"Our 34-Year Age Gap" deeply disturbed me on more than one ground. I will start with what I learned googling the author, Dr. Sonja Falck, after I read the article. The article disturbed me enough to look her up. 

Sonja (I used the familiar to distinguish from her 34-years older, now deceased ex-husband, Dr. Colin Falck) is a psychoterapist and lecturer at the University of East London. 

"Areas of Interest":

...

"The interpersonal relating of gifted/high IQ/high ability adults, developmentally and in personal and work relationships." 

"Overview": 

...

"She has presented at the SENG (Supporting the Emotional Needs of the Gifted) conference in the USA and has given several presentations for British Mensa." 

Okay, she's one of those. 

"Publications": "Extreme Intelligence", "The Psychology of Intelligence." 

Got it. Thank you UEL website.

 

Sonja also gave an interview on British TV in 2019 summarized below:

Calling someone a 'nerd' or 'smarty-pants' is the last taboo and should be made a hate crime says psychotherapy lecturer

• Dr Sonja Falck wants 'braniac', 'geek', 'know-it-all' all to be deemed a hate crime
• Psychology lecturer and psychotherapist says anti-IQ slurs are damaging 
• Wants those with high intelligence to be given same legal status as BAME groups 

No, I don't know what BAME stands for, something about minority groups, I presume. 

Now, I'm going to make some generalizations about Mensa-types that will prove Sonja's argument to her satisfaction, which will lead back to the NYT op-ed: Those of "Extreme Intelligence" often say the dumbest things. On a list of top-to-bottom dumb things calling for hate crime legislation to protect those of extreme intelligence is right at the tippy top. It was so considered in the Mother country and in its principal Colony. Tyoo, their arguments logically follow but are devoid of feeling. They are brains in an emotional void. Their superior IQ's are compensation for "extreme" compassion and empathy deficits. Their arguments rationalize their behavior. Twee, psychotherapists talk a lot.

Colin was born in 1934 and died in 2020, perhaps of a broken heart. He was married once for seven years before divorcing. Nothing wrong with that by my lights. He married Sonja, then Sonja Esterhuyse, in 1999. He was 65 years old at the time; she was 29. Ooh. Footfault there. Sonja divorced Colin for "Richard", last name not revealed, whom she met when she was 45, and married when she was approximately 48 and Colin was approximately 82. Sonja and Colin and their tyoo chitlins and Richard lived together in Sonja and Colin's former marital abode, now the  marital abode of Sonja and Colin and Richard.

Now to the article.

Sonja had the revelation that Colin was too old for her via a medium, thus:

Nine years ago, [so, 2014] a friend from my childhood in South Africa visited me in London. She reads Tarot cards and energies and offer ed to assess me, hovering her hands over my body, starting with my head.

“Wow, you have a lot going on there,” she said. Her hands then hovered over my heart. “Here is a strong center of energy also — your love for your family and friends.” After moving her hands lower, she said, “From the waist downward I’m detecting no sign of energy. Nothing.”

Sonja's pussy was not getting any dick energy--which could have been predicted given Colin was 65 when they wed. That made Sonja sad.

My friend’s assessment saddened me, like something in me was dead. But you can’t have everything. [rationalization, which Mensa Society member Sonja does not realize.]  Colin and I had a rare intellectual compatibility that we always called, from Shakespeare, a “marriage of true minds.” [So touching, but when there is no sexual touching it ain't enough.] I valued our life together [No, you didn't.] so much that I believed I had come to accept the absence of a physical relationship. [convincing herself, but the pussy cried "WANNA! WANNA!"]

I was 45, stable professionally and personally, married with two children. But my husband, Colin, a writer and professor of English literature, was 34 years older than me.

I had fallen for [Colin] so utterly when he was my landlord almost two decades before [~1995]...

Now he was turning 80, ["turning", not quite, so 79; 2013; "energy" reader 2014.] and our age gap was showing. However fit and healthy he was, no one can evade biological aging. Our love was strong, but our sexual relationship had ended.

Okay stop. In this beginning account Sonja needed sex--and that is perfectly understandable! She's a 45-year old woman and her 79-80 year old husband can't get it up. What she needed is a lover, but not love. 

Sonja continues:

Until I went to a class called “How to Have Better Conversations” [Mensa psychoteraphists LOVE to talk, they love to talk even about talking.] one night, a week before Christmas, and a tall, attractive stranger asked if he could sit next to me. I noticed there were rows of empty seats all around. I said yes.

During the class, the presenter emphasized how boring it was when people meet someone new and say, “What do you do?” He ended the class with a thought-provoking question: “What conversation are you not having, and with whom?” (Emphasis in original.) They love to talk about not talking.

After the class, the attractive stranger — Richard — invited me for a drink. He suggested we implement something from the class and not ask, or tell, each other what we do. [Oh, that is so CUTE 🤮]

That seemed to me a fun experiment. [She was soon to try the fun game of hide the sausage.] He was not based in London. We exchanged email addresses.

Richard and I started emailing each other daily. He was a bit younger than me, and a full 40 years younger than Colin. He had never married or had children. He said we could be friends.

Yeah, just friends, Sonja.

But when we met again, we kissed. A long dormant energy stirred. I realized I could no longer ignore this side of life. I had to talk to Colin. This was the difficult, painful conversation I had not been having.

See how brilliantly they argue? She ties that in to the lecture! And of course she now must needs talk to Colin. To this point (and beyond) the thing with Richard is pure sex, and I go to pains to point out, I find this is completely normal. To this point (but not much beyond) I can give Sonja props for not wanting to deceive Colin, but I must say that I am a big believer in lying in circumstances such as these. Sonja could have gotten her side dick, and could have continued to get it, without causing Colin the pain of a "talk".

