How did Meridian and Alden's May-December relationship affect the outcome of their marriage?

So-called May-December relationships, in which there's a big gap between partners, can be rewarding, but also challenging. Could the story have been the same if they were closer in age?

In the end when he became ill she could not leave him as she felt she needed to care for him. There were no children or other family to do so. She honored the years of marriage.

It seems that it may not be so much that the age of the two was the problem. Perhaps it was more that Meridian's growth and change as a person initiated feelings Alden couldn't negotiate. I really liked this passage that seems to deal with outcomes in their marriage: "Now that I was rediscovering the person I had once been, he no longer wanted to know that person. He did not have the energy for that person. Just as I was re-emerging, Alden was disappearing." I don't know if the mechanism is age or if it is an exchange of the power in the relationship that created the end of their earlier ability to handle their marriage. This is reminiscent of Fitzgerald's Tender Is the Night. When the psychiatrist and the patient fell in love and were married, she was in the process of her "cure". As she became healthy, he disintegrated.

I don't think it was as much age as it was Alden's not being open to real intimacy.

As an impressionable young woman I think that Meridian in many respects married her father. Alden was an older man, a serious intellectual who I think loved her for her youth and intellect. She was drawn to someone who appreciated her mind but who also treated her as her father treated her mother. It was a dichotomy inherent in the way she witnessed her father regarded the females ntheir home that she brought to her marriage. As the two roles conflicted the marriage was bound to falter.

In this case, it wasn't the age that separated Meridian and Alden, it was their personalities. Alden would have seemed old even he was Meridian's age. He lived a linear life with very little change. He wanted Meridian to be the same person that she was when he met her and that is not possible. She matured over time and became a better Meridian, a more confidant Meridian, and Alden could not deal with that.

When Meridian matured she was a totally different person from the girl Alden met. He wanted things to stay the same and she was outgrowing the relationship. I have to say that I loved that she stayed with it

Finishing my thought above - I was glad that she saw it through and was with him in the end. So often people want self gratification and want to leave when things get difficult. Her marriage was a part of her life - but she made a life for herself outside of that marriage. I felt like she did the right thing when she made the decision to stay with him when he was sick and dying. They had shared a life together and she honored her commitment. She had character and led a purposeful life. I loved that about her.