Going Intergenerational and Blending Families

Let’s check in on relationship problems via an advice column, shall we? "Non-Cougar in Calif." wrote in to Dear Margo:

I am 29. My love is 55.

Okay.

We were friends first, and then it turned into a real relationship.

Let me guess... you are an "old soul"? Of course you were friends first, but only because you were attracted to him and he was to you. If you hadn't been attracted to him in the first place, he would have ended up in the "only a friend" zone, never to get out.

When we met, it was supposed to be "Friends with Benefits," but as the years went by we developed feelings for each other, which led to a relationship.

Funny how that happens. See - "friends first" - right.

I have a 5-year-old and he has a 16-year-old.

Oh heck no. Wrong! You should both be focusing on raising your children.

I've said that maybe I want more children, and he has said he’s open to it.

As "guy" as my first language, let me translate what he means: "I don't want more children, but I want to keep fornicating with you, so I will not give you a definite 'no' because this way, you'll keep fornicating with me."

But with our huge age difference, I am questioning it. What are your thoughts?

Raise your child. You'll be 42 when you child is raised. If you want to adopt then, find a man closer to your age who always wanted to adopt, marry him, and adopt. It is a bad idea to get pregnant by a 55-year-old guy who has a 16-year-old and doesn't want more kids. When you also consider that you already have your own child to raise... forget it.

I speak from some experience when dealing with age differences and prior kids in dating, although in my case she was the only one with a kid (who was, like this case, 16), and was the older one in the relationship. Throughout my rebellious time, I had relationships and flings with a few older women. One of those pairings had the same age spread as the letter-writer's, though I was 19 and she was 45. It is even more problematic at those ages, and with the male being the younger partner.

Mind you, I didn't know this woman was 45 at first.

In the days before most people had their pictures online, there were these dial-up electronic bulletin board services – some of them for a hobby or interest, and others for socializing. This one was for socializing in my metropolitan area, and you'd see someone's first name, their age, their gender, and their sexual orientation. I started talking with, among other people and usually in a "group setting”, a woman I thought was 29. It was never dirty, mind you, even when it got flirty. Just joking around and talking about whatever. When I took a serious look at her stats again, she was listed as 39, and I wondered why I had started chatting up someone so much older than me, not remembering that the stat previously said 29. Why all of this happened this way and how I eventually found out she was 45 is rather a boring story and not important to this post. The two important things to remember is that when I got heavily involved with her, I thought she was 39, and she later told me she was 45 after some math didn't make sense to me.

Originally, she had thought maybe I would be good for her daughter. But her daughter was a troubled brat. And shewasn't interested in me anyway. So, the elder woman of the house began to flirt with me big time. Dysfunction much?

Me, I was wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. Wrong for getting involved with a much older woman, wrong for getting involved with a mother with a minor child, and wrong for fornicating. Not to excuse my sins, but rather explain a little bit... I was almost completely inexperienced with dating, naïve, felt affection-deprived, and had an inferiority complex. I was ill-equipped to resist the flirtations of a (very) experienced, available older woman, even if this was before the whole "MILF" thing made it to pop culture. I was also living on my own, away from my family, by myself. That makes messin' around really easy.

We carried on for a year and a half. We didn't keep it a secret. Our friends and family and even a lot of our coworkers at our respective workplaces knew. We struggled from time to time with the age difference and the morality of the whole thing. It fell apart after her daughter gave birth. Grandma did't want to deal with the drama of her new-mother daughter fighting with her, and ditching me gave them one less thing to fight about. About 7 or 8 months later, I stumbled cluelessly into another relationship with a woman who was only two years older than me. Grandma later found some new 18 or 19-year-old guy for a while, and we were on friendly but distant terms until we lost contact after moves.

It wasn't all bad. We didn't really fight with each other, as we were too busy defending our relationship to others. She fed me well – meaning home cooked meals that helped me to lose weight. Between those and the – ahem – regular exercise (minimum three times a week, every week), I didn't even have to try to lose weight – it just happened. I slimmed down to an ideal weight. She showed how to behave with more confidence, and she gave me a makeover so I wouldn't look so much like the nerd I am. I was certainly not as bad off as I would have been if I had "fallen in love" with her daughter instead.

But out of all the things wrong about that relationship, at least we didn't marry, as that would have been a mockery, and I didn't get her pregnant. That would have been horrible for the child. Also, I didn't have a child to expose to a situation that was really all about having sex without marriage or a realistic hope of getting married and having it work.

Thank God for His mercy and forgiveness.