She is now happily remarried to a man of her age.
=What the Community Says.= Mates whose ages are out of proportion, are often thrown into deep discord by the pressure of the community's criticism. They might thrive on a desert island or on a farm or, as in the case of an explorer I knew, when surrounded almost continuously by an "inferior" race whose opinion they can easily disregard.
The community's smiles or open disapproval, on the other hand, are a heavy burden, especially for the more neurotic mate, who is likely to feel very self-conscious in everything he or she does.
The too young wife and the too young husband may at first smile when hotel clerks, shopkeepers, chauffeurs, etc., allude to their aged mate as "your father" or "your mother." After a while, a feeling of embarrassment will get the best of their sense of humor. Shame and humiliation will soon set in when those mistakes are repeated frequently. When the ego is wounded by love complications, unless the individual is a pronounced masochist, love fares very badly.
It turns into hatred for the mate causing the humiliating remarks, as unconscious incest ideas gradually break into consciousness and provoke protective measures, critical attitudes, disgust, etc.
In one case which came under my observation, the community's criticisms worked as effectively as psychoanalytic treatment would have.
=Having Her Fixation-Fling.= A young woman married to a man of her age, but discontented and frigid, had a passing liaison with an elderly man, which exposed her to many jeers on the part of her associates who suspected it.
She was very intelligent and well acquainted with psychoanalytical literature and only consulted me to make sure of her correct diagnosis of her own case.
She did the proper thing under the circumstances, confessed a part of the truth to her husband, went away with him for a while and has been happy with him ever since. She had had her "fixation fling" as she called it, had sown her neurotic wild oats and ridden herself of a morbid element which may never bother her again.
This sort of solution, however, is one which is neither scientific nor safe, for the person affected by a fixation of that morbid sort is at the mercy of a recurrence of it, should life's problems compel him to seek once more the line of exaggerated safety and regression to the childish level of conduct.