To think "half your age plus seven" is a massive pile of nonsense?

So why are you being the thought/opinion police then?

But you're on here discussing theoretical other people's lives and policing other people's opinions...

Yes, and I think your views about those who are against these relationships when one of the consenting adults are very young are small-minded.

It is a pile of shite...
If you are both adults then knock yourself out.

No I read correctly that you don't care what age they are, but I think your views on those who are against them are small-minded.

As I said it's often the people who are ok with age-gap relationships who will say to go with that rule on here.

For those like myself who are against them when the younger person is only a teenager/very young adult that's normally the 'rule' we use, that they're not ok if the younger person is under a certain age, not the half your age plus 7 rule.

I think your comments on here have been extremely small-minded.

And you seem fixated on that formula for some reason even though I don't think many in real life are sitting down and halving their age and adding 7. Also if anything it's generally the people who think age gap relationships are fine who use the quote on these threads and not the ones who are against them.

The entire thread is about whether a specific rule on what is and isn't acceptable is stupid. The definition is there in the thread title and the original post!

Define "an age gap couple". Is it a year, 5 years, 20 years? What is acceptable?

46 yr gap,

I saw something this morning about 100-year-old Dick Van Dyke and his 54 year old wife. They almost made it.

And my point is that you still have statistics and probability, maybe if you’re not someone who thinks much about the future much you can easily switch off, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy myself in the moment knowing that statistically our marriage will much likely be shorter, that I could be a carer or that I will eventually be alone and grieving. An important aspect of my marriage is the hope that comes with planning for the future, it must be such an elephant in the room to not be able to discuss retirement freely?

Anyways that’s of course a personality thing, people who more easily live in the moment probably won’t be hindered by that.

And that entirely illustrates the point i'm making. None of us know what will happen, so immediately turning down an older/younger person because of age gap and what "might" potentially might happen in 40 years down the line is daft.

Do what makes you happy, and take life as it comes.

The thing is, you are the one that brought up this formula and are then arguing against it! Most people don’t stick to talking about a specific formula. They rightly think though that a 30 year-old man going out with an under 20 year-old woman is downright creepy. Formula or no formula.

Did it not show a new perspective for you when you had a 19 year old? Would you have been genuinely comfortable with them dating someone at such a vastly different stage of life?

DH and I got together when I was 19 and he was 34. We’re still together 29 years later and have just celebrated our silver 25th wedding anniversary. We have 2 lovely children who are 18 and 24 and we are still going strong. We raised a few eyebrows when we first started dating but I think we are proof that age gap relationships can work.

This formulaic number thing sounds a bit like the Bible. You know three or four score plus ten.

But we have to give a. nod to the French who claim to know everything.

In terms of age people are free to date who they want really. As long as it's legal. Obviously there are benefits and disadvantages And you will always get both male and female schoomerzes and meal ticket merchants,

Anyway, on a positive note. Think Joan Collins and her husband who is around 30 years younger. She still seems to be very happy.

Being cool with older men feeling entitled to much younger women is hardly liberal. It's the mainstay of the most conservative, misogynist societies.

One of the reasons I have an issue with it is that young women have so much to deal with from men their own age, and we don't explicitly lay out quite how misogynist our world is, so often they are still somewhat naive. Wouldn't it be lovely for them if men old enough to be their fathers could feel paternal towards them, rather than sexually possessive?

I’m generally pretty liberal but some 60 year old letching over a young woman turns my stomach. Probably because I had to put up with a lot of that shit in my youth. And I was never flattered, fell in love with them, enjoyed their experience, thought it was romantic or any of those other things we’re supposed to feel. I just felt grossed out and disgusted. I still do. Robert de Niro, Al Pacino, Donald Trump, Leonardo di Caprio all yuck. Jason Bateman, Paul Rudd, Samuel L Jackson, Denzel Washington all cool as hell.

Well, some religious types are ok with a 18y old girl being married off to a 30/40y old man, so 🤷🏼‍♀️