I’m Married To An Old Man — The 15 Year Age Gap is Showing

He used to leave me behind — now it’s the other way around

Please read this with the light-hearted humour that was intended. There are too many miserable gits in the comments! My husband laughs about this. He posed for the photos at the hospital, and encourages expression! Yes, we all get older. Me too. Yes, it is a little frustrating. But we are solid as a rock and I’m not going anywhere.

The trials of aging

My husband has turned into an old man. There’s a 15-year gap between us and it feels like the gulf is widening. This is not a problem. I love him. But it’s not something I anticipated, because he was always fitter than me.

He used to leave me behind when we went walking. I struggled to keep up with him when he was climbing mountains, and he’d carry my coat and give me a hand — a pull or a push!

Now he can’t walk as fast as me, even on the flat — even when I’m not putting any effort into it. Now he’s always lagging behind unless I stop or dawdle. It’s not ideal, because I like to keep up a decent pace for my own fitness levels. Hopefully retirement will give us a new lease of life!

The dodgy foot

It’s probably not helped by a problem with his foot, which needs an operation, but he doesn’t want to have it because he doesn’t want to go to the hospital. He says it’s not that bad. But if it’s not that bad, why can’t he keep up with me when I’m only embarking on a brisk stroll?

He’s recently overcome cancer, which is a weird story in itself. We thought we’d go all hippy and do a raw vegan diet, detox with saunas, high-potency supplements, and cutting out all the bad stuff. I didn’t expect the cancer to disappear, but it did. Weird. Good though. We’re sticking with the regime, as it seems to have worked. I’m doing it too! We support each other 100%.

Age-related health problems

He does seem to be collecting health problems though — icky back, prostate issues, arthritic foot, and this week, a bacterial infection, for which he’s been given antibiotics.

I have my own issues, with a knee injury, deteriorating eye sight, an uncooperative bowel, an annoyingly persistent fungal infection, and a few aches and pains. We all get older, and now I have the joys of menopause to contend with too.

So while I’m ironing out wrinkles, he’s started looking like an old man, with hair that’s started to resemble Einstein. LOL! 🤣 Part of that might be my bad hairdressing skills — which were quickly adopted during the pandemic. He never went back to his old hairdresser, because he’s still nervous about getting covid.

Hospital visits

He’s become more accident-prone in his advancing years too and regularly ends up in Accident & Emergency (ED) when we’re on our holidays. I wrote about it here…

And here…

He used to be fitter than me, and we behaved much like we were around the same age. But he packed up some of his sporting activities during the pandemic and never started again. I’ve suggested he resumes badminton, but he’s worried about getting covid, and I understand — he has lung damage from severe childhood asthma and doesn’t want it to get worse.

Still rambling on together

So we’re rambling on — me ahead, him behind, trying to keep the pace up so we don’t get overtaken by the local snails. We did talk about doing tennis in the local park but he’s tired after work. He’ll retire next year, so I think perhaps we can get more activities into his schedule then.

It’s strange because although he’s much older than me, I never felt like he was really older than me. More experienced in aspects of life, yes, but it’s been strange how, since covid, he’s been slowing down.

Fortunately, I can still get him up to the top of a not-too-steep hill, on our holidays… even if the going is a little slower these days. May there be many more enjoyable hill climbs to come.

For all those people in the comments who think I’m on the cusp of leaving him, you’re completely wrong. I couldn’t be more committed to this relationship. It’s just a challenge dealing with our combined health issues. So I thought I’d write about it because some people relate, and there’s a certain dark humour in everything going wrong.

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