As many of you may already know, there’s about a 35-year age gap between my wife and I. And it’s worked out great for us. We’ve been together 6 years now, and everything’s going good. It’s partly because each of us has talked about and discussed our roles in the marriage. One of the things that I shared with her, even in the beginning, before we got married, is that part of my responsibility to her is to share with her the things that took me six decades to learn. In this way, she gets kind of a jump on the process of learning.
Now, she still has to go through her own learning process and internalize the different concepts that I’ll share from time to time, but she’s definitely at an advantage because I can mentor her along and kind of make the whole learning process move along more smoothly. It’s in a variety of things. I’ve talked before about giving her education on how to handle money and people to trust, people to not trust. She’s a very innocent sort of person who believes the best in others because she figures other people are just like her. And she’s learned through a few experiences that not everybody is trustworthy, and you have to just sort of move slowly when it comes to even small transactions.
The Value of Lifelong Learning
One of the things I shared with her is one of my basic habits, something I have done since I was as far back as being 17 years old. I told myself as I was approaching graduation of high school that the end of high school would not be the end of my education. A lot of my classmates were simply not going to go to college, partly because they just had no desire for it. And not so much a desire for college life, but they really had no desire in any more learning, which was surprising from my perspective, because I highly value learning new knowledge, because it just sort of equips you better in life.
So what I ended up telling myself by the time I graduated high school was I was going to self-educate myself continuously with no breaks the rest of my life. And I’ve stuck to that. And so with my wife, when she was about 22, one of the conversations we had was where I shared this, and I told her my goal is to learn one new thing every day. At least one thing. Sometimes it’s five or six things, but anything new that I don’t know, I want to gain new knowledge new facts, new understandings, and from observations, I want to basically keep my brain in gear my whole life.
I don’t want, in fact, to me it would be horrifying, it’s like the idea of going into a coma for me, the idea of going through life without that, to just go an entire week or an entire month. I imagine some people go through big portions of their life, they don’t want to learn anything new, they tell themselves that maybe at 22, well, they got it all figured out. No need to learn anything new. And so I was sharing this with my wife several years ago, and over the years I’ll remind her whenever she learns something new, I tell her, ” Well, already today is a good day because any day you learn something new is a good day.”
The Responsibility of Mentorship
So, I guess what I wanted to share with you is that this is part of the nuts and bolts of mentoring a younger woman when you’re married to or in a relationship with a younger woman. So many guys are fearful. They’re like, “Well, I don’t want her to learn anything. I just want her to stay the way she is.” And to me, that’s just acting out of a fearful place. Fearful that if she becomes more equipped, if she becomes more understanding of how the world works, they’re fearful that she’s going to look at him and say, “Well, you know, I can do better than you.” If you have a good relationship, then she’s not with you just because of your money. She’s not with you just because she has no other options.
If you’re in a great relationship, she’s with you because she loves you and she wants to be with you. We’re talking traditional through thick or thin, sickness, and health. She loves you. That’s the kind of relationship you should be looking for. And to me, if a guy is fearful of his wife, his younger wife, or any wife, becoming more equipped, becoming smarter, becoming better with money, becoming more equipped, if he’s afraid of that happening, I think it’s indicative of an inner fear.
So I don’t worry about stuff like that. Not just because we have a great relationship with my younger wife, but to me it’s again a responsibility I have that between now and the time I check out, I need to make sure that her life, her perspective, her understanding, her wisdom, her capabilities are vastly improved beyond the time that I first met her.
Men Who Failed Their Wife
I knew this guy in San Diego who told me about his neighbor, a Muslim man who had brought his wife in from the Middle East and was heavy into the whole culture of Sharia. She had to wear the burka and the whole nine yards. What really irritated him about this neighbor was the way he kept his wife in the dark; he kept her ignorant. He would refuse to let her learn how to drive. He would not let her touch any of the money. He would not consult her on any big decisions. He basically had her like a pet cat in the house. I knew another guy who was an American. This was when I was growing up. I was in sixth, seventh grade. And this guy lived across the street from our house. He and his wife had been married like 30 years.
