Age Differences

It often seems to crop up on this site. Large age gaps between partners that are young is seen as unseemly at best and possibly abusive at worst. Such gaps when people are older is of much less concern. So I wondered what were the age gaps known to forum members. Maybe between you and your partner but also parents, relatives, people you know. To start you off I am 67 and my spouse is fast approaching 56. We met when I was 39.

 

My mom is 55 and my dad is 65. My issues with age gaps mostly come from my sister's bad decisions regarding old guys and my various friends bad decisions regarding people with significantly different ages.
Like I mean, it can work, but in my life at least it feels likes it's more likely to get all fubar.

 

My partner and I are two and some-odd years apart, and have known each other since we were both teenagers. For a while, the age gap between us felt kind of significant, because they were still in school and I wasn't. While we were both teenagers, it wasn't a big deal, and now that we're both adults it's not a big deal. But that period where they were sixteen and I was eighteen, or they were eighteen and I was twenty, or even when I was twenty-one and drinking regularly and they were too young to do so legally, felt noticeable.

Being in two different phases in your lives can make things weird, the further apart those phases are, the more weird it is (imo).

Talks along these lines always remind me of the XKCD comic with the side note that you're allowed to date people who are half your age, plus seven. Any younger than that and things start getting creepy.

ETA (Of course, two years isn't really significant by any means -- it just felt a little different in that period of time, is what I'm saying.)

 

my grandparents, who are currently in their 70s/80s, are nearly ten years apart and they married when they were both pretty young. (20s and 30s, respectively) back then it was just sort of the 'normal' thing for one partner to be much older than the other, apparently? this is what i've been told anyway.

for awhile my mum dated a guy who was about 12 years her junior, too.

i like what @oph said, about the difference being/feeling more or less significant based on phase of life. a 33 year old is in a vastly different phase than a 19 year old, so the two being together seems a lot "weirder" than a 19 year old with, say, a 24 year old, who is only maybe 1 life phase removed.

me, i personally am perfectly content with two people of pretty much any age gap being together so long as both parties are A) legal and B) content with the relationship. i'm media-conditioned to question very large gaps (older people dating younger people for the perceived "wrong" reasons and vice versa) but i'm trying--maybe naively--to break out of that, because it just feels judgmental to me.

 

My oldest sister had a long-term (6-ish years?) relationship with a guy who I think was nine years older than her (so they were about 18/27 when they started dating). He wasn't predatory, but the relationship was definitely affected by the fact that they kind of had the same level of emotional maturity at the beginning, despite the age gap. So while my sister was ~growing up~ during her 20s, her boyfriend stayed pretty stagnant. In the end she was like, "so you're now 33 and you have exactly the same issues that you did when we started dating, I'm outie."

 

My mom is 14ish years older than her current husband, who is only 6 years older than I am. The situation is kind of hilarious when I think about it that way, but I'm 36, he's 42, and Mom's 57, and they met three years ago, so... it wasn't a big deal. I'm obviously never going to refer to him as my stepdad, though!

My experiences wrt age gaps between a young person and an adult... eh. This had better go under a spoiler.

Spoiler: cw for abuse, csa

My biodad is 14 years older than my mother, and got together with her when she was 18. By what I've been able to piece together, he was controlling and overbearing and a big part of the attraction of having a much younger girlfriend was because she was malleable. She fled him when, after she got pregnant because of his refusal to take her into town to get her birth control, he also refused to let her go to the doctor for prenatal care. This was kind of a big deal because they lived in a fucking tent. She was well rid of him, imo.

When I was 17 my best friend and I got into a friend group that initially centered around tabletop RP and the Society for Creative Anachronism that was kind of 'led' by a 27 year old guy. He turned out to be a huge creep who saw no problem with pressuring teenaged girls to have sex with him. He predated on both me and my best friend, and at least one other girl. There were a couple of other adults he was friends with who got involved with that group, who were just as bad; one was, unfortunately, a very popular high school teacher who went after my best friend and god only knows how many other girls during the time he was teaching.

I don't think any of us younger folks in that group came out of it undamaged, and that experience - as well as my general experiences with the Society for Creative Anachronism - has made me extremely wary of adults who socialize mostly with teenagers, or who seem overly friendly with teenagers in a 'I'm in your peer group' sort of way. Some chat room experiences have borne this wariness out as a good thing.

Oh, and there's the 30-year-old man my 15-year-old cousin started dating behind her parents' backs. That was super fucked up, and I'm kind of surprised when they found out they didn't get the legal system involved. I have a feeling they ended up regretting that move; I gather he ended up being an abusive twit, because of course he was.

(edit because I forgot one. World is fucked up, y'all.)

