To ask you what you think of age gap relationships.

[BingbastardBunny]

I saw a thread on here about a mother asking if she should be worried about her child fancying an older actor.
I was just wondering is it a big worry if your child begins a relationship with someone significantly older or younger than themselves.

There is an age gap of 28 years between my husband and I and we are perfectly happy.

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I have got experience of one actually, hence why my opinion of them is what it is.

My parents also have 25 years between them.

I was in an age gap relationship at 19 with a controlling and abusive 35 year old. I imagine I probably would have married him if he'd asked. Thankfully instead I went on holiday with friends for a month and he got bored of not having me at his beck and call and dropped me. Didn't stop him from on/off stalking me for the next five years.

I specifically didn't mention it because it's an extreme example and he was an abuser at any age but since you mentioned it I do have experience of an age gap.

I've seen a few very unhealthy big age gap relationships, but all where the younger party was really quite young. Now I am old enough to have a big age gap relationship it feels more wrong because the people I know well in that age range are my son and nephews and their friends. To me that's where the 'it's like incest idea' comes in. If I dated a man in their late teens/early twenties I would be thinking that was someone like my son/nephews and so it does feel very wrong.

It's a matter of perspective perhaps, I'm not thinking of myself as the younger person swept off her feet by the older romantic, but as the older person attracted by the sweet young thing, and I just don't think that sweet young things should be on my radar. It gets even worse if I think about my children because I would be very worried about predatory behaviour. Of course sometimes it's just accidental love, but I do suspect that many people who like to seduce younger people are attracted by the naivite of youth. I want my children to have relationships where they are equal partners, and twenty plus years of adult experience is just not comparable to one or two at best.

Blingbastardbunny, I'm interested to know if this is your DH's first marriage. Does he have children from any previous relationship? The main problem with an older partner is usually the baggage involved with step children and ex wives or former partners. It would be unusual for a middle aged man to have remained single which would also make me wary of him.

I'm similar age to your DH and my DC are similar ages to you. It does seem like a huge age difference to me.

Largish age gaps seem fine but I think it's a bit creepy if you ever get into the territory of "young enough to be his daughter!) or where there are kids who are closer to the new partners age than the actual partner

18 years ago here. Married 26 years. He's now 66 and I am 48. No regrets but I didn't consciously marry someone older we just happened to get on well and have the same values in life.

18 years gap doh!

DH has not been married before me but he had a long term partner, and one son aged 15.
And no I was not the OW we met long after they spilt.

One of the happiest relationships I have seen was that between FIL and MIL- 17 years age gap between them, with him the older. I think the important factors here were:

she had a very strong and positive personality

he was very flexible and willing to keep learning throughout life

she was not looking for someone to lean on

he was not looking for a helpless young thing to mould

he was happy to become the SAHP when he had to retire

she was happy to carry on working

he stayed in good health until his early 90s

by which time her health had already taken some bashing

they both enjoyed the same things: travelling, good food and drink, very sociable

I am not convinced that the "cultural gap" was greater than between dh and me, who grew up in different countries. And in many ways, both IL's and our cultural gap was perhaps smaller than that of my parents who were the same age, grew up in the same country but came from different social classes.

I think the problems with a large age gap between spouses tend to surface later on.

I've a couple of close friends, women in their 40s, and it has suddenly hit them that their DHs have less than 8 years to retirement and what that will actually mean in terms of finances and savings. In both cases, the couples still have fairly young children and one couple has a child with significant SEN requirements that will mean the child needs continuing support into adulthood.

With the other couple, it didn't kinda click until they were considering moving house because their home was now too small for their family and realised they couldn't get a reasonable mortgage because they were limited by the length of term.

I think you have to go into a large age gap relationship with your eyes open. A very close friend of mine is in her early 50s and her partner is in his early 70s. They've been together for 20 years, but now, financially, things are quite tough and are likely only going to get worse because he has only had his state pension for the last seven years and they are relying on her full time salary, which comes in at about the UK average. Luckily, they only pay a peppercorn rent for their flat, but if that ever changes, it's going to be very hard indeed.

All that said, my Dr is younger than me by a few years (not many at all) and I do think that was a contributing factor to our delay in starting a family, which has now had quite significant repercussions. Had DH been older, I think he would have more aware of family life sooner and been a bit more on the ball about it all.

So there's swings and roundabouts whatever, really.