I'm 30 and dating a 19 year old

[Luciferthethird]

That's it really, I've 2 DC's they've not been introduced yet, still too early for that. We've been dating for about 3 weeks. He's lovely and he keeps telling me the age gap doesn't bother him.
My sister has the exact same age gap between herself and her partner but somehow that seems more acceptable when it's the man that's older. I just need a sounding board really.

@Skittlenommer did anyone suggest OP was breaking the law or that the parents could or should ban him from seeing her?

No.

@Flerkin it’s just a little offensive (and a bit cringey) to keep referring to an adult man as a boy! And a few people have said they’d be putting a stop to it if it was their son.

@zeezee3 you mention jealously an awful lot! Why are you so fixated on it?

it’s just a little offensive (and a bit cringey) to keep referring to an adult man as a boy! And a few people have said they’d be putting a stop to it if it was their son.

Well to a lot of people 19 is a boy. Legally a 'man'. But developmentally a boy.

Its peoples opinions. I dont find it anymore offensive to say it's weird, than someone coming here claiming everyone is jealous because their dh was just a legal adult when they met and everyone else must be jealous.

OP asked for opinions. If you dont want to read peoples opinions. Dont post.

And dont post something equally as offensive and then moan about other opinions.

It's great you are happy. I hope it continues.

It's not for me and in my opinion someone in their late 20s/30s with a teenager, is just odd.

To you it's not. Just a difference of opinion.

@zeezee3 so much to say and you have such a vast knowledge on the subject
You are generalising massively, my own brother behaved like a teenager until he was 40, my cousin was married and behaving like a fully functioning adult at 19.
My own experience is that I was married to someone 'age appropriate' and he was a man child and even now at almost 50 still behaves immaturely.
Dh is way younger than me and when we got together, we both had to grit our teeth and deal with so much negative shit. Right from day one he was my equal, he's mature, responsible and you are ridiculous suggesting that just because a man is young, he will be boasting about his sex life to his friends.
That's nothing to do with age and everything to do with having an awful attitude towards women. That doesn't get better with age, from experience it gets worse as people get older!

An old school friend of mine met her DH when she was 19 and he was 56 . They have been together for ten years now and are extremely happy by all accounts. I don’t think she’ll have children with him, he has children older than her! Her Mother didn’t speak to her for five years as a result of this relationship, she was utterly horrified and I can understand that. He does look like her Dad or even Grandad tbh.

Conversely I remember having a ONS with a 20 year old when I was 23 so barely any age gap at all but I was a million years away from him on the maturity scale. His body still looked like a boy’s body, I was drunk so tried not to think too much about it but it completely grossed me out afterwards.

I couldn’t do it personally. I teach 19 year old’s, they are not attractive to me in the slightest. I can see why girls their own age would find them attractive but I’d never look at them in that light. I know they’re technically men but they just act like boys.

Have a bit of fun together. Be friends, do things together, have a laugh, but don't think this is going to be a lifelong commitment on either side. It will run its course. Just make sure there isn't a pregnancy resulting from something that isn't going to last forever.

If by any chance you do genuinely commit to one another then that's an unexpected bonus.

Just ignore all the negativity. Believe it or not you can have a romantic friendship with someone and it's not a runway to marriage and the rest of your lives.

Your children, if and when they meet him, can regard him as a friend of their mums and not a new father. That's just not necessary. You can all do things in the same way you would if he had been a female friend. Not every human interaction is about settling down with a lifelong partner.

@Skittlenommer

The reason I have mentioned women accusing others of jealousy a few times, is because without fail EVERY WOMAN I have ever met, who has a younger man, ALWAYS assumes other women (who have a man roughly their own age,) are soooooooooo jealous of them. EVERY LAST ONE. And it's tedious and laughable and pathetic.

We are NOT jealous, we pity you, because you must be extremely insecure to keep trotting out this 'you must be jealous of me' bollox. We also pity you because we know in most cases, the younger man turns out to be a cocklodger/lazy git, and the older woman waits on him hand and foot, funds his lifestyle, and ends up behaving like his mother. (As well as looking like her!)

It's happened to almost every last woman I have known with a younger man (particularly when that younger man is under 30, which they usually are...)

There is not a single reason to be jealous. Name one. Go on, I'll wait.

And don't insult the intelligence of people on here by saying 'the sex is great and it lasts longer' because we will just laugh at you.

Hahahaha 30 and 19
Seriously? He must be very mature
And you very immature

And even then.... yuck.
A 19 yo? What do you guys talk about? What he does in school/uni?
What his favorite sesame street character is? Do you read his diary together?

Imagine your own ds being 19 and having a thirty yo girlfriend? ???you would be judging that for sure! Or imagine your 19yo dd having a 30yo boyfriend

@Luciferthethird I'd just like to say well done for not losing it with some of the pp on this thread, you've done well to compose yourself with all the vile comments that have been made 😊

I'm 8 years older than my dp. I met him when I was 27 and had 3 children, he was 19 but told me he was 21 🙈 he later confessed his real age and I had to take a step back and decide wether I could do this, but I was head over heels in love with him at this point so decided to give it a go. We've been together almost 10 years and have 2 children together now. The age difference has never really been a problem, he looks and acts a lot older and I look younger so on the front we both look similar age.
Take it slow and see what happens, don't listen to the negative comments people will always have something to say. If you both like each other and are happy then that's all that matters really.

@Yeahnahmum

PMSL!

@zeezee3 I don’t think I’ve ever said that to anyone in real life! 99.9% of the time I forget my DH is younger than me but maybe it’s because there isn’t a huge gap between us.

