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Article about in love with man 20 years older:

I Had an Emotional Affair with a Man Half My Age—And It Saved My Marriage. It's New Year's Eve and glitter sprinkles the space between my brow and lids. I have two teen boys at home and I'm retiring from a 22-year marriage with their father.

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I've never glittered in my life. Hell, I haven't worn makeup since I was a teenager! And I'm staring into his eyes. The first unrestricted crush I've allowed myself since I was 20 years old. A crush I've worked through, journaled about, and ultimately recognized as a healthy response to mutual emotional and physical attraction. A crush I haven't forced myself to subdue, like the others over the married years. So, what are you doing tonight?" I ask as I hand him the cash, driven by a desire to feel that intoxicating glow of chemistry—something I've lived without for most of my adult life. "Going home," his voice flat. "It was way busier tonight than we expected," he smiles tiredly as he takes the money, our fingers grazing, our familiarity understood. But this is the latest in a recent series of increasingly uncomfortable exchanges in which I've begun to admit he's withdrawing the romance. Which is painful. Because it was hard won, that romance. It is the first guilt-free, swooning-beyond-my-marriage I've ever let myself feel. Ever. And he is younger. Much younger. One year ago tonight, well before I'd ever noticed this sexy young cashier, my soon-to-be-ex-husband and I were preparing for his major surgery. We'd taken our wedding rings off a year before that. But within days of our decision to formally separate, his surgeon called. Divorce could wait. We were (and remain) close friends, and he needed my support. But I needed support too. And when I'd run to the grocery store for quick, easy meals during the long, intense recovery, there he'd be, just doing his thing, asking questions of every customer, making them feel at ease. In the first of his ventures towards me, he dropped hints about his age (I'm not that brave, and I never did tell him my own). He reminded me of snow falling years earlier, in June, when he'd had to call into his old job on that snowy summer day back in 2008…when he was 14 . Staring at him in what was probably unconcealed shock, vertigo hit. He was 22 years old, while I'd unconsciously estimated him to be in his 30s because of his maturity, his integrity, his appearance, his humor. And in that singular moment, he became an immediate, undeniable no-no just as I realized how much I actually liked him. I took to Google, which illuminated a mass emergence of romance, flings, close friendships, trysts, and committed long-term partnerships between older women and younger men. I saw a rising tolerance generally for love of all stripes—and its many delightful benefits. So a couple of months after that initial diagnosis—it took me that long to journal my way through it—I carefully let him in on my crush, gently, by sharing a few personal details about what was happening at home, by casually, half-jokingly suggesting a walk in the woods together. By responding to him just a smidge more. Ready to pull back and let it go if he didn't throw a spark. Instead, things crackled and flared. The powerful eye locks, the focused curiosity and connection he displayed with my kids, the way he remembered my son's soccer night each week and would unfailingly ask him about it, the way he'd be sure to have a register open every time I was ready for check-out and the rush of specific questions back-and-forth. The conversations outside or in the produce aisle, when he'd ask me how things were going for me and the kids during the separation. The helpful, wise insights he offered about his own parents' divorce. The way he'd lean in as we talked. How he say I've got you , a little gruff, a little quiet—just loud enough for me to hear, when I offered the store membership card he never needed because he'd memorized my stats. The way he immediately suggested a tea date right after I told him of my separation. How, over tea, we'd had the kind of three-hour conversation that leaves you breathless . During this rising fire, it dawned on me that I trusted him—in a categorically different way than I trusted my husband. My emotions and my heart were safe with this man. He would never dismiss or coerce me, or act as if he knew more or better than I. He would never stonewall or be stony-faced. And all of a sudden it didn't even matter if anything ever came of this. Now I knew something different. The shock ruptured pent up grief, and I cried in disbelief that I'd stayed with my husband for so long. I might as well have been handing over my heart to him, rather than a wad of cash. Because by now, this transition is one I'm both ready and hungry for. My nearly-ex-husband and I had tried everything. Everything. But there's no putting back into a marriage something what was never there to begin with. He smiles at me with a warm direct gaze. "Have a great night Anna," he says. And I know he means it. "You too," I say, the smile on my face shifting from nervous flirt to relaxed companion. As I identify the new phase of our connection—from potential romance to sweet, easy rapport—I'm humbled by his kindness, his affection, his empathy. I suspect his energy for romance has changed. He's become a friend. And whatever his reason for stepping back from our fledgling romance, we've given each other a great gift.

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