[Jean-Paul]

Q,
I am not too close to 50 yet (just turned 35), but I completely understand what you are going through. First, being attracted to young beautiful women is just being a heterosexual male... Nothing unusual about that. That ideal age seems to fall somewhere between 18 and 35, and notice that when you were 15 you thought they were attractive, when you were 25 you thought they were attractive, when you were 35 you still thought they were attractive, and at 50 they are STILL attractive. At 90 they will still be attractive! What does that tell you? It tells me that women at the are at the peak of their physical appearance at the ages between 18-35 (and that is not to say that I haven't met many HOT women over 40 either). A better qualification is that attractive women get your attention. So now that we have established that and determined that there is nothing wrong with you for noticing them, lets look at the next issue you bring up.

They notice you too. Correct me if I am wrong, but you have recently (in the last few years) rediscovered fitness in your life and gotten in really good shape, right? What are some of the intangibles of being healthier and more fit? We project ourselves as more "virile" and radiate masculininty and confidence. Women are not nearly as shallow as men (being VERY general here), so they probably respond more to those intangibles that men do... the actual image may not be this perfect little man with 5% bodyfat, but lets face it, when we are feeling good about ourselves, we act like that is what we look like. An older man is often much more appealing to younger women, who are more motivated by personality, power, and success than looks. So if you are an older male, AND you look good, and project yourself with confidence, you probably are very appealing to many younger women.

Now lets look into the place that no man wants to look. We have many identities... We have our true self, we have the self that we think we are, the self that we think everyone else sees, and then we have the self that everyone does see that we THINK that they don't see and would absolutely die if we really knew just obvious those things are. That is the hardest reflection to look at though. It is there, but we play VERY deep games of denial with ourselves because it is almost physically painful to see ourselves through other people's eyes. That reflection is painful to gaze upon, so most people don't (that whole Freudian concept of avoiding seeking pleasure, avoinding displeasure I guess).

A good analogy would be if someone had a video camera on us when we really lose our temper... Later, after we calm down and watch the video, we would cringe with embarrassment at our infantile rage, not realizing that we actually looked like that. Lets look at it in terms of the typical man's midlife crisis... Sadly, many men out there also are in such a desperate state of identity crisis, realizing that they are no longer young and attractive, that they don't see how silly they look when they buy their corvettes and Harleys, doing a ridiculous comb-over -- as if NO ONE will realize that the hair is just dragged across the bald spot and not actually springing up from the scalp. They are desperate, and what they project is not confidence, but obvious clinging to any vestiges of their lost youth. They get a little attention from some opportunistic young woman who sees all the money that they are spending (whether they have it or not), and they think that this is "it!" Then many leave their wives of 20 years to go live in some fantasy life that won't last another five years, because the amount of energy required to maintain this illusion is substantial, eventually collapsing. Then the silly man is sitting there, wondering where he went wrong, missing his wife who was his friend, who loved him with his bald spot and love handles, who raised a family with him, and now is is alone, as the young woman has spent all his money and taken off after another man who has some money or a young buff guy.

It is really too bad that "future-cams" don't exist that could show people the outcomes of some of the choices that they are tempted to make. The ironic thing is that it does exist... everyone else can see it like writing on the wall, but the man in the midst of his own crisis cannot see it. Denial is a powerful thing, but if we were able to honestly examine ourselves, we would begin to recognize it and start looking at what we REALLY need, rather than patching ourselves up with bandaids, treating the symptoms but not the problem itself.

So what do we REALLY need? According to Glasser (Reality Therapy) all we need to do is make sure that our most BASIS emotional needs are being met. Those basic needs do involve validation, but it also requires a high level of honesty with ourselves and others. For validation, his theory acknowledges that we have a real NEED to love and to be loved in return, and then it further requires us to form responsible adult relationships with others. In this case our relationships are very conditional (NOT our love, just our relationships). In other words, we hold ourselves and others to a high standard in which we are completely honest and expect complete honesty in return. So in the case of the exclusive relationship there are a couple of things you can do to avoid screwing everything up. First, a dialogue with your significant other... open communication. Being honest with them about your needs for validation, and also trying to understand what their needs are as well. The other is honesty with yourself. What are you getting when you "trade in for a newer model", as I have heard some men crassly put it? In blunt terms, you are trading in one set of problems for another. We would be lying to ourselves if we believed that this new relationship would somehow flow more effortlessly. There is no such thing. That is the illusion that we form. No matter who we are with, things are going to get routine, sometimes boring, and there will be disagreements, and there will need to be a lot of hard work if it is going to work.

Whew... writing a book. I will come back to this later today... have a client so I gotta run. I have to complete my thoughts on this.