To think 17 and 43 is wrong?

[Beyinbonnet]

So a relation has started seeing a 17 year old (16 when started) they are now engaged, living together and she's pregnant!!! AIBU to think this is wrong?! All in the space of 7 month?!

I'm sorry but this just unsettles me!! I know it's not really my business but it's really got to me! Fair enough be seeing each other but FML!!!

You can get your provisional licence in advance of your 17th birthday (to become valid on your birthday) and you can take lessons on private roads. (I'd been racing since 15 and took my driving test 2 days after my 17th birthday.)

Nickname - it's obvious to decent people why a 43 year old shouldn't be looking at a 17 year old. My point was its obvious he fancies a young girl on his arm and all that entails. That's all I meant.

so from the majority of replies I am going to take it that I am not been unreasonable! Everyone with half a brain seems to think the same

That's the problem...half a brain.
Perhaps they would think differently with a whole brain

I'd be uncomfortable with this if it was a young relative of mine. It's like these famous stars with serial girlfriends, as they get older the girls get younger. Maybe they think it makes them seem desirable, "Look, I can still pull a young hot looking chick."

But in the cold light of day it looks a bit pathetic and it fools nobody. If it lasts, when the girl is 39 the man will be collecting his pension. What on earth do they talk about? Will she mind being his carer if he becomes ill? It may have a future but it's doubtful - but that's not what it's about is it?

I'm not sure that anyone thinks it's really OK, and I'm pretty sure that no one on this thread is jumping up and down shouting "ooooh, that's just what I want for my daughter!!".

I ask again, what do you think can be done to stop a 16 or 17 year old who has hooked up with a much older man? What? I ask especially those who are disgusted by it.

I agree with Gottaget that reservations are fine, the extreme disgust and remarks about Jimmy Savile are a bit odd in themselves.

As for the arguments that they're both happy, bear in mind how relatively little life experience most 17 year olds have. At that age, I was just happy not to be being bullied at school. I was mature for my age but my bar for happiness was "not getting beaten up everyday". It's that lack of life experience that imo makes her vulnerable.

As for what anyone can do - not much. Her friends and relatives need to be there to give her advice if they think it's abusive. But they can't physically separate them.

YANBU!! reminds me of bill wyman - of the rolling stones for those too young to remember - and that girl he married when she was 16 (think it was 16). What did her parent say?

Her mother put her up to it, didn't she? Wasn't she grooming her for it from 14 or 15?

Must have been earlier. Mandy Smith was sleeping with Wyman at 14

It was all over the papers in the 80s when i was growing up She was 13 when they started seeing each other.

The Sunday papers particularly the NOTW called her a "wild child" They gave the same nickname to Emma Ridley a 15 year old who was going to nightclubs and dancing on tables.

Her sister was Joanne Ridley who played the daughter in comedy series Me and My Girl.

I think there may be a few nightclub owners and journalists who could now feel quite uncomfortable about the way they saw things back then.

At the time though the clubs got publicity and promotion and the journos got to sell copy so win win for them.

Iirc Sam Smith was 15 when she first posed for The Sun though she was 16 when the photos were published. Fortunately times change - though perhaps not that much.

I think it's disgraceful the way people like Wyman get off the hook. There's a perception that underage girls would have wanted to shag rock stars - and that such behaviour was somehow in keeping with the image of being a Dionysian bad boy. 'Lock up your daughters' and all that shit. But when it's Rolf Harris or Jonathan King it's considered worse - and I'm really not sure it is.

I agree John.

Yes it's legal, yes they are not actually doing anything wrong but it's still weird and a bit creepy.

The Sun had a big countdown to Sam Fox's 16 birthday when they cooud legally splash her topless on page 3. Unbelievable looking back, really.

I agree MrsDeVere. Also consider Jerry Lee Lewis.

Plus, while not naming names, I think we all know that there were rock stars in the 60's and 70's ploughing their way through underage groupies. They never get done though. Reportedly, Bowie devirginized a 15 year old and that got lost amidst the hagiography.

Looking back on it the 80s were bloody weird.

Hmm..whether they were better or worse overall is hard to tell. All the abuse has just gone online now.

OP, you sound a little, ahem, excitable I think you should calm down a little. I met DH when he was 18 and I was 32 - we were engaged within a week and are still very happily married fifteen years later. I think it's very wrong to judge others' relationship choices, regardless of age differences or any other factor - the only people who know what goes on in a relationship are the people in it.

He's probably going to be really controlling or something

As for this, and all the other similar views expressed - utterly horrible. Are we to believe that in all relationships where there's a significant age gap, the older partner is a controlling, abusive, perverted weirdo? Just disgusting.

I grew up in the 80s. I wouldnt want to do it again. I liked the music though.

Penelope: 17 and 43 is every kind of wrong. I once taught 17 year old girls and they look like children.

I'm not commenting on your business.

Yes, attitudes have certainly changed a great deal since the 1980s. But there still seems to be a great divergence of views on so-called 'young people' having sex with adults. For example, the attitude of the Police and Social Services in Rotherham that the children who were being raped there were in fact, 'young women making bad choices'. And I have had disagreements with men in my family who felt that Adam Johnson (the Sunderland footballer who was recently convicted of sexually assaulting a 15 year-old) was being treated unduly harshly.