The Older Man: I Should Have Bought the Extended Warranty

When you are young, an older man can seem incredibly sophisticated.

Not sophisticated in the actual sense of the word, necessarily. He may know nothing about fine wine, international politics or which fork to use at a fancy restaurant, but he has a car.

His own car.

A car that does not belong to his parents and does not require a large red P plate stuck to the front and back before he can leave the house.

Already, he is practically James Bond.

He also has a proper job and, even more impressively, he does not live at home. Meanwhile, you are sleeping in the bedroom you have had since you were twelve, next door to two younger brothers, working weekends at the local café and occasionally asking your parents whether you can borrow the car on Saturday night.

Then along comes this older man with his own car, his own income and somewhere to live that does not involve asking his mother what is for dinner.

Man, this guy is cool.

You tell your girlfriends about him and they agree.

“He has his own car.” Impressive.

“He has a proper job.” Very impressive

“He has his own apartment.”

Technically, it may be a room in a flat he shares with three other blokes, but there is no need to ruin a good story with unnecessary detail.

Fast forward a few years and perhaps you meet another older man, except now the age difference might be five, eight or ten years, which really does not seem like much at the time.

He is further up the career ladder because he has been climbing it longer, he earns more, he has a better car and bloody hell, he may even own his apartment.

Meanwhile, your career is still warming up, your car has at least one warning light permanently glowing on the dashboard and you are still discovering that electricity, toilet paper and tomato sauce do not magically replace themselves.

Still, none of that matters. When you are in love, you are in love.

So you get married.

Who cares about a few years?

Apparently, Future You. Future You would like a word.

Because fast forward a decade or three and suddenly the age difference that once seemed completely irrelevant starts making itself known.

It begins quietly.

“My back is a bit sore.”

Fair enough.

Then comes the knee.

Then the shoulder.

Then something mysterious happens to the hip.

You hear a noise from the other room.

“Ahhhh.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. I just turned around.”

How do you injure yourself turning around?

Apparently, this is now possible.

Soon, conversations that once involved weekends away and restaurants include phrases like, “My physio says…” and, “Can you massage my back?” and, “I think I need to get this looked at.”

Then there is the hearing. Or lack of it.

This one is particularly difficult to diagnose because it is remarkably inconsistent.

You can stand three metres away and say, “Can you take the bins out?” and get absolutely nothing.

“Did you hear me?”

“What?”

“The bins.”

“What bins?”

Yet somehow, from two rooms away, you can quietly unwrap a block of chocolate and he appears beside you like a Labrador who has heard the treat cupboard open.

“What have you got?”

Open a bottle of wine with the faintest little pop and suddenly his hearing is perfect.

“Are we having a drink?”

Interesting. Very interesting.

Apparently, household requests fall completely outside his audible range, while chocolate wrappers, chip packets and bottles opening come through at crystal clarity.

There should be a proper medical test for this.

Forget sitting in a booth pressing a button when you hear the beep. Put the man in a soundproof room and quietly say, “Can you empty the dishwasher?”

Nothing.

Then crinkle a chocolate wrapper.

If his head turns, his hearing is fine.

At this point, I also need to revisit the wedding vows.

I distinctly remember the words “in sickness and in health”.

That sounded balanced.

One word on each side of the seesaw.

Health.

Sickness.

Equal weighting.

At no point did anyone say, “in health for the first bit, followed by an increasingly complicated schedule of scans, physio appointments, sore joints and unexplained noises made while getting off the couch”.

The sickness side of the seesaw is becoming suspiciously heavy.

Where was this information before I signed?

There were no product specifications.

No long-term servicing schedule.

No indication that the premium older model came with an earlier manufacture date.

Even if there was a warranty period, we are well past it now.

I should have bought the extended guarantee.

Then there is retirement.

Of course, he does not want to work forever.

Neither do I.

The problem is that his retirement age is still my working age.

Unless he has hidden a gold nugget the size of a family block of chocolate somewhere, which would frankly be surprising given he cannot even replace the family block after eating it, one of us is going to be retiring first.

And it is not me.

So while he is enjoying leisurely breakfasts, booking midweek golf and saying things like, “We should really travel more”, I will presumably still be heading off to work.

Then, by the time I finally retire, he will be properly old-er.

I am picturing cycling through the wineries of southern France.

He may be picturing a comfortable chair near the hotel.

I am imagining walking for hours through beautiful Italian villages.

He may be researching which ones have the best parking.

This is the part nobody tells you when you are standing there in your wedding dress thinking how lucky you are.

Where was the Ghost of Older Marriage Future when I needed him?

He could have appeared the night before the wedding, taken me by the hand and said:

“Before you proceed, I would just like to show you something.”

Then whisked me thirty years into the future, where my gorgeous older husband is asking me to rub anti-inflammatory cream into his shoulder while telling me about his latest blood test.

At least I could have planned.

I could have implemented preventative maintenance.

Once a year, straight to the GP like a car going over the pits for registration renewal.

Check the joints.

Test the engine.

Look under the bonnet.

Check the hearing, preferably with a chocolate wrapper rather than a beep.

Clean him up and send him back out for another twelve months.

I may also need to plan ahead for retirement living.

Something with golf, pickleball, a pool and enough active people around my own age that when he announces he is not feeling like getting off the couch that day, I can simply grab my clubs and say, “See ya, hun. I’m off to play golf.”

He can nod from the couch.

Assuming he heard me.

Although if I open a bottle of wine on the way out, I am fairly confident he will.

So yes, the older man may have looked like the catch of the century when you were young.

He had the car, the job and the apartment, and at the time you thought you were getting the premium model.

What nobody explained was that you were also buying an earlier manufacture date.

Now the odometer is ticking over, various warning lights have started appearing on the dashboard and every few months there seems to be another part requiring attention.

Still, there is no trade-in available at this stage, the warranty expired decades ago and apparently marriage does not come with roadside assistance.

Perhaps the age gap should have come with a disclaimer:

WARNING: This model may retire before you, develop unexplained noises, experience intermittent hearing loss and require increasing levels of maintenance. Hearing may return instantly upon detection of chocolate, chips or alcohol. Please consider purchasing the extended warranty before saying “I do.”