Older Men Marrying Far Younger Women

An email I got tonight got me thinking. So I made a phone call to my Mom, and that got me thinking even more. For the most part, I think age is just a number. But when it comes to love and marriage? I don't know.

When I was 12 we had a girl living with us, her name was *Patti, she was 20. She was no raving beauty, more on the mousy side, but the sweetest girl you'd ever meet. There was a friend of the family that was around quite a bit, he was older even than my parents, he was 53 and his name was *Dan. He was one smooth talking cowboy! He could convince you that rain was not wet!

Dan became very interested in Patti and asked her out, as a friend. They went out to the movies, they went and played tennis, went to dinner. I'll never forget the day Dan came in and announced he and Patti were getting married. Everyone was shocked. Mom took Patti aside and asked if she realized what being married to a man old enough to be her grandfather was going to be like. Patti didn't care, she was convinced she was in love.

So they married then moved to California. Through the years, you could tell Patti was getting more and more unhappy. They still did a lot of things together. But after the "glow" began to diminish, she began to realize things, things like, in his 50's he was a bit set in his ways, he liked to do things older people enjoy, which, at first was great, but it got boring really quick.

The prime of her life was still coming while his had already been and gone. During her early 30's she started having to really take care of him, he was in his 60's, when she should've been out enjoying the hell out of life, she was nursing him. When she reached her 40's the nursing schedule became even heavier. He was in his 70's. He died when she hit her 50's and he his 80's. She had grown to almost hate him because he stole her life from her, with a few smooth talking words. She resented him, and thinking back on it. She realized, it wasn't him she fell in love with, it was the way he told her what he knew she wanted to hear.