I used to be a regular poster on this site back when my marriage was breaking up and haven't posted in a while.

I recently met a wonderful woman through Match.com. We have been going out for the past ten months. Her original profile had stated that she was 48 years old. I was 49 and looking for that special someone that was between 40 and 50. Her birthday was last February. We went out with her entire family and I fully believed it was her 49th birthday.

I guess you can see where this is going. I recently found out that she is really 54 years old. I also verified this through public records. I'm not going to lie and say her real age doesn't bother me, but am I wrong to have an issue with trust here? At least I was honest in the beginning stating the age criteria I was looking for. I now am left wondering what other issues there might be. I haven't told her I know her real age. How should I handle this? Should I ask some leading questions and see if the lie goes further??

Wow AH, that's a tough one. I can't really tell you what you need to do, but I can tell you that the trust issues you are feeling are indeed valid. Hope someone that can help writes in soon.

Best Wishes

Not making any excuses but women are very sensitive about their age, especially after the big 50.

I'd say keep your ears open for anything else, to see if it was as simple as that.

I'm sure this hurt, and your trust issues are valid. A few questions to think about:
Had you worked through any previous marriage-related trust issues before meeting your GF?

Do you think her family realizes that she lied to you? Did they all help keep the truth from you at her birthday dinner?

Did GF initially contact you (knowing your age limits) or did you contact her (going by the age in her profile)? I think a lot of people (men & women) lie in their online profiles.

And no, you shouldn't try to trap her into more lies. To me, one lie is a deal-breaker (especially one of this magnitude). What's your tolerance level?

"Do you think her family realizes that she lied to you? Did they all help keep the truth from you at her birthday dinner?"

No one ouright lied. But I do remember that no one referenced her age.

"Did GF initially contact you (knowing your age limits) or did you contact her (going by the age in her profile)? I think a lot of people (men & women) lie in their online profiles."

If you're familiar with the way Match.com operates, your profile states your age and excatly what you are about and looking for. You can actually "wink" at a member just to let them know you are interested. She winked at me first and herprofile clearly stated she was 48.

"And no, you shouldn't try to trap her into more lies. To me, one lie is a deal-breaker (especially one of this magnitude). What's your tolerance level?"

I just cannot believe it has gone on this long. I blame myself for not being more careful. After all, using the internet it took me about five minutes to verify this. GF and I live about an hour apart and can see each other only about once a week. We talk over the phone about every other night. She goes to school full time and works in special patient care about 40-50 hours a week at night.

I really do care for her, but this age and honesty thing is bothering me (on both counts!). Should I feel any shame in that?

We were just discussing this on my thread about being back on an online dating site.

The lie would bother me because I'd wonder what else might she lie about. To not tell you her real age once it looked like things might go some where for the two of you is wrong also.

I've noticed, because it seems common place to lie about one's age, many consider this barely a lie. For me though I see people who do this to the degree your GF has are the types to re-write what they don't like about themselves. Doing this long enough & with the perception lots of other people do it too can make them believe their lies.

However, this is the extreme end of things which you'll have to decide if this is where your GF fits in or not.

If I were in your position I'd be very open about with what you know & tell her this bothers you as a character issue. See how she reacts. For me, any future relationship would depend a great deal on how she feels about this lie of hers & how she treats your concerns about it

Is your relationship with her absolutely fabulous otherwise? Is she a woman you'd want to spend your life with? She's 4/5 years older, you would have gone out with a woman 40 to your 48, 8 years older, is the difference in age that significant?

This is a big deal but I don't think it's as simple as tossing her because she lied.

"Is your relationship with her absolutely fabulous otherwise? Is she a woman you'd want to spend your life with? She's 4/5 years older, you would have gone out with a woman 40 to your 48, 8 years older, is the difference in age that significant?"

No, I wouldn't classify my relationship as absolutely fabulous otherwise. Just OK. Like I said, because of the distance and jobs, we can't see each other as often as normal couples. It's kind of tough, at least for me, to really get to know someone that way. We do have a physical relationship and are very compatible in that sense.

I honestly don't know if she would be the one I'd want to spend the remainder of my life with. We were just trying to find that out...

Always Hopeful,

I agree with LadyLayla - her age may be a sensitive topic. There are plenty of women who were raised on the "a lady doesn't reveal her true age" mantra. She may be sensitive to the subject and embarrassed about her real age, but it doesn't necessarily make her a liar in other areas.

If I look at the facts objectively, I see that she is dating someone who is 4 years younger than her. That's not much of a difference. You were willing to date people as much as 9-10 years younger, so why not consider someone 4 years older. Of course, your preferences are up to you.

By the way, maybe you can explain something to me. I don't understand why some guys on dating sites list a younger age range while expecting the girl to date someone older. I would be wary of responding to that person, but perhaps I'm misinterpreting it.

I absolutely knew I'd get a response like this.

