Feeling sad about age gap relationship now that I’m older

[Itchybones]

When I was 19 I was secretly “dating” a 50 year old guy. He was a friend of the family and it only lasted about 7 months, so relationship is the wrong word. We were just casually seeing each other. I was old enough, it’s not as if I was under age, and I was consenting. However, it’s affected me as an adult and i struggle with it sometimes and don’t know why.

I feel daft because at the time I wanted to do it. I wasn’t traumatised or anything like that. But now I am 31 and over the past 3 years or so I keep having dreams about this man, but in my dreams I don’t want to do it. I feel repulsed and I wake up with a start and feel scared and disgusted. I had another dream last night where I was trying to hide from him and all morning I have felt sad and upset. It happened so long ago and it wasn’t a big deal, it’s not as if it was sexual assault or that I was coerced. I wasn’t a minor. But my brain won’t let it go years later.. sometimes I will hear a song that reminds me of him and I feel really sick and panicky. Why would this be? I’m posting this just because I am off work today and home alone and I’m just feeling really down and i always feel like this when I have one of these dreams or memories and I don’t know how to make sense of it or make it stop. I’m not really sure who to speak to about it, but also I feel stupid for speaking about it because it’s such a non event, nothing bad has happened to me.

While it wasn’t illegal it was wrong. The age gap created a huge power imbalance and now that you’ve live more life you can see that it was wrong. Lots of people have to rationalise abuse to get through it but imho you were still abused by an older man. It might be worth taking through with a psychologist to try to get to a place where you can process this. I’m so sorry you are experiencing these flashbacks.

I think it may be worth getting some therapy OP even just to talk this through. I had a similar situation with an older man when I was a teenager, same as you I wasn’t forced or abused, I was consenting, I wanted it at the time. As I got older I started to just feel icky and unsettled about it and ultimately it came down to the fact that as I got older and more mature I started to see that relationship for what it was, it wasn’t abusive, but there was of course a huge power imbalance. When I was young, maybe a bit “obsessed” with him, I didn’t see the red flags and when anyone tried to warn me off him I was his biggest cheer leader, thought I knew best! Now that I’m older I just see the situation through different eyes and can see that actually I wasn’t mature enough to make the decisions that I was making.

It may help you to talk it out in therapy x

There are a few reasons it could be bothering you like this

1. Something happened to you in the last few years that for whatever reason, you brain and memory have linked to what happened with that man, brains are weird, they do weird things, but usually there's been something happen that's bought it all up and attached itself to those memories. Have a think back, what was going on when this started? What might have bought it all back up for you.

2. viewing something we did as teens through the lense of an adult can change the memories and feelings. I was in a similar relationship, not quite so much of an age gap,, was 19 to 35, and now i'm 43, looking back it does make me squirm, because i thought it was great back then, and now, through a 43yr old lense. i'm very 'wtf' about it, because it was weird, and creepy, and now gives me the ick thinking about it.

Those are just two.. but regardless of WHY it's happening, it is, and perhaps you need to seek out some therapy to help you process the emotions around it, rather than continuing to let it impact your now.

Thanks for responding. I have thought about some therapy, I looked into it earlier this year actually but I’ve not yet been able to afford it. I also just feel a bit stupid.. lots of people have much worse issues than this

I agree with this and feel the same about several age-gap relationships that I had. They are really not acceptable now, which is a good thing, and if an older man approached my teenage children I would call the police.

Partly I think as you grow older you realise the power imbalance, and partly (for me anyway) I feel a lot of anger at the adults around me for not protecting me more.

Counseling is a useful space for exploring these feelings. But be reassured that they are appropriate feelings and understandable. X

Most local areas have a charity offering funded or partially funded therapy. You could have a Google for that.

A relationship between a proper adult and a teenager who thinks they're an adult just feels wrong once you get older and look back and realise that you would never consider having a relationship with a 19 year old when you're 40 or whatever.

Thanks for responding. I have thought about some therapy, I looked into it earlier this year actually but I’ve not yet been able to afford it. I also just feel a bit stupid.. lots of people have much worse issues than this

I think we can all downplay the stuff that affects us as being lesser than it is. If something affects you then it affects you other people’s difficulties are irrelevant to that experience. You deserve peace @Itchybones

how do you think your parents would have felt if they had known- it doesn’t feel as if he was acting like a “friend of the family” at the time

You can chat on MN in place of therapy if it’s unaffordable.

He sounds like a filthy dirty old man if he was 50
and shagging a teenager. Without doubt he exploited the major power imbalance. I’m nearly 50. The thought of having sex with a teenager is utterly revolting. He sounds like a predator who found an opportunity that was just about legal, to get his kicks. Horrible man.

