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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be annoyed with friend who slept with an 18 year old boy...

243 replies

Dickorydockwhatthe · 21/09/2019 23:01

Who also happens to be her friends/neighbours son. She is 37 too so old enough to know better. The worse thing is she lied about it and denied it to her neighbour who was also meant to be a friend. It makes me feel sick to be honest and the fact that it is her friends/neighbours son just makes it worse. She says she feels shit but probably because she got found out.

OP posts:
lyralalala · 22/09/2019 00:10

There's a massive difference between two adults meeting in a pub or club (or work/hobby) and having sex, and two adults - one a very young adult and one a much older adult - who've known each other since one of them was a child having sex.

There's a big enough risk of a power imbalance in a big age gap relationship (not saying they all have it, but some do) as it is without that change from adult/child to adult/adult.

Jossina · 22/09/2019 00:13

18 years old is not an adult. Their brains are still that of a child.

RubbingHimSourly · 22/09/2019 00:20

I'm the same age and view 18 yr olds as kids.

It makes me feel icky that men or women of my age would choose to have sex with someone who's nowhere near being an adult........as an 18 year old myself if have probably been flattered and felt grown up if a man of that aged showed any interest. Now it just makes me feel grubby.

That's why it's wrong, because 18 year olds are still developing emotions and learning right from wrong. They aren't adults.

Divebar · 22/09/2019 00:23

He’s 18. He could be in the military and deployed overseas on active service. In fact the war was fought with thousands of young men that age. I can well imagine his mum doesn’t want him to shag someone she knows but tough shit, mums don’t get to decide that. ( otherwise no one would do anything inadvisable) . I expect he had a great time and no one actually died although how it came to be common knowledge I seem to have missed.

LimitIsUp · 22/09/2019 00:26

You have an opinion Gibbon, it's just not an informed one. That's not rude, it's a fact

IdiotInDisguise · 22/09/2019 00:34

Sorry but you cannot just bed your friend’s child who you have seen growing up. He may be 18 but still a child, her friend’s child.
That’s wrong in so many ways, and she is blaming the child for coming onto her? What a bitch.

I had a neighbour who also had form for sleeping with young people, she felt flattered the young were “attracted” to her. But then nobody wanted to have a relationship with her. Someway they knew she was willing and avaiñable for free sex, they may have been using her but still quite not right to bed kids the age of your DDS’ boyfriends.

PicsInRed · 22/09/2019 00:41

People are falling so far over themselves to be cool they'll get vertigo.

It's grim as fuck.

Justaboy · 22/09/2019 00:45

Come on! make your minds up re 18 Year old males! Its OK then for them to join the Army, go off defend the country, sort out trouble in most anywhere in the world, get killed or maimed but hey!

There still boys really dontcha know!.

WhenISnappedAndFarted · 22/09/2019 00:47

For me, the age is young but it's legal. She's known him since he was a child which is completely different to meeting a young man in a bar and going back with him.

LimpidPools · 22/09/2019 00:58

I'm 33 and in an age gap relationship. That's still proper grim.

Has he even left school yet?

Divebar · 22/09/2019 01:00

Well I’m not saying it’s great but it’s not worth all this drama and condemnation. Does anyone actually think she’s been grooming him or do you think it was some weird spontaneous event? Maybe alcohol had been taken, I’ve no idea. In any event it probably felt ok at the time but something she probably regrets in the morning. Well ok, life’s not perfect. We make mistakes and she might feel this is one of them. But I don’t think she needs her head shaving and being paraded around the streets quite as much as people seem to think here.

WillLokireturn · 22/09/2019 01:04

OP, yanbu . You're not asking if it's legal or not (which it is), you're asking if it is ewww. And creepy.

Regardless of whether it was a girl or boy, a friend's or neighbours son whom they've known since they were little and a 37 year old adult, is ewww. Your 'friend' is a creep. Don't care about the rest of it, how 'depressed she is', there's a world of difference between a 37 and barely turned 18 year old. Man or woman either way, it's a sleaze move.

