Why you ALWAYS regret falling for an older man: By PETRONELLA WYATT who's dated a silver fox or two

 

They say they saw it coming, those celebrity tittle-tattles who follow every whisper of Hollywood gossip. The glorious Technicolor love boat of Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas has, allegedly, been navigating the rocks for some time.

But I disagree. Theirs was a marriage that was doomed from the start. Doomed from the moment the Darling Bud Of May slipped a diamond ring on her slender finger and
said ‘I do’ to a man 25 years her senior.
And Catherine is certainly not alone in falling victim to the age-gap blues. Yesterday, it was announced that singer Bryan Ferry had separated from his second wife, Amanda, after a mere 19 months of wedded bliss. I couldn’t help but note she is 37 years his junior.
Last week, Clint Eastwood, 83, parted from his wife, Dina, 48. And back in June, Rupert Murdoch, 82, announced he was divorcing his 44-year-old wife, Wendi.
So what’s behind all these age-gap break-ups? It’s a long, long way from May to September, goes the song, and in the music-book of romance, its beat is the hardest and most unforgiving to follow.
I should know. For much of my adult life I had a penchant for older men. It began in my 20s. Like Catherine Zeta-Jones, whose relationships with men her own age seem to have ended in disappointment, I found the majority of my male contemporaries to be boobies, lacking in wit, experience and chivalry.
And so, I would extol what I saw as the brilliance and attraction of older men.
My evidence? Well, the Duke of Wellington became Prime Minister for the second time aged 65. Prince Talleyrand, Napoleon’s foreign minister, who was catnip to women, fathered a child in his 60s. Churchill was 66 when he became PM in 1940, and Ronald Reagan was almost 70 when he entered the White House.

At the time, I sincerely believed, to paraphrase Mae West, it’s not the age of the men in your life, it’s the life — or high life — in your men. For, mea culpa, money was an attraction; when I was 30, I fell for a successful financier of 55 — the same age Michael Douglas was at his wedding to Catherine.
It seemed young to me, then, as Douglas must have seemed to his captivated bride.
My beau was sophisticated, intelligent and exuded the allure that comes with a rarefied lifestyle. We ate in restaurants that my male peers could neither afford nor be afforded a reservation; we enjoyed the best seats at the opera and luxuriated in first-class travel.

Doomed alliance: Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones pose during their wedding at New York's Plaza Hotel in November 2000

I felt spoiled, adored and privileged by a man who bore a passing resemblance to George Clooney. Meanwhile, the men my friends were becoming engaged to looked like Michael Gove. Indeed, one actually was Michael Gove. My infatuation was both genuine and rose-tinted.

Every woman should be romanced by a man old enough to be her father. The problems occur when what should be a passing fancy is treated as a lasting passion.
As birthdays add up, the frisky 50s become the somnambulant 60s, when the only swinging takes place in a rocking chair.
When my beau turned 60, it all started, literally, to fall apart. His confidence in his immortality was shaken by a hip replacement and he became a frightened old man.
An ‘afternoon nap’, that lovely euphemism for midday hanky-panky, became a real afternoon nap. The city bustle I adored was pronounced ‘unhealthy.’ At weekends we drove to a desolate moor in order to fill his lungs with fresh air.
Worst of all, my once cool and carefree George Clooney became something of a dyspeptic George Formby as he fussed over dirty spots on the window pane, creases on the sheets and any use of cream or butter which he insisted would give him a heart attack.
Despite his joyless new diet, almost overnight his figure went South and his libido North.
I saw myself becoming a carer, and worse, being coerced into a life the elderly lead; sedentary and safe, punctuated with formal soirees for his doddery friends, the wives of whom disliked and distrusted me for my comparative youth.

Bad experiences: Petronella Wyatt has been dating older men since her 20s

I guess Catherine Zeta-Jones, Amanda Ferry and the other women stung by older men have experienced something similar. For, as men grow older, they grow angry and stubborn. There is a saying: ‘Better to be an be an old man’s darling than a young man’s slave.’ Whoever dreamt it up never went out with an old man.
Far from being malleable and adoring, they become tyrannical and rude. Another older beau, who was 65 to my 37, insulted me routinely, preferably in front of others.
When I poured myself a glass of wine, he called me a toper. I was a size 8, but he told me I was as fat as a barrel. I would dissolve in tears until I began to interpret his attacks as a form of control exercised by a man who was growing insecure.
The relationship ended soon after he decided to retire from his law practice and spend his days pottering in the garden. Feeling the loss of his own career, he belittled mine and attempted to end it, even deleting emails from my employers.
When I confronted him, he replied unashamedly: ‘I want you to be old with me.’ He even emphasised his point by imposing a 9pm curfew.
I was forced into a risible double life. After he had fallen asleep, I’d tip-toe to a wine bar for a glass of Pinot Grigio and a sneaky cigarette.
By then, my male contemporaries had married and started families, as well as successful careers. To my chagrin, I now saw them and their wives in the swish and swanky restaurants and hotels I had thought my exclusive province.
At one christening, I sat forlornly in a corner with a girlfriend who also had a history of dating older men. At 30 she had married a wealthy man of 58.
When I asked where her husband was, she replied he was having treatment for prostate cancer. When I asked after her children, she revealed they didn’t have any. Her husband had already had five boys by his first wife, and wasn’t keen for more children.
Neither of my older beaus was prepared to embark on fatherhood for a second time, yet I was expected to treat their often fractious offspring as my own. I saw a barren future and an early widowhood.
As for the wealth and baubles so associated with an older man, the consolation of money soon becomes a false one. For one thing, men grow mean as they grow older. They say they are saving for their old age.
‘But you’re already old,’ I would protest to no avail.
What gifts my elderly swains chose to give me, they did more for their own pleasure than mine. At a certain age the Alpha Male becomes a Pygmalion, desirous of moulding the woman into his own design.
Presents reflected their hobbies. The financier was a military buff and the lawyer liked mechanical birds. One Christmas, I received a Hussar’s uniform, complete with a sabre he wanted me to rattle. On one birthday, I was presented with a tin canary that sang O Sole Mio when you wound it up.
Some women may have been luckier than me with the generosity of their older beaus. But, as one wise friend of mine put it, how long can you stare at a diamond?
Moreover, to paraphrase Zsa Zsa Gabor, what good was something hard on your finger when your man has gone soft, even after a double dose of Viagra? But in some instances, sexual rejuvenation is not something to be wished.
The other week, at a dinner party, I sat next to a septuagenarian with breath like a starving coyote and the complexion of medieval pottage.
After spilling his soup, he asked me for a date. I declined. He adjusted his spectacles and said: ‘If you’re worrying about the sex, don’t. Modern medicine is a wonderful thing.’
For once, I was unable to agree.
I left the financier when he asked for a wheelchair to take him onto a flight to Rome. I abandoned the lawyer when he could no longer see his feet without glasses and began, only half in jest, to talk about suicide pacts.
These days, how I long for a man with pecs instead of specs. And to whom the word hip means cool and not an emergency operation.
Compared to me, Zeta et al had a good run with their older chaps. But eventually they came to see, as I did, that some things simply don’t get better with age.