibility. But it would be unfair to her, your wife, your children and you to allow yourself to become so dazzled by this dream that you forget there are humans, histories and hearts at stake.
Get some therapy. Find support in drilling down into what you want as an individual. Use that professional wisdom to make yourself seen and heard in your family without stamping your feet or issuing ultimatums. Do nothing until you have had a long, hard look at yourself and some long, hard conversations with your wife. Do nothing until you have given your wife and children a chance to reconnect with you.
Large age gaps always take some negotiation even when they don’t break up a marriage
And keep this clean. We don’t know, from your email, if you have had sex with this woman but, for now, tell her that you need space to work things out. At the moment she is a life raft for you and you are a sophisticated prospect for her. She feels fresh, you feel wise.
But a real relationship? That’s a lot of pressure. And large age gaps always take some negotiation even when they don’t break up a marriage. But this is not about her age, it’s about what she represents.
You are sick of ingratitude and invisibility. But running off into the wide blue yonder with a nice student you met in a café may not be the best way to get the attention you need. It is possible she is your one true love. It is more likely that she is a symptom of your own, personal watershed, rather than the cause. But, of course, you know all this, Muddled. You just need to be brave enough to do the work.