Do Women Over 40 Punish Their New Partners for the Mistakes of Their Exes…or Do They Just Have Healthy Boundaries?

What’s really going on when men talk about older women’s “emotional baggage”

We had been internet pals for a couple years, which is exactly where I wanted us to remain. But with one unsolicited email, he made it clear that he was head over heels, despite how hard he tried to play it cool.

Even though I felt attracted to him, I had no interest in dating him. I knew his intense energy would be hard for me to handle. Plus, the friendship truly meant something to me and I knew if we tried dating and things didn’t go well, it was most likely that our friendship would not survive.

But just months after one of the worst breakups I’ve ever experienced, he made his move. I was vulnerable. Still hurting. Absolutely terrified at the prospect of entering a new relationship.

I was honest with him about everything. About not wanting to risk our friendship. About how our energies felt like a mismatch to me. About my unwillingness to take another chance on love so soon after what had happened. About my fear that he would do the same thing to me.

He told me I was bringing all my emotional baggage into the situation and that he didn’t deserve it. I was making him pay for the mistakes other men had made in my life and it wasn’t fair.

We went back and forth like this for about a month. He pressed me harder and harder to surrender to our obvious mutual attraction. I consistently responded that I didn’t think it was a good idea and at the very least, was not good timing for me.

Each time I objected, he countered with the argument that I was punishing him for what my exes had done. That I clearly was more committed to carrying around my emotional baggage rather than moving forward into new possibilities.

With every repetition of this argument, I began to feel more and more ashamed. How much emotional baggage did I have? By the way he was acting, it became apparent that my age was a factor — I was in my forties, which meant I had way more baggage than a 20-year-old.

Eventually, I realized that the only way to prove to him that I wasn’t dragging around emotional baggage or trying to punish him was to dive into this new relationship without any further hesitation. To show him that I wasn’t even remotely bothered by what had happened to me in the past and didn’t give a second thought to what might happen in the future. To completely wipe the slate clean.

After two passionate weekends together, he dumped me the same way the last guy had. And then he disappeared from my life even faster and harder than he’d come into it.

My “emotional baggage” had recognized a bad situation from the start. And he’d left me with yet another suitcase.

Examining the Narrative of Dating Women Over 40

One of my favorite subjects to talk and write about is how amazing it is to date women over 40 — and how men don’t even realize this, thanks to patriarchal propaganda that has them believing only dust comes out of the vagina of anyone over 35.

When I got into my forties, I was shocked at how much I changed. I felt freer. I cared less and less about what society said about me. I felt more sure of myself. And most of all, I was horny as hell, and far less inhibited about sex.

Here’s what I know about women: Our sexual peak isn’t in our late thirties. Our sexual peak starts in our late thirties. And from what I can see, we just keep reaching new heights.

Once again, society would have you believe the opposite: that women over 40 become disinterested in sex because of impending menopause and that by 50, women don’t want sex, at all.

If you notice, the only people who are telling that story are men. If you actually looked at studies, or…I don’t know…paid attention to what women are saying, you would find that many of us experience a higher libido as we age. It might change over time. It might be more specific and exacting. But it is there and it is fierce.

Couple that with our lack of inhibitions and I suspect more men would discover the sex lives of their dreams if more of them were willing to date women their own age. Trust me, you’d have much more fun with me in the bedroom today than you would’ve had twenty-five years ago.

But whenever I talk about this, men are quick to dismiss it. They don’t seem to understand or believe what I say about the female libido, and ultimately, they shut the whole conversation down by insisting that it’s impossible — or at the very least, unwise — to date older women (i.e. women their own age) because we have “too much emotional baggage” and we inevitably make our new partners “pay for the mistakes” of the past ones.

When I think of what happened in my last relationship, the accusations Sam made that I was unfairly punishing him by rejecting his advances, I’m having a hard time getting on board with argument.

The Gendered Concept of Emotional Baggage

Do you ever notice how much we love to tell stories that have glaring omissions? This story about how hard it is to date older women with all their emotional baggage is one of them.

Let’s take a look at how it played out for me, specifically — after all, the micro reflects the macro (and vice versa). The man who was pursuing me repeatedly called out my emotional baggage, as have most of the men I’ve dated. Do you see the implication here? Did you detect what is missing?

The implication is that men do not have any emotional baggage. Men do not get swept up in emotional issues because they are superior to their mercurial counterparts, according to patriarchy. Therefore, they might suffer at the hands of a romantic partner during their relationship, but once the relationship is over, the male partner is miraculously unscathed. He heals as fast as Wolverine and moves forward fresh and healthy with his next partner.

It wasn’t possible that Sam was ruthlessly pressuring me into a relationship because, perhaps, his relationship with his ex-wife had devolved to a place that left him feeling insecure and depressed. There was no possibility that he was trying to distract himself from the constant pain and conflict of his messy divorce with a sexual conquest.

No, Sam didn’t have any emotional baggage. Sam believed the only person between the two of us who had any problems was me.

What About That Baggage…?

Don’t put down your magnifying glasses, fellow sleuths. We’re not done investigating yet. There’s another glaring omission in this story. Did you notice?

