Aibu to get married to a 37 year old man when I just turned 22?

[ConeyIsland23]

I am 22 and my boyfriend is 37. He proposed. We are deeply in love. But I am unsure about the long term complications of our age gap after speaking to my parents. Could someone with a similar age gap tell me about the pros and cons? Are we doomed? Do you regret the age gap? Also we will be trying for kids once we are married.

What’s the rush? You are not sure, you’re only 22 so not exactly running out of time. 15 years is a big age gap but not unheard of.

I do know a friend who was a similar age and dh was that age, they are still married 3 decades later

How long have you been "deeply in love" for?

What his relationship history? And yours?

DH is 15 years older than me. We fell in love when we were in our late teens / 30's but we got so much negativity that we broke up and went our separate ways. Many years later he tracked me down - by then the naysayers were long gone and we were free to develop our relationship with no interference.

We've been together for 18 years and married for 13. Never had a bad day . Blissfully happy, we've never given our ages a minute's thought. The age difference hasn't caused any problems at all. The only regret that we have is that we allowed other people to make us doubt our relationship when we were younger, so we missed those years together.

I'd say, go for it. Don't let the "doom and gloom" merchants drag you down. Don't walk away from love and regret it for the rest of your life. Best wishes to you.

I don’t think it’s the actual gap so much as the fact that you are so young and you will both be at very different stages of your life.
Also no number of happy or sad stories about such an age gap from other people will help, they aren’t you.
However, my Friend had a similar age gap with her husband and it was all fine until he hit 60 and started to talk about retirement and seemed to start winding down towards it. Then lockdown happened and she REALLY got a glimpse of her future.
She’s divorcing him now but that’s them and you are you

If he was very wealthy I'd be telling my DD it's fine. As most of the issues related to the age gap and his ageing faster than you can be ameliorated with money - help with the kids, healthcare, care fees etc. But if there isn't great reserves of cash you need to realise that so much additional labour is going to fall on you. Including potentially being the main or only earner once he's retired. Such a huge imbalance of effort and labour will breed resentment and unhappiness in the end.

The worry for me would be the power balance. Do you have independent means (salary or other) or is this going to be a really unequal relationship?

Also how long have you been together? At 22 there is no need to rush this. Who is pushing for the wedding and why?

Not everyone wants/needs to have a massive blow out throughout their 20’s, I did that late teens and was very mature. DH and I got married, bought a house and had our family in our 20’s and don’t feel we’ve missed out at all, now late 30’s so it’s not to say we won’t feel it at 40/50 but I doubt it.

Being on the same page about life is very important though OP, I’d be concerned about the age gap if you were my DD just from the POV of have you thought everything through properly. I’d you have then great, the age gap shouldn’t matter. If he’s already been married/had kids I’d be extra cautious just with everything you’d be taking.

Here’s a fantastic bit of advice that should be shared far and wide IMO.

Good luck OP

Will he be pressuring you in to children before you're really ready?
And pressure can be disguised as philosophy I find. ''nobody ever lies on their death bed and regrets their children''.

It's still not what's ideal for you. We could all look at it another way but we're entitled to see it our way.

Age gap aside, you’re 22! What’s the rush to get married and have kids? Your 20s are all about having fun, enjoying your independence- the whole rest of your life is for responsibility, routine, restrictions etc!

I know that may sound patronising, but when I think back to when I was 22, how much I’ve changed and grown since then, the men I was into then, I wouldn’t look twice at now.

Anyway, how long have you been together? The age gap itself isn’t huge, however 22 to 37 is fairly big in terms of career, life experience etc. Would you plan to be a stay at home mum? If so, you need to think very carefully about what happens if things do go wrong, make sure you protect yourself and your future, just in case things don’t work out.

You sound like you're being very mature about this! Most 22yos would have stormed out in a flurry of "well its my life and you can't stop me!" leaving the parents muttering about having to pick up the pieces when the shit hits the fan 🤣🤣

It sounds like you already realise that you're not ready to get married, age gap or not. Any decent man will very happily accept an answer of" I love you, but I'm not ready to get married". If he gets stroppy, or in any way makes you feel guilty about not saying yes, then run for the hills.