 

my dad's 76 and my mom's 62. I forget what age they told me they met at but it was older, maybe 38ish and 52? my mom had me at 40 so that's the right ballpark anyway.

 

I have a friend who started dating her girlfriend when she was I think in Year 11 or 12 and her girlfriend was in Year 9 or 10. So my friend was finishing her second year of university when her girlfriend graduated high school. I don't think it's that odd though? I know my friend talked about how sometimes it was weird because there seemed to be a bit of a maturity gap, but they both seem to be happy together and they're still together, so.

I also have another friend (well, kinda, I haven't spoken to her in ages) who had just graduated high school and was starting university, and she started dating a guy who she'd been friends with since high school, who was 15 when she was 18. I know a 3 year age gap is probably not that weird, but idk a 15 year old and a 18 year old is kinda skeevy? The relationship ended up being shitty, because the girl was a bit of a douche. They were okay at first, but she would make out with other people at parties while they were together, apologise for it, and then keep doing it. And she ended up just going to him when she needed emotional support, but not supporting him back. And yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah, he doesn't talk to her anymore. But she is like this to people her age as well, so (she treated my friend from the above story in a similar way and she's given up on her).

EDIT: he might've been 16 when they started dating, but I met him when he was 15 (and I was shocked because he looked way older and I asked him what uni he goes to oops)

I also had another friend who dated a Year 10 girl when she was in Year 12 but I don't feel like that age gap is that problematic. They ended up breaking up just 'cause they weren't working out anymore, not because of age related reasons.

 

Okay so I dated my first gf when I was 18 and she was like 15

Clarification purposes, I was considerably more fucked up and ace then than I am now, and she's the person who asked me out, thus leading me on a "wait ok I heard about Sexuality in freshman year, am i...bi??" journey.

Especially because I had also never heard of asexuality really either.

At any rate, we got super wrapped up in the "dramatic and tragic love" thing because we were both hugely depressed and her parents suck, my parents eventually told me to break it off (because age difference more than sexuality which was kind of a let down to the story I was telling myself in my head), we kept dating secretly off and on, it got super codependent and crazy, I walked away for like a solid year (because I'm super great at that), and now we're actually pretty ok friends.

We've both kind of been huge drama sucking assholes to each other, and we never want to date each other again. Because bad news bears.

But we are friends, which is pretty great.

So...no real condemnation on age differences really, I think our issue was that we kept telling ourselves these stupid grand romance stories and we were also cycling hugely off of each other's depression. But in college I got a lot of jabs from friends about age difference, and it was fucking obnoxious as fuck all, especially when the same people would ask me for relationship advice the next day. *rolls eyes*

 

When I was 13-14, one of my best friends had a 21 year old musician boyfriend, who gave me the creeps something fierce. He basically fed her drugs and then used her for sex and it was truly disturbing watching him act all possessive. I have no doubt that it was unhealthy as well as illegal, and told her so at the time. Wayne got run out of town at some point. Maybe arrested? Anyway, he disappeared and that was the last of her ~amazing~ rock boyfriend. Thank goodness.

I am friends with a good number of people older than I am, so I suppose I don't see age difference as an inherently bad thing. One of my artist friends has just celebrated his eightieth birthday - his wife is a good 20 years younger than him (on par with his kids from his first marriage anyway) and they met when he was her teacher in college. No doubt this could ping some folk as creepy, but there is no power imbalance. That's the important bit - that you're not exerting power, not using your age and perceived experience to manipulate other people. I'm not saying don't question age differences, but they're not automatically abusive.

I have friends much younger than me and I live by the motto try not to be a dick.

Edited to word better because my phone kept posting when I wasn't actually finished, wth.

 

Mom and Stepdad were 11yrs apart, met in early 30s & 40s respectively. Running joke for a long time that Mom was the only one in her social circle that was younger than her husband, but the age gap was the same all around. Lots of cradle-robbing and cougar jokes.

My husband was the coworker of a 28yo friend, and his Public Face apparent maturity level (LOL) led me to believe he was 28ish. At 21 this seemed like the far end of the acceptable range. Turns out he was 20, 6mos younger than me, and I am the cradle robber.

 

Well, it's an age gap that would be ridiculous for adults but... my high school boyfriend was 15 and I was 18 when we started going out. I started courting him when he was 14 and I was 17. I wasn't aware the age gap was so big, mind you. I actually only found out some months into the relationship. He was only one year behind me in school so I assumed he was one year younger, two at most. The impact this had in our relationship is that I was very protective of him and, above all, pretty reserved in the bedroom department. We made out a lot, but I never even proposed sex because I didn't want to put any pressure on him. We dated for a year without ever even seeing each other entirely naked, and broke up for non-age-gap related reasons.