Mothership4two · 22/09/2019 01:06

My (female) best friend between 17-19 had a relationship with a man 19 years her senior and now feels extremely uncomfortable about it. Again this man knew her growing up. At the beginning they hid the relationship from her parents. Obviously this isn't the same situation. However, they may be 'legal' but there is an element of grimness about it.

AryaStarkWolf · 22/09/2019 01:31

Really gross that some people are defending the woman, if it was an ok thing to do, why is she denying it? I'd fucking kill her if that was my son

WillLokireturn · 22/09/2019 01:41

AryaStarkWolf me too. I have a 17 1/2 year old. I would want to take down a 37 year old woman (or a man if visa versa or same sex) 'friend' or 'neighbour' if they did that. My son is a proper man boy, looks like a man, but he is still very niave. And I would be MAD at a groomy similar aged friend who took advantage like this. I want him to live his own life with his own peer group. Same for my daughters. I don't buy what OP's friend has said. She isn't the vulnerable one here and she " feels bad" because she knows she has been an absolute creep. She knew him as a child.

Bloodless · 22/09/2019 01:44

Hmmm.... technically it’s two consenting adults. However if it was my son I’d want to kill her.

Big age gaps make me feel a bit ill, although it’s none of my business - I’m 36 and and an 18year old boy just looks like a child to me, I couldn’t imagine ever being attracted to someone that age now(obviously apart from when I was that age myself). I know it’s hypocritical but when the man is much older it creeps me out even more.

rabbitheadlights · 22/09/2019 01:51

I did the same at 24 I was messed up emotionally my mu m had just died, he was 18 he knows it was an error in judgement we r still good friends

Nat6999 · 22/09/2019 01:55

Looking at it from the other side, I had a relationship with a 25 year old when I was 44, it didnt last but we are still friends. My late partner was 14 years younger than me & it worked between us. I don't agree with casual sex with an 18 year old but big age gaps can work.

AryaStarkWolf · 22/09/2019 02:10

25 and 18 is a bit different though Nat, 18 is a teenager, still very much a child in my eyes

SimplySteveRedux · 22/09/2019 02:14

Men of 30 / 40s go out with late teens / 20s all the time - is that also yuk?!

I wouldn't go there.

SimplySteveRedux · 22/09/2019 02:15

Men of 30 / 40s go out with late teens / 20s all the time - is that also yuk?!

I wouldn't go there. And someone I'd watched grow up is just grim.

Coyoacan · 22/09/2019 02:28

But has anyone been hurt?

RushianDisney · 22/09/2019 02:35

It is very simplistic to look on these age gap relationships as just 'two consenting adults', it overlooks the massive imbalance in power, experience etc. I've known age gap relationships to work, but I do not look kindly on anyone, man or woman, preying on teenagers. There is a hell of a lot of difference between an 18 and 25 year old in maturity and life experience. And that's not even taking into account the fact she has watched him grow up in fairly close proximity then jumped him to try and make herself feel better. Truly, utterly disgusting.

1forAll74 · 22/09/2019 02:49

The young guy of 18,is able to have legalised sex, and it would be quite ok if it was a girlfriend, or any girl but to have sex with an older woman is taboo so it seems. And probably quite right in these given circumstances. But it does happen sometimes, I have known young guys before, who become sexually charged up, and have sex with an older woman, who they know, and have been bewitched by them, and been kind of seduced into a sex situation.

The older woman might not be bothered about who she has sex with, and who it might affect. It's all seems pretty grim,when it's close to home, but it goes on all over the place.

Toastymash · 22/09/2019 02:51

I think it's inappropriate to have sex with a friend's child, even if the child is an adult. The only way I could see this being ok is if it turns out that they are in love and decide to get married and live happily ever after. And even then it's still questionable because he's so young. If the genders were reversed people would say the 18 yr old was still a girl and had been taken advantage of by a middle-aged man.