Dear Annie: About eight months ago, I met “Len” through a dating app. I’m 71, and he’s 81. We clicked right away and started a beautiful relationship. He calls me twice a day and comes to visit me once a week. We go out for dinner and take some road trips once in a while. He never invites me to the house where he lives; he told me that it belongs to his brother and he only occupies a room in the back, which was added to the house. He told me he has a house he’s renting somewhere five hours away from where he presently lives.
He was divorced three times and has only one daughter from his first marriage. He said that his daughter never liked or loved him, although he supported her until she finished college. Len is a very generous and kindhearted person. He has helped me in so many ways, too.
One day, we were at a gas station and his cellphone, which was plugged in inside the car, rang. He was pumping gas while I was in the car. He asked me to answer it. The lady at the other end was furious right away after hearing my voice and asked me who I was. I told her I was Len’s girlfriend. She asked to talk to Len, so I handed the phone to him outside the car window. I overheard Len tell her that I’m nobody.
Since then, I became suspicious of Len. I found out that he has a live-in 26-year-old woman he’s been supporting and sending to college. I always noticed him calling and answering someone on his cellphone, but each time it would happen, he’d walk away so I couldn’t hear the conversation. Recently, after I told him that I want to break up with him because I feel he’s being dishonest and lying to me, he told me that the woman was his adopted daughter. He’s keeping so many secrets from me about their relationship. He wouldn’t tell me the truth until one day, I found out from their cleaning lady when I called their landline that they were living together as husband and wife. I felt sick to my stomach after hearing that, considering their age gap is more than 50 years.
Up to now, he’s never told me the truth and keeps on insisting their relationship is like father and daughter and they’ve been together since 2018. I’ve been helping him to clean the yard at his rental house since the renter left because he wants to put the property on the market. While I’m working there 12 hours a day, three days a week, this live-in woman (he calls her “daughter”) enrolled in a law school in San Diego. He bought her a condominium and told me that it would be cheaper for his daughter to own a condo than rent an apartment, and he can save some money in the long run.
I’m fed up with his lies and deception. He wants to keep me as his girlfriend but stay with this young woman, too. I suspect that she’s only using him and now continuing her studies to become a lawyer. She’ll leave him after she graduates from law school and marry a younger man, and Len will end up brokenhearted. Please give me advice on what to do. Do I walk away from him now, even if I love and pity him?
-- Confused Monogamous Woman
Dear Monogamous Woman: The relationship “Len” has with this younger woman is extremely odd, to say the least, and poses serious problems considering he hasn’t been forthcoming about it whatsoever. Beyond that, even if he weren’t lying to you or deceiving you, fundamentally, you both want different things out of a relationship. I advise you to run, not walk, away from this situation and seek companionship with someone who is honest and serious about a monogamous partnership.