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i need a little advice please....
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
can i please just have some advice, im 21 and have been in a relationship with a man of 45 for almost 2 years, i love him dearly we have a great time together and i love him lots. despite this i know that i want to get married and have a family of my own one day, he already has kids that have grown up and can no longer have kids due to him having "the snip" a few years before he met me. in the back of my mind im always aware that our relationship has to end some day and we discuss it often but it never makes it any easier. im constantly thinking that we will split up one day. we love eachother and i know its going to be difficult for us going our seperate ways (whenever that happens). is there any body out there who is in the same dilema as me? i know there isnt much advice people can give to me but i would appriciate it if some one who relates to how i feel would get in touch xx 
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Hello. Yes. I can absolutely empathise with your predicament. I married my first husband when I was 27 and he was 47. He had grown up (teenage) kids that I adored. I thought I loved my husband. No, I really, really loved him. I thought I could manage without kids. He was ALL I needed ... But somewhere, deep in my subconscious, I really did hope that we would have a family. Worse, so did his family. Unfortunately, he was a depressive with a taste for alcohol. He knew I wanted more than he was prepared to give and he started treating me badly - not violent, just unkind.
Then I had family issues of my own. My husband wasted no time pointing out to me the 'faulty gene pool' in my family and how we would probably end up having kids with two heads or something. We had a horrible six months or so, culminating in a disastrous holiday 'à deux', after which I had an affair ...
The man I met was (only) ten years older than me. I was now 32 and he was 42. He also had children of his own (younger teenagers) and had had the snip. We fell in love, talked of reversal, eventually married ... and here we are now, 15+ years later. We still love each other, have sex, get drunk, travel, talk, plan and put each other's feelings above our own ... but he never did get a reversal. The bottom line was that I am squeamish about operations and couldn't stomach the idea that I was putting him through a potentially painful process for something that (by that time in my life) would probably not have resulted in a pregnancy and, if it did, would have put a stop to all the fun things we enjoy together.
I'm not going to tell you that your relationship can't work. But you seem to acknowledge yourself that there is no long term future with a guy that doesn't want another family. Children are clearly important to you, and it would be foolish to kid yourself that you might change his mind. You need to ease your way out of this relationship. But, although I was a little older than you when I fell in love with my first husband, don't cut off your nose to spite your face. True love seldom conforms to our own ideals. It may well be that the next man you meet cannot have children for completely different reasons. If he happens to be "the one" for you, you might be surprised how quickly your priorities change. For the right man, there will always be compensations.
Look after yourself and there's no reason why not. The secrets to success are good teeth (don't smoke) and a young mind. :thumb:
Yes! The braces are finally paying off then. And I'm like 13 in my mind!
Finally some good news on the front.
Thats just my view, not necessarly the right or worng way, but my way.
x
Eh? What has being rich and famous and bagging a young woman got to do with this thread?
Well, the OP and me cannot be the only ladies who like our men a little on the mature side. Money and manners help, but I reckon a lot of men become more attractive around 45 or so.
Going back to the original message for a mo, relationships with big age gaps don't always end up childless. I have a school friend of 47, who is married to a man ten years her senior ... they just had their fourth child in April this year! And, to John_Toms, the age gap can work the other way too. My mum had an old friend (recently deceased) whose husband was about 13 years younger. They had two sons.
I absolutely understand where the OP is coming from. Sometimes you go into a relationship thinking that you can forgive anything. You love someone so much that, however much you wanted children initially, you think (for a time) that it doesn't matter and the broody feeling will eventually fade. With my first husband, although, physically, he could have given me children, he didn't want to ... and it was a major factor in the failure of the marriage. Conversely, my second husband had had the snip 15 years or so before I met him, but I was older and our relationship has outlasted any lingering broodiness.
Some might be surprised that I made the same mistake twice, as it were: falling for another man who couldn't give me children. That, as they say, is love for you.
As you suggest, there are alternatives (my OH and I looked into them). You could have the snip reversed (doesn't always work), you could 'harvest' his sperm and go for IVF, you could have donor sperm and IVF (but then you aren't really having your partner's baby, which would matter to me), you could adopt (age might again be a factor for the adoption services) or you could foster. But the one thing that cannot be overcome is if your partner doesn't want more children. And that really can be a deal breaker on its own ...