74 year old man, 26 year old vulnerable woman with learning disabilities

[SENmum22]

Nc for this.

I use TikTok and I've just come across an account on the home page which belongs to a married couple. The husband is 74 and the wife is 26 and has quite a significant learning disability.

They have a video up talking about how they met, the blokes daughter (who appears to have some special needs herself) brought her friend round three years ago (the now-wife) and asked if her dad would let her stay as she didn't want to go home.

Long story short they're now married and the wife has moved her younger sisters in with the bloke aswell, they also appear to have LD's.

The bloke claims that helping people with LD's has been his life's work. If so, he knows exactly how vulnerable they are and should know not to cross certain lines.

Overall the wife is an adult by law but intellectually she isnt and as the parent of a child with special needs the whole thing raises alarm bells for me and makes me feel incredibly uncomfortable. The power imbalance is huge and they can't have anything in common.

I'm not sure if I'm allowed to give the account name so I won't, but it's not difficult to find.

AIBU to think he is an exploitative old git?

I have 'learning dificulties' and I am in no way 'vunerable' due to that.

It one of those assumption non-disabled people throw around because they are scared of what they dont understand same way people refer to us as 'suffering' (we are not vunerable or suffering just from being different).

In some cases a person with a disability may be vunerable (as people without disabilities may also be) but not 'just' because they have said disability.

If there was any question about her capacity to understand or consent the wedding wouldn't have been allowed to go ahead, as such she can clearly carry and articulate her wants well enough to not be a concern.

Believe it or not be the registrar etc... take consent very seriously.

It never ceases to amuse me when someone talks about something they find uncomfortable that there is always a poster who rocks up and says “you sound jealous” or the like. Just how do people reach that kind of conclusion? I am genuinely baffled.

Exactly what would the OP have to be jealous of? A 74 year old would absolutely repulse me and I’m 48. So how anyone could think that a woman young enough to be this man’s daughter would be jealous of the fact that he’s perving over a woman young enough to be his granddaughter.

And all this Love has no boundaries” is a load of cliche’d bollocks. There’s a reason why age gap relationships never work out in the long term. We’re not destined to be with people who are probably going to die in the next 10 years or so.

I see. Yes, he seems to enjoy the attention a lot.

I guess that's a good thing she is still in contact with her mother.

The whole thing does make me very uncomfortable.

I haven't seen the videos and tha age difference is significant but not everyone with special needs is incompetent. Sometimes people struggle with speech or learning but still have intelligence and are more than able to live independently and make their own adult decisions. Again, I don't know the intellectual state and capacity of this person - but more the idea in a number of posts that people with special needs or learning differences shouldn't be in relationships because they aren't capable of consent or of being competent adults.

Thank you for your perspective.

I'm sorry If my post has caused you any offence, I certainly didn't intend to generalise about people with learning disabilities.

What jumped out to me from the videos was the clear power imbalance and how he talks to her like a child. Their interactions, kissing aside, appear to be that of a father/daughter interacting with one another. It's clear from the videos he doesn't see her as his equal, so learning disability and age gap aside, it screams manipulative and controlling to me.

Also the fact he has had her little sisters move in with them too, it just doesn't sit right, a man of his age surrounding himself with much younger women, two of whom don't appear to be adults.

OP, I have PM’d you with some more info that will hopefully aid in reporting formally.

Got it, thank you! I'm going to make a report.

If he's not doing anything untoward then brilliant, I just feel the whole thing should be looked into more closely.

It doesn't help that he looks like JS

I’m a student social worker. Could you PM me with the name please?

I'd need to see the videos as well before judging but it sounds exploitative.

The account is Oddcouple19 on TikTok

I hate to say it but it could be that they're moving to him from a worse situation i.e. she didn't want to go home, and the fact her little sister has followed her across.

I hope they are OK.

Hi could you pm me please ? I'm interested to see this having a daughter with learning disabilities myself. Just reading it makes my skin crawl

She must have been deemed to have enough capacity to consent to marriage.

@RJnomore1 I don't think registry offices look into that much, they just assume it.

The only thing would be if a family member or worker has time before the marriage to legally try and stop it through the mental capacity act. And most wouldn't do that, which isn't to say they shouldn't in theory.

Haven’t read the full thread yet but this sounds so awful. My biggest worry for my son (who is autistic) is his vulnerability and people taking advantage of him when I’m gone. Some people are scum.

Ditto. I have an autistic son and spend more time than I like to admit worrying about his future when I'm no longer here to look out for him. The world is a real shit place.

This is a tricky one. My elder brother has autism and LD, but my mother never accepted it. She would tell people he was 'a little bit backwards' and had someone wanted to marry him she would have thought it perfectly ok, in fact she used to think his social worker would want to marry him! It's possible this girl's mother felt the same way and encouraged it. Or that the husband (he looks creepy to me, but, playing devil's advocate) has LDs himself. I know of several married couples with LDs locally.

Some parents are glad to be free of the care needs of a loved one and glad to hand them over to someone else unfortunately.

Idk. I find some of the comments here a bit ableist tbh. It reminds me of when someone asked me how I could possibly have three children if I have severe adhd 🙄 but that age gap is very large.

Registrars don't really have the training or expertise to assess capacity. They are essentially administrators. This is an area open for abuse.

Fellow mum with ADHD and three children here 🙋

I certainly didn't mean to come across as ablist. I'm sorry to anybody I may have offended. My intentions are good and stem from genuine concern.

The videos spoke for themselves for me, i haven't passed judgement on the age gap and LD's alone.

Please could I have a PM too?

I've only looked at a couple of videos, but in both of those videos the couple seem happy together and there's nothing to suggest the young woman is being mistreated or exploited in any way. It seems, at least on the surface, that these people's differences - in age, intellectual capacity, gender etc. - is working for both of them.

It’s not your thread, it’s some of the comments that sort of imply people with LDs shouldn’t have relationships. I’m on the fence about this particular couple tbh, I don’t know enough about them. The videos are a bit odd I agree