Are your parents only concerned about the age gap, or do they have concerns about him as a person? With a big age gap, it often sets up a power imbalance. Some older men specifically avoid women their own age, because those women with 10/15 years more life experience than you are less easily "swept off their feet" (love-bombed) and less easy to manipulate/control in general.

I don't know your bf at all! But if anyone in your life is expressing concerns, it would be worth listening carefully to exactly what they're worried about. If they think he's a lovely guy, and that you're well suited right now, then there's not much reason to believe it's all going to go to shit as you get older (I mean, everyone changes!) But if they're brave enough to tell you that they're not so sure about him as a person, then try not to dismiss them outright.

Personally i wouldn't but I don't think it's a Bad thing just that your still quite young.

As for whether I would marry him... Depends on what kind of guy he is as he would have to be pretty perfect for me to do it.

Has he got a good job? Nice guy? Supportive etc?

He has to hit the mark for me to consider marrying someone that much older

How long have you been together? Does he have children?

There is absolutely no rush to marry. You can continue your relationship with a nice long engagement and see how you feel in another 5 years. You may find you are a completely different person with different priorities at this point.

The Cons

• You may be pressured into having children before you would otherwise
• you may have kids before you get a career going, and your earning power will never recover, which if it doesn’t work out, would leave you in trouble
• at some point - say when you are 45 and he is 60, you may end up feeling you are really out of step with each other
• if the marriage does last you may end up spending his last 10 or 15 years caring for him (say from when you are 60 and he is 75)

To mitigate this

• if you do plan to get a career going, hold off kids for 5 years to do that
• if you don’t, then it would help a lot if he has a good salary
• be realistic c the fact you are young and there is a big age gap - you’ve probably got a higher than average chance of splitting up, so make sure you do build up earning power somehow, and limit yourself to 2 kids

Overall, I’d give it a year before you do anything - and I would only do it if you will be comfortably off, as a PP said, you can offset a lot if you are

What's the rush? I get why he would want to get married and have children now, but that doesn't mean you need to.

It is a big age gap. I know there will be cases where it works out brilliantly, but I'd have thought more often it won't. I think it's in a decade or so it'll start to show. You'd be in your 30s, still young and so many options, he'd be around 50. I know a couple having just this problem right now. It's painful for all concerned and very obvious she should leave him but it's more complicated with children, etc, and financially she's not used to paying her own way.

Think carefully OP. I think pp is right, what's the rush? You can be blissfully happy and in love and just stay that way for now. Why get married and have children now?

Do you want to start a family straight after you get married? You can get married and not start a family straight away, there's no problem if you want too but 22 is very young. If you decide to get married to him I personally would not start a family at your age but that's just my opinion.

Are you living together at the moment? Does he have children? Do you have a career?
My FIL is married to someone younger than him, similar age gap to yours. Married a few years now. He was in good health when they met, not so now. So now the wife is probably going to become a carer in late 50s and not the future retirement she was looking forward to

The age gap isn’t the issue here.

It’s getting married at 22.

Don’t do it. I got married young, thought I knew everything and I was so wrong.

Live your life first. If you still want to marry him in five or ten years, crack on. Same goes for kids.

My husband is nearly 15 years older than me and we have been together for 8 years and married for 4 years. I was only 23 when we got married. I had my big blow out in my late teens and early 20's so I was more than ready to stop the crazy partying and settle down by 23. So far it has been great. We have a toddler dd and a lovely house. We are on the same page about pretty much everything, both have good careers and get along really well.
I'm not going to lie, I do worry about how things will be when we get older but then I just think I would be grateful to get that far as it meant we were healthy. For all I know, I could get hit by a bus tomorrow and the age gap argument would be irrelevant.

Someone started a thread the other day about age gap relationships. They said they were 21 with a 37yr old boyfriend. Look at that one for replies.

I don't see the rush to grow up personally. You go through a huge amount of personal growth in your 20s. I can imagine you might not find as much in common with a man in his 50s then.

How deeply in love are you if you have to ask the internet?

You're probably better off living together and holding off on having kids for a few years, if you're this unsure.

no way would I want my 22 yr old with someone 37.

That's just me.

I would strongly discourage my own children to get married at 22 to ANYONE, let alone someone 15 years older than they are.