Claudia
writes, "My husband and I have been married for 4 years
now. I am 25 and he is 53. It is not a
gold digger or
trophy wife thing. Just plain love. The problem is that
he gets very
jealous and is very
insecure. We recently
made a few couple friends and we all have a blast
together when we hang out. However, these get-togethers
are few and far between. Both of us
travel somewhat
frequently. Him more than me. So usually he will be gone
2 days a week. On those nights sometimes I would like to
go have dinner or
hang out with these mutual friends. He
has a problem with this. He says that he is
uncomfortable with me
hanging out with them because
there may be the possibility of them having
single guys
over there. He always thinks that these
guys are
going to try and hit on me.
It doesn't matter that I totally
love him and have no
desire to be with anyone else. This problem stems deeper
too. When I
go out of town for work, I get to
see our
families and some of my
old friends. He hates it when I
am gone because I am having fun without him and he can’t
control/see what I am doing. I just am not sure what to
do here. He acts as if I should be home alone by myself
when
he is out of town. He has already said it is OK for
me to
hang out with the girls during the day (shopping,
tanning,
nail salon, etc) but is not comfortable with me
hanging out with couples without him. I feel like I have
to ask him permission to do everything. When I try and
talk with him about it he always says, "Well, you have
to see this from my point." Which I do understand;
he is
older and
overweight. We just can't see past our own
viewpoints and
have a conversation without it turning
into an argument let alone a
compromise."
Why is an older man so insecure when married to a
younger woman?
How to deal with a controlling man?
- Talk to him. Sit down and explain
to him how the world works. Ask him to see it from
YOUR viewpoint. Tell him that you love him and are
with him for that reason. Emphasize that if you
wanted to be with another man or a younger man, you
would not
marry him. Instead you would
marry someone
else. Tell him that he should be
smart enough to understand that if you
wanted to cheat, you will do it and
he would never find out even if he put bodyguards
around you. A
woman determined to cheat can do so
without anyone ever finding out and he needs to
recognize that. He is also naive to think that the
risk comes from only
single men; actually,
married people are more likely to cheat. If this
conversation is difficult to
have because of his
attitude, write down your
thoughts in a letter and hand it over to him (if you
want to run it by me I would be happy to take a
look).
- Be careful of your behavior when
he is around. What might seem so natural and
innocent to you maybe hurting you. For instance, you
may not even think again about chatting up with a
waiter or a new guy at a party, but considering
how
insecure he is, this might drive him nuts. So avoid
giving him opportunities to get
jealous. If you do
want to
talk to someone at a party, after a short
time, introduce your husband to him.
- Don't overshare. You do not have
to
share with him everything that you do. Just go
ahead and do it. So he does not have to know what
you do when you are not with him. That will put him
at ease because he will feel that you are not having
fun without him. Along similar lines, do not insist
on him giving you updates on what he is up to. This
will give him some space as well.
- Do other things to
gain his
trust. I cannot give specific examples since I do
not know enough about both of you but small things
can do a great deal to
build trust.
Marriages are about managing
expectations
All
marriages are hard and all
couples
have issues. My wife, who is close to me in age, had a
lot of distrust early on, not because I did anything
wrong; it is just that her
father
left her mother for a younger woman and she assumed
that all men do it. She would suspect that I was
checking out other girls or when we had a
long distance
relationship for a year that I was
seeing other girls or
that I was having fun while she was so sad because of
our separation.
Now that we are
married for over 10
years things are much better and we often check out
other girls together (we both
love fashion and
people
watching) and she is at peace if I go
visit my family
alone. Yes, his
age is definitely an issue (basically we
are talking
two different generations here; and he is
struggling to cope) but I am confident that with a
little bit of trickery on your part, you can learn to
manage him. |