The point is she misrepresented herself here. As far as women being sensitive about their age, I understand that. I've never questioned her age, fully believing what she had put on her profile. Like Nams stated above, she further complicated matters by not bringing up the subject after we started dating. Now it becomes an honesty issue. She didn't just fib a year or two here. Five years is really stretching it.

As far as men looking for younger women, I'm afraid that goes both ways. Isn't my GF doing that in a roundabout way here by quoting a younger age? Keep in mind she contacted me first.

Also, to answer your last question, there are plenty of women on Match.com and similar sites that are looking for older guys. Many will list the lowest age they're looking for in a man as their own and go 5-10 years higher. I can't answer why and really shouldn't have to.

[color:"blue"] Always [/color] - it appears that this has become a stumbling block in your relationship, understandably so. What tipped you off to this fact? Is it possible that you're mistaken? Does she have a common name?

When you do address this lie with her, do it in person (I'm sure you were already planning on this). You probably should do it soon, however; I think resentment will easily creep in (if it hasn't already) if you keep it to yourself much longer.

Let us know how it goes.

Always Hopeful,
I would be extremely cautious with this person. Why should age matter that much to her that she would risk a good relationship by lying about it? It doesn't add up to me, and I would wonder what else she is not fully disclosing to you.
Remember, there are plenty of fish in the sea, and she is not the last one.
She may hurt you later on down the line if she has already done this.
KK

AH,

I think that the main issue is that she lied.From a woman's perspective,I think she misrepresented herself as younger to attract, maybe, a larger group of men.There is still a stigma about "older" women.She may have felt better inside about using 48 instead of 54.That makes her 5 years older.You are not wrong at all to be concerned about this.

I would calmly ask her about it now.Don't hesitate.Whenever there is a problem in a relationship you should address it right away and then you can ask about other misleading info she may have given.Bring it up as a trust issue.Which it is.See what she says.I'd be interested to hear.

I'm not mistaken. In fact, I ran a background criminal check on her today (and felt damned ashamed about it!) and it verified her date of birth in 1952. Thankfully, nothing else at all turned up with this. But see what kind of seed this has planted already in my mind?? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

I've checked like three different sources. All have her correct addresses and her last name is not very common. Also, the date of birth (month & day) check out...

I may have to discuss it with her over the phone first because I won't see her until next weekend. I don't think I can wait that long. We do chat about every other day.

She tipped me off the other night when we were talking about bank accounts. Her daughter works for one that I know of and she let it slip that she was able to open a senior citizen account. I thought that kind of odd for a 49 year old. I checked with the bank and found out you had to be at least 52 for this type of account. It kind of snowballed from that point...

Got me a little confused here. Can you please clarify?

I'm not much of a snooper nor would I appreciate being snooped upon so I won't go there with you. How about on your next date, you play a little game of 'confession'. Exchange personal secrets or something you have never shared with each other about yourselves. See where that goes.

As someone else cautioned, make sure you have the right person when checking public records. I know for a fact that my credit report will list debts by persons other than myself. Same name. Honest. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

County court records here will list any court visits, traffic stops, etc.
Info lists a persons name, address and DOB. Pretty reliable evidence, if this is what you've found.

I did mention I'm not much of a snooper right? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

"

[color:"blue"] [/color] I would expect and completely understand anyone meeting me over the internet to run some type of check on me. That being said, I did not do this with my GF until she said something Friday night that kind of hinted that she might be older than she was admitting. [color:"blue"] [/color]

Always Hopeful,

whoa... I think the tone of my response was misread because I can't convey actual vocal tone or body language through the computer. I'm sorry for that. It's one of the reasons I don't post much.

I never said it was ok to lie, and that includes lying about your age. I was only trying to point out that she may be embarrassed about her age. Sometimes I look at the reason why a person lie--not to excuse it, but to understand more about that person and their motives.

I never said you were wrong or bad to have selected a younger age range. In fact, I said that your personal preferences are up to you. We all have preferences, even ENs are preferences.

I did say that I don't understand putting down an age range that is only below one's own age. If I looked at women's profiles (sorry, but don't think I ever have) I wouldn't understand why they restrict themselves to dating only older men. It's perfectly fine -- I just don't fully understand it. If I met a great guy who was, for example, five years younger or older than my preference, I would still want to date him. That's all I'm saying.

Seems like you were waiting for a response that you thought was critical and you interpreted my response that way. My question really was based on curiosity not criticism.

Got me a little confused here. Can you please clarify?

Nevermind! My feeble brain just put two and two twogether. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

Always Hopeful,

Seems no where to but to face it head on with a level head and hopefully honest talking. For me, it would be a deal breaker to overtly lie and in ten months to not come clean. You even went to her birthday party...funny how a number didn't come up. I can't see any good reason for her to lie other than for selfish reasons.

Please let us know how things go.

JL

I guess I was waiting for a critical response because a part of me was being self critical. I was thinking "How dare I discriminate because of age!". Sorry if I seemed to be a little short there.

But like you said, we all have preferences. Is it really bad of me to not want my mate to be four years older than myself? Is that a preference or is it prejudice?