happy anniversary to both of you.
I'll advance a different explanation for the gender difference: the availability of younger lovers.
For whatever reason, it's a lot easier for a man in his 40s to hook up with a woman in her 20s than vice versa. And a 40-something having an affair with a 20-something is a recipe for disaster, regardless of the gender pairing.
If boy toys were easier for middle-aged women to get, we'd see a lot more self-destructive affairs by middle-aged women.
Happy anniversary – coincidentally my wedding anniversary was this week, as well. I think that this should conclusively dispel the long held belief that a blogger and his commenter can not have a wedding anniversary in the same week – a belief as old as, dare I say, civilization itself 
As the blog points out, middle age brings a change to one’s position in life – children are (more) independent, no longer the star at work, etc. The positives, though, are real and should be embraced – easier temperament, hopefully achievements to reflect upon, etc. I think that the adage ‘life begins at 40’ implies that one can, at 40, begin to put to work what they have learned, is established, and unfettered by the impetuousness of youth. I know that I am able to take things in stride the older I get – I welcome this as positive. I also feel that there are things to look forward to at any age – an important lesson for those who bemoan their biological aging…
I can't see it having anything to do with a life of deserved leisure. And I can't see it as connected to youth and virility. Women have even more of that, conceptions of femininity tied to youth and sexual attractiveness, and yet there is the disparity.
I suspect that it has to do with getting carried away by 'love.' Women, being more practical when it comes to the affairs of the heart, and preferring to inspire romance rather than do the romancing, simply are not driven to do really stupid things.
Maybe there is an evolutionary explanation. From an evolutionary perspective, human males enter into family relationships because they have an interest in their offspring surviving to reach reproductive age. Very generally, this has happened by the time a man has reached 45 or so. So maybe men (who now survive to reach that age at a much higher rate) have a somewhat hard-wired drive to spread their genes around some more. All other things being equal, combining one's genes with two different partners increases their (the genes') chances of survival. Women, not having such reproductive options, aren't wired to behave so "foolishly."
I'm not sure whether any bio/psychological research supports my hypothesis. But the pattern seems so prevalent among men who have had exercised self-discipline and impulse control (I think it's called "executive function" or something in cog. sci.-speak) to become successful that there has to be more to it than masculine self-esteem issues.
My own experience of my late forties makes me wonder. I've never been married; my most recent, longest but still not-very-long relationship was with a woman in her fifties, and I've never wanted to be pampered--in fact, part of the conflict in my previous relationship stemmed from my difficulty in letting her do much of anything for me. And I have a long and bitter battle with my professional identity. And yet, despite having almost nothing in common with the "normal" life pattern, I find myself wanting a fling with a younger woman. I try to interest myself in the age-appropriate women on dating sites, but I can't summon much enthusiasm. I'm not sure it's a innate component of the reproductive urge that causes men to desire that which looks least wrinkled and therefore most fertile, or whether its a desire to escape all the other implications of age, but I think the tug is much stronger and deeper than anything that can be fit into a standard model of professional and domestic meaning. Do not other cultures, that have very different life patterns, also have this common problem of a husband abandoning an older wife in favor of a younger one? In those cultures where polygamy is the rule, the big chief still gets leisure and privilege from keeping the older wives, but still they are neglected in favor of the youngest who gets all of the attention.
congratulations! 10 is easy. It's after 25 it starts getting hard
It's simpler than any of that, folks, and here speaks the horse's mouth. The first spouse has the goods on us. She's seen the fumbling incoherence, the deceptions, the pretenses we've perhaps outgrown, and she remembers. In some cases, boy does she remember. She's also achieved an age, as someone above noted, that places more value on herself and her prospects, and less on pandering to our princely selves. Think Alice Kramden. Enter the ingenue, and the rest rolls out as in Carolina.
But I don't have a first spouse, nobody has the goods on me, and still I want to have a fling with someone 20 years younger than myself.
Oh, for goodness' sake. This one's no secret. Boys are dumb and programmed to behave like sperm.
Brock, I don't think the boy-toy explanation wins. I had one of those in my 30s, and while he's a terrific person and we're still close friends, my God, was that exhausting. Not the wonderful sex (it wasn't), but all of the teaching, training, etc. Never again.
After two years of separation and two of divorce, I thought I was ready to date again; finally found me an age-appropriate paragon, employed, bright, interesting. Within two days find out that the paragon lies about his age, for crying out loud. You're getting old, you're balding, you've got eyebags you could hide Delaware in, and you're carefully shaving a few years off your official age? This is silly, and it's exactly the kind of vanity and insecurity I don't want to deal with.
Too bad I'm not gay. Here in my 40s, it'd sure be convenient.
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