What I Learned by Dating a 45-year-old Teenager

In Why I Stopped Watering Dead Plants, I mentioned Aaron, my first boyfriend. We met while working with one another at a rather small non-profit. He was quiet, kind and kept to himself a lot. I was more outgoing and put effort into getting to know our co-workers.

Aaron had rotator cuff surgery in July 2013, just a few weeks after I completed my master’s degree. Our projects often overlapped, so he shared his personal email address with me before his eight-week hiatus. After his surgery, I emailed him to see how he was feeling and he quickly took me up on my offer to meet for dinner the next evening. He chose a seafood restaurant and wore basketball shorts to our outing.

That night was far from romantic, but he did invite me back to his parents’ (very messy) house. You see, they were out of town and he claimed he was staying there temporarily as he recovered from surgery. We talked for hours and hours about everything. I also learned Aaron was 11 years older than me, which was more of an age gap than I thought. I learned that he, just like me, had never been married and had no children.

Before I knew it, it was almost midnight and I politely said I had to head home. I drove home wanting more of whatever had just happened.

We emailed early the next morning, both sharing how much fun we had the night before and that we should do that again – and we did. We met for dinner at least once a week during his time off and for quite awhile, each visit was more fun than the last. When Aaron returned to work, we kept our weekly dinner “dates” and I made dinner for us often at my condo, where I lived alone. Things eventually did turn romantic, which at the time, was absolutely wonderful. I didn’t expect a romance when I scheduled our first dinner, but something special did blossom.

As our relationship progressed, I noticed Aaron didn’t discuss moving back to where he was staying pre-surgery and it dawned on me that he lived with his parents on a permanent basis. He had lied to me that first night. It was too late at that point to turn around “just” because he was a 40-year-old living with mommy and daddy – we had too great of a connection to stop there. Plus, like any late-20-something-girl new to love, I was convinced I could make him change and poof – he’d magically get his own place. If it were only that easy. Although we were having fun when together, he had never lived on his own…ever and that bothered me. He had six figures in the bank due to a lack of living expenses and his annual income was more than enough for even a family of four to survive.

That being said, he is also the stingiest human I have ever met. He requested separate checks at every restaurant and we bought movie tickets separately at any theater we visited. I had a mortgage, homeowner association fees and utilities – all words that will forever be Greek to him. He definitely had the money to move out but had no initiative.

He wasn’t helping his parents financially, their health problems were minimal and he did not pay them rent. Both retired with generous pensions – his father an engineer and his mother a schoolteacher. But their son was living the life of a teenager, complete with mommy cooking his meals and ironing his clothing. And I felt lucky to have a boyfriend.

His parents were all-too-thrilled to have him at an arm’s length to pick up their late-night snacks from the grocery store, get things off the top shelf at their chaotic home and gather the mail if they went out of town. They were selfish to put his personal growth aside simply because they were too lazy to venture out for their own potato chips.

They were in their 70s and I always believed they’d expect me to swoop in and accept custody of him once they passed on or were forced to move into an assisted living facility. Their other son was allowed to move across the country, get married and start a family, but why not Aaron? Why couldn’t he kick start his own life?

Flash forward five years later – he was still living with them. He didn’t even have the traditional “basement set-up” you think of a now 45-year-old living with his parents might have. He slept on a shabby, stained recliner in their living room parked in front of a TV. Anything personal of his rested on a standard TV tray. His clothes hung in a hallway coat closet. We were still together as a couple but after five years, our treasured emotional connection had vanished. I dreaded visiting that house, seeing his gloomy set-up and of course, paying for everything. Even though I communicated my issues regarding the living situation and financial inequalities, he never budged. He blamed any issues that arose on my character flaws. None of my needs were being met and I started to emotionally pull away until I was brave enough to end the relationship for good.

In those five years, he had made zero effort related to personal or professional advancement. About a year after we started dating, I had moved onto a new workplace. He was still working the same job he had five years prior…same ol’ place, same ol’ job. This wasn’t a workplace people made careers out of, it was standard that you worked four years or less and got the hell out. At this point, he had been there 12 years. His misery at work was his go-to conversation each time we spoke but he never applied for a new job elsewhere. It would be one thing if he had one ounce of happiness while there, but he didn’t, and refused to work toward something better.

Being his other half got more and more depressing and ultimately, embarrassing. There were red flags from the beginning but I was in denial. He constantly supplied lame excuses as to why he could never spend the night or go out of town for the weekend. I was a fool and I have no idea why I stayed as long as I did. My rose-colored glasses seemed to only have a five-year warranty.

I’m still looking for love, but for Aaron, I think his two true loves are off the market. After all, they’re married to each other. And, at this very moment, they’re probably telling him they’re low on potato chips.