And even as a kid, I could tell this woman didn’t know anything. Nothing. She didn’t even know how to buy a loaf of bread at the grocery store because he kept her from learning anything. Same routine. Wouldn’t let her learn how to drive. She didn’t know how to balance the checkbook. She didn’t know how much money they had. She didn’t know where the electric bill got paid. She didn’t know anything. And she hardly even knew how to cook. She basically would just clean the house and watch soap operas all day. About 10 years later, I was with my mom, and we were driving in our old neighborhood, and she said, “Well, let’s go see if she still lives there.” And sure enough, she still lived there. Now, the guy, her husband, had passed on. My mom talked with her and later told me that her husband never taught her anything. She still doesn’t know anything about how anything works. Between her neighbors and relatives, people pop into her life. One brings groceries, she doesn’t drive, and she doesn’t manage her money.
When he passed away, he left her completely unprepared for life. And this woman was already like 60 years old. So, I look at those two instances, and again, to me, that is just borderline criminal. That is just so inhumane.
Doing It The Right Way
Much better to encourage your wife every day. Over the years, she’ll find an interest in something like gardening. She’s always loved gardening, but until recently, didn’t have a place to actually do gardening. She started watching a lot of videos about gardening really getting into it and she said can we pick up some stuff I was like yeah whatever you need so we went and we got a bunch of these bamboo strips and I was like well what you going to do with these she goes oh I’m going to make a structure like a small little thing about maybe 5 ft x 5 ft x 5 ft just made of this bamboo very weak structure and its only purpose was to go over the garden and provide something for the vines to grow up into because she was planting something that involved vines and then underneath that she was planting something else.
She turned up the ground and then said, “Oh, we need fertilizer.” I said, “Okay.” So we went, we got fertilizer. We got some other stuff like topsoil, this shredded coconut stuff, and she started planting, and she just told me what she needed, and then we’d go and get it. We go into town, and I’d say, “Okay, just show me where it is.” And so together, I didn’t do any of the gardening. She wanted to do it herself to go on to YouTube and she would save all of the shells from the eggs and then dry them out and then after a while she would run them through the blender make like a powder and then mix it with water and she would water her garden with this and just really getting into it and she later got busy with other stuff which is good to me it’s because she went through this whole like one-year phase and still the garden is still there.
I mean, we’ve got more spinach than I don’t know what to do with. I can have spinach in my eggs anytime I want. So, the point being, over the years, she has come to me and said, “Oh, I’m kind of interested in aerobics.” I was like, “Okay.” Well, aerobics and yoga. She had seen some videos and stuff. I said, “Okay, well, do some yoga. Just learn it on YouTube.” She goes, “Well, I need a yoga pad.” I was like, “Okay.” So, we went, and we got a pad. I made sure to get a good one that was like at least half an inch thick, so it would be comfortable on the floor and stuff. We got her some really cute aerobics outfits. I always like seeing her in those. She got this other channel on video, which would show all the different yoga moves, aerobic stuff, and music to go with it. Kind of like a Zumba sort of thing.
From one interest to another, my role was two things. One to equip her, give her the things that she needs to pursue this interest, this passion that she has, so, like when it was cooking, she needed a wok. So, I went, and I found a nice wok, and now she can cook with that. If she needs any kind of ingredients, we hunt them down.
When we got our two dogs, she wanted certain vitamins for them, and she wanted to like kind of curate their diet in a certain way because she was watching this woman online who knew all about raising German Shepherds. We don’t have a German Shepherd, but she learned a lot about dogs. So, my role was two things. One was to provide her with everything she needed to pursue it. And the second thing was to encourage her. Because I think it’s really a horrible thing when a man has a woman in his life, and because she wants to spend time pursuing something else, all he sees is how is this going to inconvenience me? And then he goes about discouraging her just to return to the status quo. That is just beyond lame.
