To think 26 year old dating 19 year old is weird?

Are you also quite young? Taking the opinions you read on a Tik Tok so seriously, is quite juvenile.

I don't see the issue. Although my 19 yo son would disagree. One of his friends is 20 and started dating an 18 yo and he finds that a bit odd!

Most of my early relationships had a 9 or 10 year age gap but by 19 I had been working full time for 4 years and was meeting people in the pub. At that time my circle of friends had a wide range of ages and it never seemed weird. We were all at work, all drank in the same pubs, liked the same music.

I met my now ex husband when I was 27 and he was 35. We were together for 20 years.

Great points, and exactly the point im trying to make really - the expectations on boys and men are out of whack with where they should be, so the idea people make these decisions independent of the patriarchy isnt strictly true. And get your point about culture - and brings up a good point, I wonder if the decrease in pub/drinking culture in younger people and the increase in online dating has had a bit of a side effect in terms of attitudes towards age gap relationships, simply because its easier to find someone who matches up with your interests more?

Neither do I, sorry I dont think ive made myself clear. However, society teaches us to value youth and beauty, and a man may have no conscious or subconcious abusive intent, but he may, for example, be immature compared to the women his age because he simply isnt interested in growth, and therefore is drawn to a younger woman. Thats got implications itself in terms of how he might behave in a relationship, about what he's emotionally ready for. There's a million different angles, not all abusive, but not all without problems and my issue is the assertion that this kind of age gap is inherently 'fine, nothing to see here' without any inspection into why it happens. Hope thats a bit clearer? Maybe not, its a complicated issue!

You sound pretty immature yourself OP. Hope you're not dating anyone of any age!

I don’t think necessarily, depending on the maturity level of the couple. I met Dh when I was 28 and he was 21, which is the same age gap. We got married 3 years later and had our eldest shortly after that. Now in our 40s and still happily married. At 21, he was more mature and sensible than all the 30 somethings I’d dated in the past and more mature and sensible than me!

Young adults need to navigate these things without parents at their shoulder policing their every move

my mum married when she was 20 and my dad was 29. She had me when she was 21. They married in 1966.

I don’t think that age gap is a problem, if two people love and respect each other I don’t see a problem , 🤗

The "half your age plus seven" rule has been around for years and certainly pre-dates the internet.

Having said that I wouldn't call a 26 year old dating a 19 year old weird. If the 19 year old was my DC I would be slightly concerned and keeping an eye on the situation. But I think it is massive stretch to call it "weird".

Does the 19yo in this scenario believe that they are in an exclusive relationship, even though the 26yo is not exclusive? This is a huge red flag, regardless of the 7 year gap,

1. Most of us thought we were seriously mature adults who “knew it all” at 19. But looking back—we weren’t.
2. The 19yo’s frontal lobe, which supports decision-making in the brain, will not be fully developed for another 6 years.
3. There is a power imbalance.
4. In my younger days, I knew people who were in the role of the older person. They deliberately chose younger partners because they were more pliable (see #3 above), and openly admitted it to friends.

Unfortunately, emotional immaturity in males is a factor. At 18, as I have said, I found some of my male peers a lot more predatory because they lacked the emotional maturity for relationships but had a fully working dick. I had far more pressure to do things I didn't want to from them.

I don't have teenage daughters, but knowing what 18 year old lads can be, particularly today with media influences as they are, I don't think I would be more worried about a 25 year old tbh.

You make fair points, but I do think some of the reasoning behind the more common older man,/younger woman relationships of the past wasn't just about male power, but about what was acceptable behaviour for young males. It was often said that women mature more quickly. I don't think that's a biological truth, but I think it was certainly a societal truth in the sense that 'playing the field' was more accepted in men. What that resulted in was women idealising relationships whilst men idealised sex. So the thing about dating an older man was that they'd already done the 'wild oats' bit that men were expected and encouraged to do in their late teens.

For all the sexual revolution for women, certainly when I was 18, there was still the idea that 18 year old boys couldn't be expected to have control over their dicks. Lad culture '(Loaded and FM) was very much to the fore, and for women the answer was not to change that but to match it (Ladette culture).