I certainly don’t fund his lifestyle. He earns twice what I do (and I earn a good wage) and is in a highly skilled job, managing a large team of people and has consistently progressed professionally since he left university.

I don’t wait on him hand and foot, we have a housekeeper, a gardener and maintenance man for most jobs and for anything that’s left we split it 50/50.

You seem to have some weird skewed stereotype of age gap relationships in your head!

I can’t even remember what I talked to my 31 year old boyfriend about when I was 20 but I don’t remember struggling for conversation!

Honestly some of these comments! I only care that my daughters are with men who treat them well rather than focusing on age.

I did and he’s now my husband of 16 yrs. I don’t want to go into too much detail as it could be outing. The circumstances weren’t entirely the same, I didn’t have kids, i’d literally just turned 30. He was 19, but had (still has) a very ‘old’ head on young shoulders, if that makes sense, whilst I was still quite young minded so I guess we met in the middle, mentally age wise, although I’m 10 years older. We both wanted the same things at our stage of life & we had obstacles to overcome at the beginning but we wanted to be together & nothing was going to stop us.

@youvegottobekidding So lovely!!

He was 19, but had (still has) a very ‘old’ head on young shoulders, if that makes sense

Totally relate to this. My DH was 2 weeks off from his 19th birthday when we met and he was then and is now miles beyond his years. Certainly more grown up than me.

Yeahnahmum

Hahahaha 30 and 19
Seriously? He must be very mature
And you very immature

And even then.... yuck.
A 19 yo? What do you guys talk about? What he does in school/uni?
What his favorite sesame street character is? Do you read his diary together?

Imagine your own ds being 19 and having a thirty yo girlfriend? ???you would be judging that for sure! Or imagine your 19yo dd having a 30yo boyfriend confusedhmm

Not exactly the most mature response @Yeahnahmum?
What’s wrong with talking about university/ studies? You do realise that older people study too?
You can’t really mock someone and call them immature/ try and joke about Sesame Street when you can barely string a sentence together and are probably one of thousands of adults who obsess over Disney?
...

My goodness, so far I've managed to read replies to the (admirably restrained and polite OP) that have directly called her

• disgusting
• gross
• damaged (for daring to date as single with two children)

The last one is particularly disgraceful.

Surely as the majority who post are mothers, there should be some sort of respect and feminism that allows a woman to make her choices and find her happiness? Or should all single mothers be confined to only swiping on their phone, within a strict age category, and only date once a fortnight so they can still be seen to be "putting their DCs first as #1" etc

I think the reality is that a number of people on here fully well know they would stand little chance of being able to engender the OP's scenario, so they are kicking her very hard, perhaps out of jealousy or judgement, who knows.

Good on you OP for seizing your happiness, for meeting someone fun, for feeling attractive, whatever it is that is working for you. He is legally of age to make decisions, and he has chosen you as you have him, for whatever time period it is for. All the judgement I find creepy as it smacks to me of deep insecurity on the part of some of the posters.

Also to address some of the typical kicking on here:

"What have you got to talk about?"

• I was 19 once and I was pretty verbose for my age. When I was 22 I dated a woman of 37. We talked mainly about European cinema (pretentious? probably!) , travel, politics, whatever. It was normal.

"The sex will automatically be bad".

This is hilarious. How do you actually KNOW this? Not everyone at 19 is a priapic, prematurely ejaculating mess, the real world is not American Pie.

"His body has barely matured"

This one is one I'm still scratching my head over. Yes perhaps some will be skinny ectomorphs with no body hair and smooth skin. Some people like that, on guys aged 18 and above, and that doesn't make them anything illegal. But google Gianluigi Donnarumma (Italian goalkeeper, 19) or Jadon Sancho (British footballer, 19) and tell me that they don't look like men?!

Totally agree with GinDaddy. Well said.

Thing is, a lot of people have a short-term, sex-based relationship with someone much older than them, when they are young. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, and no reason why either partner should walk away feeling harmed by it at the end - unless one partner is an abusive individual, but an abusive individual is going to do harm however many of the 'appropriate' boxes they tick.

Most people would actually be a lot happier if they either pursued on their own account - or accepted that others enjoy - lots of short-term, sex-based relationships and that these can be as much fun with as few lasting effects as a good holiday.

I think the reality is that a number of people on here fully well know they would stand little chance of being able to engender the OP's scenario, so they are kicking her very hard, perhaps out of jealousy or judgement, who knows.

Judgement but I’m pretty damn sure most women in their thirties and forties aren’t the least bit jealous of a relationship with a 19 year old. Nauseous maybe. Jealous no

My nephew is 21, albeit a very responsible and switched on 21 but I can't even imagine living in their world. Even without my dc. Obviously it's up to you but where do you see this going? Does he want dc and do you want more?

My sister is 35 and her boyfriend is 24. I think he was only 21 when they got together, so yes it can work.
He is an "old soul" though, not your typical lad. And she doesn't have any kids, which I think makes a difference too.

And, yes, I have had a couple of flings with much younger men. All of us survived unscathed and are still on friendly terms should we run into one another.

Mind you, I wonder if some of those who are pooing their pants and fainting at the mere thought are people who don't have any friends more than a few years older/younger than themselves. Something I have occasionally noted in my more stupid and judgemental acquaintances is that they simply don't spend much time with anyone who isn't like them: all their friends are of a similar age, income level, life stage, social class etc. They might acknowledge relatives as being at least of a different generation, but aren't overly involved with their own parents/grandparents.

If you are as ignorant (in the truest sense of the word) as this then it's not surprising that your reaction to unfamiliar things is fear and rage: you've never developed much of an ability to think for yourself.

Sick.