May to December Romance

Didi, my question is about May to December romance.

My divorced father has fallen in love with an older woman and I’m having a very difficult time accepting the fact that they are actually getting married. I want to tell him that he might end up taking care of her and that he should date a woman his own age or younger who can take care of him. But I can’t. She makes him happy, which my mother certainly didn’t. What should I do?

–PA, Boston, MA

Thank you for your timely question about May to December romance.

Henry Ford was fond of saying that those “who stop learning are old, whether at twenty or eighty.” Two people who are the same age can be as different as night and day just as easily as two people decades apart can be terrifically compatible. I know 70-year-olds who are more active than fifty-year-olds.

Try not to judge your future stepmother too harshly. You say that she makes your dad happy. Let it be.

A study by University of Notre Dame sociologist Elizabeth McClintock that analyzed 1,507 heterosexual couples found that we perpetuate the trophy wife notion by relying on our culturally ingrained biases. Think of your dad as a trophy husband.
Dr. McClintock’s conclusion was that the majority of both men and women seek partners who are more similar to them than dissimilar. Whatever your dad and his fiancée have found in common are interests that run deep.

Support your father in his quest for finding true love. Give them a chance as a couple.

Consider the 39-year-old French president Emmanuel Macron, whose wife, Brigitte, is 25 years his senior. Coincidently, that is the same span in ages between Mr. Trump and Melanie.