#MyStory: I Married A Man Who Is 18 Years Older To Me…

I was planning to go for my masters when I met Samir. We were introduced to each other by a common friend, at a wedding. We started chatting casually and landed up spending a lot of time with each other at the function. The conversation was mostly about work because we were in the same field of work and I was telling him about my future plans to go study. I could tell from the conversation we had that he was much older than me, but at that point I was so inclined towards chatting with him that it didn’t matter. By the end of the night, we had exchanged numbers.

When I got back home, my friend called me saying that there is no point in getting too close to Samir because nothing was going to work out. I got defensive and asked her why she was saying this. To which she said, because he is 40 years old and this is not going to end well. I was a little taken aback to be honest, and then forgot about it.

He called me the next day asking if we could meet up. My friend’s words resonated in my mind and I started making excuses, telling him that I was busy and couldn’t meet. But our conversations didn’t stop then. We started talking more and more on Whatsapp and made frequent phone calls to each other. Then one day, after he had asked me a couple of times, I decided to meet him.

That’s when things changed. He and I just connected so well, I just couldn’t help falling for him. His stories, his sense of humour and his intelligence just enamoured me. It didn’t matter where we were at in life. He was as fit as a young man. He was as outgoing as anyone my age. He was so in sync with everything that I was doing in life. Age just became a mere number. We’d do all the things that a normal couple would do. We liked going to the movies, watching sports together, dancing and going on adventurous trips. It was the most beautiful relationship I had ever had. We were falling deeply in love. After a couple of months of us meeting every other day, he popped the question asking me to marry him.

Even though, I was in love with him, I couldn’t say yes without thinking about so many different things. Was this going to work in the long run? Would we have any significant differences that may alter our lives?

He had been married before but it didn’t work out. The thought that what if we have the same fate did come to my mind. And that’s when a parallel thought crossed my mind – when you find the one, nothing makes sense. You just have to have faith and take the plunge. The past is mere history. It has in fact taught him such important lessons in life. You just see the right and forget about all the wrongs when you’re in love, right? He had been very honest about his past relationship and his feelings and intention towards me, and I believed what he said.

I wanted to say yes so badly but I wanted my close ones to be convinced about my decision as they know and care about me much more than anyone else in the world. I told him that I would only say yes after he met my parents and got their blessings. To my surprise, he told me that he had already done that and that they had agreed happily.

I had to say yes!

There were millions of questions that may have popped up in everyone’s heads about how we were not a “normal” couple and how this was just not going to work. Many people even walked up to me and told me that. But somehow, somewhere, I had faith. It was simple in my head. Age, caste, religion, surname – all that didn’t matter. When you find your partner, you know that you want to spend the rest of your life with him irrespective of all of these factors. Everything else is just plain, simple, white noise. I married an older man and it was the best decision I had ever made!

*Names changed to protect privacy.

Images: Shutterstock

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