What happens in wildlife, when the male primate or elephant or lion ages? A younger rival contests him for his place with the female, and they fight, even to the death. Or the elder is ousted from the group and wanders off alone. The difference with humans is that we can have conversations about these things. We can make unique decisions.  

So brilliant Sonja, justifying your jungle need for "wildlife" with the animal kingdom. Those of you with Extreme Intelligence get to make "unique decisions", yes, absolutely. After having conversations. She begins to manipulate Colin.

Colin and I agreed our main values were to continue sharing our lives and to keep our family intact, both wanting to maintain daily co-parenting of our children. 

See how she does that? So logical. "My main value is our life and family together. You agree, don't you, Colin? I just want to share my pussy with Dick. Isn't that reasonable?

But we agreed that I could, discreetly, cease being sexually faithful to the sexless marriage. 

Richard and I became lovers. A thrilling, midlife, erotic reawakening unfolded. ...

Since she decided to tell Colin, this was always the best way. She could have kept it secret and not hurt Colin but having decided to tell him, yes, discrete sex-only affair(s) is the way to go. 

But then the following:

...We would meet up late at night in my office, after everyone else in the building had gone, and make love until dawn. We still did not tell each other our careers (although my office offered clues).

"Discreetly"! You would bonk in your office all night until dawn and never go home on those nights to your husband and two kids. Sonja, you TRASH!

And then:

One day Richard proposed to me hypothetically: If I were free to marry him, would I?

“Yes,” I said. “I would.”

From lover to love, divorce of Colin and marriage to Dick. Oh, it's so excruciatingly painful.

Eventually, we arranged for Richard to come to our house to meet Colin and the children, as a friend. Two weeks later, Richard had a conference to attend in London.

“Now that Richard has met the family,” I said to Colin, “could he stay in our guest room while in London?”

The next day I was out in the garden with friends when we decided to order a late-lunch pizza delivery. I went into the house to call Colin to join us. To my shock, I found him in a darkened room, still in bed, at 2 p.m. I had never seen him like this before. Suffering.

“This is all going so fast,” he said. “I’ve only just met Richard and now you’re asking if he can stay as a guest in the house.”

“Do you need me to stop seeing him?”

“No,” he said. “I am the past, Richard is the future. Promise me that if you’re thinking of leaving him, you will first discuss it with me?”

Colin was thinking ahead, to a time when our family would be without him. It’s like he was making a succession plan. Through tears, I nodded.

Talk to me if you're thinking of leaving "him". Doesn't make a lot of sense with Colin's "suffering". Colin making a "succession plan": No, I don't buy that. Colin was not suffering for uncertainty in the "succession plan", he was suffering because his wife had just proposed that her lover come stay with them in their house. Very painful.

WARNING: Grab your barf bag.

Richard and I agreed the time had come — eight months since we had met — to finally tell each other what we do.

“Rather than tell you,” he said, “I want to show you.”

Early one morning he picked me up and drove to the countryside. He stopped the car by a field. “This is what I do,” he said.

I was baffled.

“I’m an agronomist,” he said, explaining that he advises farmers on how to use their land, what crops to grow and how to care for them.

More than that, he specializes in regenerative agriculture. When establishing a new crop, instead of using toxic chemicals to destroy all that went before, he grows different crops simultaneously, sharing the same field, acting as companions, providing benefit to each other rather than threat. It’s a systemic approach that goes against tradition, and people may greet it with prejudice and challenge, not understanding, and taking a long time to accept it.

 Okay, got it. Dumbest fucking smart-ass justification for an open marriage I have ever heard.

When I started telling family and friends about me and Richard, I also met with prejudices and challenges. [Mensa types are big on parallel construction. BIG.] Some were devastated, warning that this could harm our children, and that I was risking everything for a stranger.

So she had to manipulate Colin further.

One night in our favorite restaurant, [Dick] seemed preoccupied. I said, “What’s the conversation you’re not having?” 🤮 He told me how painful it was for him to always feel on the outside of my family life with Colin and the children. They came first for me, and he had no secure place for himself.

I knew it was time for me to have another difficult conversation with Colin.

I explained Richard’s perspective and insecurity. Colin had a legal bond with me (our marriage) and a biological one (our children). Richard had neither. What could we offer Richard to prove to him — and the people in his life, like his parents — that he was not being kept on the outside?

Colin and I acknowledged [like Colin and I "agreed".] we would always have our children and our “marriage of true minds,” regardless of whether we were legally married. Richard’s place would be secured if he could marry me. Everything could stay as it was, but we agreed that Colin and I would legally divorce. Divorce was only a piece of paper.  

Was your marriage certificate with Colin "only a piece of paper", too?

Colin couldn’t cite my adultery as grounds for divorce, because if you continued living with your spouse beyond six months after the adultery was known, you were legally taken as having accepted it.

“Accuse me of unreasonable behavior then,” Colin said. “I’ve certainly done something incredibly unreasonable — I’ve gotten old!”

But there was another hitch. By law, every permissible reason for divorce was based on the same condition — that the two spouses “can no longer tolerate living together.”

Colin and I were still living together, although in separate bedrooms, and we wanted that to continue. The lawyers I consulted said that would not be possible. I decided to represent myself in the case instead and succeeded; our request was granted.

Mazel tov.

Richard moved in, and three years after we met, he and I began planning our wedding. All five of us were living together companionably, giving benefit to each other, not threat. Friends and family gradually accepted our unusual situation.

And that year at our Christmas Eve party, hosted by Colin and Richard and me...

Nothing about Colin's death, December 27, 2020. Was that the year of the Christmas Eve party? Did Richard go to the funeral? Who got Colin's estate? Sonja took advantage of a vulnerable, "suffering" elder--who happened to be her husband.  It's one of the most disturbing stories I've ever read.