So the second thing on my part to provide to her is encouragement. And I may, as an older man, look at some of these interests and say to myself, well, this doesn’t interest me. I don’t have a lot of enthusiasm for it. But I have to remember this is all fresh and new to her. So I give her encouragement. I let her work it through her system. And just like the aerobics thing, she was like hot and heavy into it, and then she got into learning new cooking recipes and then one thing to another, and then she goes back to the aerobic thing, and then she goes back to the yoga thing or she goes back to the gardening thing. So, I guess what I’m saying is probably the best thing you can do to support your younger wife or younger girlfriend is to recognize the things that she has curiosity about.
Give her the things she needs to pursue it, and then be her cheerleader. Be her encouragement. There will be times, because if it’s something new to her, it’s just like when you learn something new, you’re going to make mistakes, and stuff will get spilled, and stuff will get broken, and stuff will not work out. Don’t let her get discouraged. Just tell her, “Hey, it’s okay. It’s part of the learning process. I will go through the same thing when I’m learning anything new. Going to make mistakes. Just figure out what went wrong and try it again.” Encourage her. And I’m telling you, it is a beautiful thing to year after year, somebody become just so much more robust in their interests in life. They’re not afraid to try new things. They have a passion for learning, and they develop skills.
I’m glad that she loves learning new recipes. We never lack for great dinners or any meals. She is just very able to produce really good meals from all different genres. Italian food, Japanese food, Korean food. She got on this whole thing one time. She goes, “I want to learn how to make kimchi because we usually buy it.”, and she loves kimchi. And usually I would just buy it. And then she says, “It’s expensive. I can make this.” And she did. She got the recipe and watched a bunch of videos, and we got all the stuff, and man, it is some of the best kimchi I have ever had, and she ferments it, the whole nine yards. And she’ll make about five containers of it at a time. It lasts us for quite a while.
The Reward
It’s I’m having trouble expressing just how rewarding it is to see them grow and learn and just become more enabled and enjoy life, pursuing their interests. I highly recommend it, and many of you may already know just how joyful a thing this can be in your relationship. And for those of you who are again thinking about it, “I’m going to the Philippines. I’m going to marry a younger Filipino woman.” Just kind of keep it in mind that there’s more to enriching her life than just, here’s your allowance, financially. Really investing in her interests and her hobbies and her passions and encouraging her when she makes mistakes to not give up. It’s okay.
She might say, “Oh, but we spent the money on this, and it didn’t work out right.” I was like, “Don’t worry about it. Don’t worry about it. Don’t worry. Just take a day off. Just chill out. We’ll clean up the mess, and then we’ll get new materials.” And that’s where she might say, “No, no. I can’t learn this. No, no, no, no.” And I’ll respond, “Let’s just kind of clean things up, and we’ll give it a fresh shot tomorrow. I’ll go to the store. I’ll get what you need, and we’ll try it again. You can’t get every recipe perfect the first time around, or whatever it is the project is.” And just remind them this is the process. Trial and error, just improving, continual improvement. That’s what life’s all about. And it goes beyond the project because, in life, really, this is what we have to do. We have to solve problems. We may not solve it on the first try, and we have to continually improve things as we go. See, these are the kind of life lessons that you want to give her so that later, when you’re gone, she’s equipped. She’s able to take care of herself and whatever security you leave for her.
Summary
In a relationship with a significant age gap, mentoring becomes a profound responsibility. By sharing knowledge gained through decades of experience, an older partner can accelerate the learning process for their younger spouse. This mentorship extends beyond practical skills to include financial wisdom, judgment of character, and, most importantly, fostering a love for lifelong learning. The key is to provide resources and unwavering encouragement as your partner explores new interests, even when mistakes happen. True partnership means equipping your significant other to grow and thrive independently, not keeping them dependent or ignorant. This investment in their development creates a stronger relationship and ensures they’re prepared for life’s challenges, regardless of what the future holds.