I wasn't interested in getting pissed and shagging around at 18. I was surrounded by a culture where that was what you did at 18, that was the socially acceptable behaviour. I wouldn't say that's what drove me into the arms of an older man, because I wasn't purposefully looking for an older guy but it might be why we met in the first place and why we got on. He never would have been that sort of guy, and I expect I could have found somebody my age who wasn't, but it would have been harder.

I had a six year relationship with a man 6 years my senior, from when I was 19. Not weird at all.

In a middle class bubble perhaps. In reality under 50% go to uni

My niece is 20 and is dating a 26 year old male, my brother and wife are fine with it and he is fine apparently, been to family hoildays and gatherings. I don't know it sort of feels a bit too much of a gap but I guess as long as they are happy. I haven't met him yet. My kids thought it was well weird ;-)

My ex's daughter was 19 when she started going out with a 39 year old. They are married now and have a baby.

Don't think 26 and 19 is too odd, particularly in comparison to that.

I believe the 19 year old is the OPs son. I did post this further up but as far as I can see
, there has been no response.
If this is the case then I suspect the 19 year old is having some great sex with a slightly older person who has more experience, and would be utterly horrified if he found out his mother was discussing his private life on a chat forum 🤣

I married my boyfriend who was 27 when I was 19. We’ve now been married eleven years, and if anyone holds the power in our relationship it’s definitely me.

Youre taking the word of TikTok as some sort as 'rule' - are you 16 OP? there is a 13 year age gap between me and my husband, we have been married over 15 years, and have 2 children together - but i will let him you know its 'weird' and that 'anything more than 3 years is predatory, according to TikTok' - another parent i know in my kids school is 15 years older than her husband as well.

I also think, you - are weird as fuck - myob and let them be adults.

I reiterate: I do not see anything inherently abusive in a 19-year-old woman dating a 26-year-old man.
If she were 16 and he 40 it would be very, very different.
Seven years difference at 19 and 26 age is not in itself a sign of coercive abusive behaviour on the part of the 26-year - old.

I don’t know a single “adult” that age. They are all at university or doing some kind of employment based route to getting a degree. An 18 year old will likely still be at college/6th form

I think it’s only on MN that every 18 year old goes to uni and is still studying. At least half of the ones I know are in full time employment by 19.

Really. So according to that logic I, as a 60 year old, could date a 37 year old and that's ok because the "rule" says so but a 19 year old dating a 26 year old is wrong according to the PP who posted about the "rule". What a strange world we live in.

I mean you came on here asking, ‘Am I being unreasonable?’, the majority of people have said yes you are. And your response is only to be rude to those that disagree with you and tell everyone that you’ve already made up your mind. So really, x2boys’ question is absolutely valid. Trying to go for the intellectually superior look while also using TikTok as your basis for truth and wisdom, just makes you look silly. Your comments to posters just make you look like a bit of an arse.

And, as for your assertion that:
as I said I’ve already made my decision and I don’t agree with it. There’s categorically no reason whatsoever for a 26 year old to be interested in a 19 year old. There are no exceptional circumstances. It’s disgusting.
I’m not sure that it really matters, I very much doubt that the two people involved in a relationship will care about what you think nor change their minds because you don’t approve and have TikTok to prove you right. So really it’s completely up to you whether or not you decide to take a condescending view of them, at best they won’t care or really notice, at worst you’ll damage your own relationship with your sibling and that damage may well out live this current relationship. Still, who needs siblings when you’ve got TikTok!

That is fascinating what people on here are saying about the change in attitudes to age gaps. I had no idea.

I mean, I think @ChicJoker being disgusted by the 19/26 ages is way OTT and this apparent assertion on TikTok that more than three years is predator territory is frankly ridiculous.

DH is 4.5 years older than me. We started going out when I was 23, so he was 27.5. we will soon be celebrating our 40th wedding anniversary. Nobody has ever raised an eyebrow at this or much bigger age gaps I know of.

What is driving this modern aversion to age gaps more than about 2 years?