Please don’t feel stupid or that this isn’t ‘bad enough’ to warrant therapy. If it’s affecting you, it’s definitely bad enough — not that it has to be ‘bad’ in any case: therapy is about you having a safe space to talk about whatever you want. You could talk about doing the laundry if you wanted!

There are usually some organisations who have a sliding scale of fees, so it might be worth seeing if you have any in your area. Some employers also offer counselling services, although normally only a handful of sessions.

Abuse doesn’t have to be clear cut. And as others have said, things we thought were acceptable at the time don’t always seem quite the same when we look back at them through a more mature lens. The fact he was a family friend makes it particularly reprehensible, I think, that he even countenanced a relationship with you.

Hi OP just chiming in to say I feel very much the same except I was younger and it was illegal - I was dating older men from.the age of 14/15 but even then I was aware I was doing it to feel some sort of feeling of love as I'd never felt much of it at home. Throughout my teenage years my mum would shame me as though I was a slut for having boyfriends but I knew within even then why I was doing it. There was no protection from my mum in particular only this feeling that I was doing something wrong but not in the way you'd expect. Needless to say, my relationship with my parents has never been very good and I also feel taking advantage of by the men but I wasn't coerced, I was just there for the wrong reasons.

Hi OP. I had some counselling for something I didn't think was a big deal but that had come up because my children were at an age that I was when that happened, it made me realise how wrong it was and that if it was my child I'd be devastated.
It really helped just to talk it through with a therapist, it wasn't even that upsetting but when I'd talked about it for a few months it kind of went away and stopped coming up in my head anymore. I rarely think about it now

I totally get you OP and have had similar thoughts. I had a couple of age gap relationships when I was younger. Looking back it makes me feel sick to my stomach even though at the time I thought I was grown up and it was totally consensual and I wasnt coerced into it or manipulated. I was always very headstrong as a teenager and did what I wanted irregardless of what my parents or anyone else thought.

For me, I think the sadness comes from feeling that at the time I took great value in myself that these men wanted to date me (for what I thought were my qualities as a person) when now I realise it was sickeningly inappropriate and was very likely a gross pattern for them of just chasing much younger women.

It shocks me how I couldnt see it at the time and that makes me feel really sad for "past me". Nothing "awful" happened, they didnt abuse me or anything like that but now I have teenagers it does make me reel with repulsion and that is something very sad to me, that I experienced that and could not see it at the time.

I was 25 when I had a relationship with an older man, he wouldn't tell me his age but I'm guessing over mid 50s, he was a pompous old fart who had to follow trends for the sake of it. When it came to dumping him I conducted an experiment to see how far he would go to get sex with a younger woman, I did this by exaggerating my political beliefs then dumping him when he didn't agree, I was disgusted when I realised he was happy to say he agreed with me to stay in a relationship, when I knew he thought those views were 'shocking'.

When I was 18-21 I was in a relationship with a man 24 years older than me. It wasn't a secret, but my parents certainly didn't accept him either (unsurprisingly). Yes, it was consensual, but he was jealous and possessive and placed me under enormous emotional blackmail (threatening to hurt himself if I left him, saying no-one else would ever love me like I did). He also tried to convince me that my parents were cold and unloving. He stopped me participating in normal University life.

Anyway, after years (decades!) of treating the relationship almost like a joke, I recently got really, really angry about it and started crying. I was tempted to contact him and write a really angry later about how badly I think he behaved. Partly triggered by lots of stuff in the media about older men abusing younger women I think. I kind of moved on again, but if those emptions had stayed with me I think I would have found a therapist/counsellor.

I had an affair when I was 19 and he was 50. I’ve always felt bad because technically I was an adult. Although I was suffering from MH issues and incredibly vulnerable. I see now it was a power imbalance and I loved the attention. I feel disgusted with what I did and I also struggled to end it so I have memories of having sex after the ick had set in. Not my proudest moment. But I often wonder if he should have had more will power. At 50 you know wrong from right in a way you just don’t quite yet at 19.

There are lots of reasons you might be unnerved by it now.

It's possible it wasn't quite as consensual as you thought at the time. He may have groomed you. Or made you do things that at t he time seemed passionate but in retrospect feel coercive.

Do you have children? As they grow into their teens you may be reacting to the revulsion you'd feel if they dated a much older man.

Or perhaps you are coming towards his age yourself and your subconscious is sending out warning signals not to do as he did and become attracted to a teenager. All my life I have been attracted to much older men, but when D

Or it could just be the shame that current culture heaps on entirely consensual age gap relationships. You may feel shame for not finding it problematic and thinking you should, since everyone else does.

It would be worth chatting to a relationships counsellor or therapist if it is causing you anxiety.