Dating an older man - good or bad idea?

Dating an older man. During my 30+ years as an agony aunty I have had a lot of young women come to me asking me about problems or complications that have arisen with their relationship with an older guy. The snag with dating an older person is that your family or friends may warn you against it and tell you to find someone younger and you ignore it because you think you know best or you like the person so much you think he is worth it. But then when a complication or a problem arises you cannot go to them and ask them for support or advice because you do not want them to say they told you so! Remember that whatever the age there will be problems and complications, this does not mean that the person is not worth being with or that you were silly to choose him.

The great things about dating an older guy is that he often has more experience of life, is wiser, better able to make decisions, more level headed, calmer and responsible. The lover who is older should have evolved into whatever he is capable of and fulfilled his desires and ambitions. If he wanted to own and run his own business and he worked at it then he should have achieved that. If this more mature man is still living in a dirty tiny bedsit with debts and no job then he will never be able to achieve much because he has already had years to do it in.

The downsides to dating an older person are usually more likely to be physical, such as him being slower, less fit, less healthy. In extreme cases he might be unable to do the things he used to do - dance, walk far, run, decorate the spare room, make love for an hour or whatever. If he is unable to work what does this mean to the relationship and to your income? Where does this leave you? Does he expect you to work to keep him? If he is very ill does he expect you to stay in with him all of the time or nurse him? If there is a huge difference in age are you prepared for the fact they will probably die before you?

Do you just want to sleep with him or want to be serious and have it last a long time? If it is just sleeping with him then maybe none of this matters.

Let us suppose that you are thinking of going out with a man who is older than you. Or you already are but need to go over something with someone because you are wanting to make a decision or thinking of different options. This is the time to speak to someone who has a lot of experience in helping people in those situations. Consult an agony aunt. You can visit a ask agony aunt advice forum. If you are a spiritual and mystical type you will probably prefer to ask a clairvoyant medium. Get cheap psychic email readings instead. Or go to one of the paranormal unexplained forums. Swap thoughts with one of the new age practitioners.

Yes love conquers all but why get involved in such a one sided situation in the first place? There is also the fact that many of the older guys are married. If they are not then they probably have some sort of baggage such as horrible children that you cannot stand or take up a lot of their time. Some of them want to spend a lot of time with their family and their part time job and golf and just want you there for sex, to sew on a button or to cook them a meal now and then when it suits them. Lots of younger ladies write to an agony aunt problem page and ask an agony auntie for online advice because they get involved and then regret it.

The other thing to remember with a more mature guy is that how much it matters depends on how big the age gap is and what your ages are. It also depends on what experience YOU have had of life. If you are only sixteen and the more mature guy is eighteen you may say it is only two years but at that age it is a huge gap. Whereas if a woman of fifty meets a man who is fifty two that two year gap is nothing. But there are exceptions. I recently had a client who was a woman of sixty six but who had never dated, been kissed or had a normal relationship of any type. A man of twenty would have known a lot more about life than her so in many ways she would be counted as younger than him.

Dating an older man