39 year old friend has 18 year old girlfriend

[Pooshy]

Our good friend is coming to a bbq with us tomorrow and bringing his gf who he's been dating since January

We've not yet met her but he's 39 and she is 18.....!! She is closer in age to my children than me

My DH and I are horrified that he's going out with someone so young. DH has expressed this to him plenty of times and how it's so wrong but it doesn't register. To top it off I know she had a tough childhood with sexual abuse from her father

He's actually a really nice guy (he's our sons godfather) but I just don't know how to act tomorrow....

Oh ffs.
I was just using a personal example to demonstrate that a relationship with an age gap or with a real or perceived imbalance of power is not automatically abusive, or exploitative, or whatever.
People started imagining a middle aged teacher fucking a teenager.

Dating at 16 does not necessarily involve sex, and (I would guess) in majority in cases it actually does not, irrespective of what teenagers say. I (finally) lost my virginity to him at the ripe age of 19, pretty much at the same time that we moved in together (thinking of it now, it could have been even 20). Of course, my parents never knew, they would have never approved me fooling around without marriage - teacher or no teacher.

Returning to the OP, no one knows the exact nature of the relationship between these two. Someone very close to me, while recovering from a very traumatic sexual assault, entered a romantic relationship which looked very asymmetrical and wrong at the first sight (with the doctor who was providing care for her) and I was very concerned for her. They are married for 10 years now, and are blissfully happy.

Dating at 16 does not necessarily involve sex, and (I would guess) in majority in cases it actually does not, irrespective of what teenagers say.

Dating in middle age does, though.

But of course your middle-aged man was the consummate gentleman, happy to wait as long as it took.

craxmum I think it's the whole "newly discovered charms from 14" that's making people feel very uncomfortable & uneasy. And the thought that those "charms" involved an older man. I'm not saying that to be insulting or patronising. It's just how it makes people (well me at least) feel.
Obviously sexual feelings start around puberty but you're not mature enough to deal with them and an older man in a position of authority being involved adds a disturbing element.

Functional adults are not susceptible to the charms of 14 or 16 year olds.

All adults I know, also eschew the charms of 18, 19 and even 20 year olds.

craxmum is going to have a tough realisation when her daughter reaches her teenage years.

@TheDowagerCuntess
He wasn't middle aged. Older than me, obviously, and these days would've probably be diagnosed with a very mild form of Asperger/ASD.

Oh, OK, that's much better....

was just using a personal example to demonstrate that a relationship with an age gap or with a real or perceived imbalance of power is not automatically abusive, or exploitative, or whatever. People started imagining a middle aged teacher fucking a teenager.

What relationship? Turns out you weren’t really in one. If you use yourself as an example on a thread about a teenager in sexual relationship with a a middle aged man, of course people will assume yours was sexual otherwise it’s not relevant. It’s just another example of your naivety (or disingenousness) to think otherwise.

I saw girls who did get into sexual relationships with teachers during school and it was highly damaging.

You can choose to believe that you weren’t exploited, but a non-exploitative teacher would never have got involved with you.

What I observed at school - was the girls believed they just happened to fancy the teacher. Whereas in fact, those guys were doing everything in their power to get girls to fancy them in very subtle, manipulative ways, giving out almost subliminal signals, to put that thought into their heads in the first place.

What I observed at school - was the girls believed they just happened to fancy the teacher. Whereas in fact, those guys were doing everything in their power to get girls to fancy them in very subtle, manipulative ways, giving out almost subliminal signals, to put that thought into their heads in the first place.

Exactly, and again comes down to shark cage theory.

Girls and women with solid self-esteem and boundaries and much, much less susceptible to this.

Someone very close to me, while recovering from a very traumatic sexual assault, entered a romantic relationship which looked very asymmetrical and wrong at the first sight (with the doctor who was providing care for her) and I was very concerned for her. They are married for 10 years now, and are blissfully happy.

Christ, it just gets worse. . This cannot be for real. That doctor should be struck off for abusing their authority, regardless of how 'blissfully happy' they are now.

'Asymmetrical and wrong at first sight' = abusive and wrong at any sight.

beryl this poster is very unfortunate with the volume of un boundaried professionals she knows in her personal life. Writing character references for tribunal hearings sounds like it could be a full time job.

This is such a difficult thread because on one hand my own relationship is a successful/non toxic example of a teenager(over 16) and someone in their late twenties, which has lasted happily for years and is still going strong.

However the other examples of age gap relationships that have been given are seemingly toxic so have really done the opposite of what us guys with big age gaps hope to prove

My mum was 17 when she first met me dad - he was 37. They married when she was 24. Happily married for 30+ years

No man I know would dream of turning up to an event with a teenager. They have more self-respect. Can you imagine an 18/19 year old at a barbecue with people in their 40s? It's just too embarrassing for everybody.
When I was 18, I was just starting uni and prone to manipulation by peers, let alone middle-aged men.
The youngest girlfriend I know if any of DH's friends is 29 (he is 43).