It was a really great relationship while it lasted though. I was devastated when it ended because I really thought we would spend the rest of our lives together. We were sweet and loving and fun around each other, and he gave me the strenght to grin and bear another hell year and then free myself from my abuser, and also had a permanent positive impact on my self-worth, being the first person, I think, who really showed me that I am loveable and deserving of love. As for me, I was his cool, hot older partner who kicked ass! :D

 

In high school, I was in my local social dance/vintage ballroom scene, which was heavily populated with guys in their mid-twenties or older who were interested in relationships with high school girls. I also had a boyfriend who was at college for my junior and senior years of high school (which were his sophomore and junior years of college, if I'm remembering right). Got involved when he was 19 and I was 16. And 1. this was not an online relationship, and 2. the age of consent in my state is 18. We did pretty ok at managing the power differential, but in retrospect, it's pretty clear the cognitive differences were uncomfortable for him at times. Some of that might well have been that my brainweird was a hell of a lot more of a problem at the time, rather than age, though...

I had friends who were involved who were 18 and 14, and the 14-year-old's mother did threaten legal action to make that end. In that particular case, while I absolutely trust the intentions of the 18-year-old, I also understand where the mother was coming from, because the 14-year-old had really significant mental health stuff going on.

Weird creepy anecdote: my best friend was really into this guy who was ... probably late 20s, actually, and the two of them flirted a lot, but he made a point of refusing to hook up with her because she wasn't 18. They hooked up on her 18th birthday. Way to make it clear that your only objection is the legality one, dude.

I could list several more cases, with people in their mid-to-late teens who really truly wanted to be in relationships with people in their mid-to-late 20s. The common thread for most of those was the person in their twenties realizing that the teenager just wasn't on the same cognitive level and ending things. One or two ended because the teenager realized the person in their 20s was on the same cognitive level, and had some problems keeping them from maturing. Most were not outright abusive, but were not healthy either.

There are two big factors for me in this kind of situation: life experience and cognitive development. As a 25-year-old, there are certainly a few 18 or 19-year-olds who have similar enough breadth of life experience to me that I'd be comfortable in a relationship, but they're few and far between. Cognitively, the big thing is executive function. The parts of the brain responsible for planning, having good judgment, and not being impulsive, develop over people's twenties, usually. Again, I've known one or two older teenagers with abnormally good executive function, but mostly, this is a very large deterrent to me.

 

My friend/ex Cobb is seven years older than me, and really we are at different development points and it was one of the reasons we called dating quits.

I am two years and a day older than my boyfriend. Yes. Almost exactly two years and a day.

We seem to be closer developmental wise at least. Both of us have our own mental health issues.

 

My husband is 8 years older than me, we met when I was 19. Naturally everyone around us was concerned about the age gap, but it didn't really seem to matter, ultimately. Between us, we never really felt the age difference. Maybe I was mature for my age and he was immature. I've always been into older men.

My father is 15 years older than his current wife and...I wanna say at least 8 years older than my mom? The gap never seemed to be a concern for them either (my parents divorced for a lot more than just a difference in years).

I've always been super into age difference in fiction, personally. The whole "summer and winter" thing is a trope I enjoy.

 

I probably shouldn't give details about the age differences in my family - but the biggest is 34 years. And no, there is no issue of power imbalance causing the relationships - the relationships came first (actually a legal requirement when dealing with guardians - a person in a relationship can become a guardian, but a guardian cannot enter a relationship with their ward without LOTS of legal mess). Since this is a public facing category of the site I'll leave it at that :).

 

i remember when I did the math as a teenager and realized that if society says that husbands being 10 year older than wives is desirable, and women live then years longer, in average, then it means twenty years of widowhood for everyone (bc we also stigmatize hooking up with younger men, and if everyone lived according to this plan, then there were no guys to hook up with either). So I am side-eyeing the societal pressure to hook up with older men - even if I try to judge individual relationships individually.

 

The pressure for AFAB people to hook up with older men also kind of gives a cover to the assholes who predate on young women, as well as pressures the young women to go along with it. It's a compliment that an older guy is interested in you! You must be so mature! *gagging noises*

 

one of my partners is three years older than me and sometimes i feel bad because we are in our growing stages and i'm less wealthy and independent than they are right now, so i'd say it definitely depends what stage of life you're in. I mean, my thing with my partner is good and we're still both roughly in the same growing stage but I could imagine some cases where it could get really ugly even with just a few years. as for age gaps I know of... I knew a couple who was ten years apart in age and was pretty happy, they both met as adults.

(I'd also agree that there really is a gross pressure for afab people to hook up with people older than them)