Every now and then you will meet a man who is willing to admit that yes, he does have some emotional baggage from his past relationships. And he’ll also be quick to attribute that behavior to dishonest, exploitative, and/or abusive behaviors inflicted upon him by one or more of his exes — an entirely fair assessment of the situation, I might add.

But when we talk about women’s emotional baggage, we hold her responsible. We fast-forward over every incident that left her with that baggage in the first place. Doesn’t matter that most of her exes cheated on her, that one of them physically abused her, that all of them repeatedly lied to her, that she experienced sexual coercion, or that any conflict ended with her partner calling her a “brat,” “bitch,” or even “whore.”

We live in an oppressive patriarchy where heterosexual relationships typically disenfranchise women, and where misogyny, even within “loving” relationships is considered a norm. Women are literally more likely to be physically harmed or even murdered by their own husbands than a serial killer passing through town.

And yet, when we talk about women’s emotional baggage, the implication is that her baggage is her fault. There’s absolutely no acknowledgment of how she ended up with that baggage in the first place.

What Do You Mean, “Punish?”

Did you think we’d gotten to the bottom of this? Nope, we’ve got one more missing piece of information here.

Each time I told Sam I didn’t want to pursue a romantic relationship with him, he accused me of punishing him because of what had happened to me in my past. He said I wasn’t giving him a fair shot when he hadn’t done anything wrong.

So let’s get quite clear about this. If a woman is disinterested in pursuing a relationship because it doesn’t feel right to her and is definitely not happening at a good time for her, she is punishing the man who does want the relationship?

Are we really going to pretend that this is not an abusive narrative designed to manipulate and coerce a woman into doing something she doesn’t want to do?

In the moment, Sam’s words seemed so reasonable. Maybe I was too reluctant because I had been hurt so many times. Maybe I was too hesitant because my heart was still healing. Did Sam deserve to have to “pay” for that?

I laugh now to think of it. Of course it seemed reasonable at the time. We’re conditioned to center men’s needs and desires over our own, and if we don’t, many men will call that “punishment.”

I did not want to date him. End of story. And that’s all there is to it. Sam framing that as punishment illustrates his male privilege, his skills at manipulation, and his patterns of abusive behavior.

The Threat of Wise Women

I once had a boyfriend who would flirt with me and tease me into an embrace, but when I went to kiss him, he would push me away and tell me to leave him alone. After a few weeks of this behavior I asked why he was being so hurtful and he responded by reminding me that his last girlfriend had cheated on him. “She never had to pay for what she did. So someone has to.”

That is an example of someone punishing a new partner for a previous partners “mistakes.”

But when it came to the men in my life accusing me of punishing them, they weren’t talking about a vengeful act like this one. They were talking about me not wanting to do something they wanted to do or not wanting to do it when they wanted. In other words, they were talking about a boundary — and yes, typically one I had learned to employ because of poor treatment from previous partners.

By the time Sam started pressuring me into a relationship, I had already experienced that kind of behavior. I had already been in several relationships that had started despite my misgivings simply because I felt it wasn’t okay for me to say no. I’d already agreed to date men I didn’t think were compatible and found out that I’m always right about that one. I’d already experienced dating before a previous heartbreak had healed and I knew what usually came of that.

I had the wisdom of my 40+ years and wasn’t going to let that go to waste.

But Sam refused to acknowledge that as wisdom. Instead, he framed my very healthy boundaries as nothing more than retaliatory behavior. Which is, if you think about it, a very effective tactic for men who are walking red flags.

Heterosexual relationships within a patriarchal culture are not typically advantageous for women. It doesn’t take a genius to figure this out.

Women already know from experience just how socially acceptable it is to treat a female partner badly. We still don’t even acknowledge, as a culture, the prevalence and emotional toll of the rampant sexual coercion and emotional and physical abuse that is still so rampant in heterosexual relationships.

That’s why it’s so easy for men to shame women for all their “emotional baggage” without ever bothering to address why women have that baggage in the first place.

But as we age, we seek healing and tend to make much healthier choices: for instance, deciding not to date someone who is pressuring us to enter a relationship we don’t feel is right for us. The truth is, these healthy choices will always be positioned as “punishment” and abuse…by men who are looking to abuse and exploit us.

As far as I can tell, those are the men who are so bothered by the thought of dating women over 40. Those are the men who think it’s “too hard” and “not worth the grief.” And ultimately, they are right. It’s too hard for them to engage with a mature adult and absolutely not worth the grief the female partner will have to endure.

There’s no doubt this narrative will persist — and also no doubt that those who spread it likely won’t examine it.

But what a blessing that these men show us who they really are. And if we’re lucky, we’ll have just enough emotional baggage to see right through them and walk in the other direction.

© Y.L. Wolfe 2024 (Please note that there are many active scammers pretending to be me — I do not solicit readers in the comment section.)

Y.L. Wolfe is a gender-curious, solosexual, perimenopausal, childless crone-in-training, exploring these experiences through writing, photography, and art. You can find more of her work at yaelwolfe.com. If you love her writing, leave her a tip over at Ko-fi.

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