age and risk

Hi everyone, I am new and glad I found this place because I always have age related issues (among others) that I wonder if anyone else experiences.

Heres one that bugs me alot. JD is 37, divorced and has a couple kids. I am 23 single, no kids and "have the whole world in my hands" so he says. Him and I have came very close to getting married recently but he bailed out. He said 2 things. 1. He feels like he is shorting me because I deserve better (he means someone who doesn't have to pay half his income in child support and who doesn't have a crazy bitter ex-wife determined to make his life hell.) He says that those are things that nobody should have to put up with, expecially someone my age. 2. He says that I am young and he doesn't believe I can be sure that I know what I want and that these are the most dynamic years of my life. He says that he is afraid that in 5 or 10 years I may be a different person and decide I deserve more and that if things didn't work out between us it wouldn't effect me as much as it would him because I would still be young, where as he would be "a grandpa" and his chances would be cut dramatically. He says that he couldn't recover if things went bad between us. He says that I make that promise that I can deal with everything in his life and then one day I decide its too much and want out that he would be so bitter and hurt that and that our relatinship would be ruined and he can't stand the thought of that. I know he loves me and I love him to death. But we can't predict that future and he can't bring himself to take the risk because he believes so much in his theory. 4 years ago when I was 19 and had to move far away, he swore I was going to forget all about him and that my feelings were going to change, but they haven't so I just wish he would use that as his assurance.

If you were both in your early twenties that would make two of you who could change and decide you don't want to be in the relationship. But how many young same-age couples would avoid starting a relationship because of that? People do change more quickly when they're younger, but people don't ever stop changing. You can outgrow a relationship at any age.

While his fears might be justified from his perspective, I would find them to be highly patronizing, personally. He's holding your age against you and making accusations you can't possibly refute. And all the while he's doing exactly what he says you'll eventually do by breaking off the relationship. I wouldn't put too much stock in someone who had so little faith in me.

I see his point, I really do.

The thing is, people do change from their early twenties into their thirties. I'm 30 now... and I'm very different from when I was 20.

But I now realize that just means that I should have worked harder on my marriage. We changed, and we let it die, because we didn't know we were letting it die.

People never stop changing, that's a fact. With one or both partners being younger, it just means you will have to work harder on each other. A lot of successful marriages started with both partners in their 20s. Does that mean things are always wonderful and that they always feel madly in love with each other? No.

I'm not saying it will ALWAYS work out... no, of course not. But it often does.

Maybe give him a little more time. Maybe he just needs reassurance.

Incidentally, I am now obviously glad that my marriage ended, because I am now with my ym, who is great! And I know now to work on things with him really hard if things start going downhill.

I've always worried that, biologically and career-wise, K. will have "lost" more time than I if things don't work out. I'm in school for another four years and won't be doing much of anything permanent for a while; he's trying to get his life back on track and find somebody to have kids with while he's still healthy enough to be a father. He's already worrying about how to factor my situation (likely to take off for heaven knows where and move around a lot the first few years after graduation) into his work decisions, and I'm sure the other isn't far from his mind. I don't believe that his having more at stake obligates me to stay with him if I stop being happy, but I do feel a certain amount of responsibility towards him because of it -- and I will not drag this out if at some point I decide he'd have a better chance with someone else.

Then again, I've always been a bit of a busybody. Oldest daughter thing :D