Grown Men Dating Teenagers

[ReallyDubious]

I have a male acquaintance who expressed a really concerning opinion about age gap relationships. He thinks that it is ok for a much older man to date younger women and teenagers as 'some women (or girls) are more mature than others'. Although I agree with that in principle, I do not agree that a teenager is ever mature enough to date a grown man.

He said he dated 'mature' teens when he was in his 40s and I'm seriously revolted at the thought. AIBU to think there is something seriously wrong with this man?

A relative in my family who is in her sixties now married an older man. She spent a decade looking after an old man and when he had surgery that was risky said she felt ‘cheated’ that it didn’t kill him. He’s dead now and she says she now feels free. He left her with nothing, no money, no proper pension. He ran around when he was younger never really having a proper job, was a wheeler-dealer and then found a younger woman to look after him. She saw him for what he was far too late.

I was just going to say my 24 yr ds would not date a 19 year old. He definitely doesn’t think it’s ok to date a teenager, even a nearly 20 yr old.

Eh? On what planet? Precisely the opposite. How many older women target a teenage lad for a start? Rarely. Men are celebrated when they 'catch' a young woman girl...lad culture ..go on lad bollocks. Women are looked down upon massively if they 'hook' a teenage lad..omg thats vile. You are completely wrong

Very similar response that we had as being teenage parents. Stayed together because of the child, though MiL said we shouldn’t be together as I was right for their DC.

30 years later, we’re now living the life we would have had at 20 (minus the additional relationships!), DGC now here.

Is this really true? A lot of young guys think it's cool to sleep with a woman their mum's age, maybe something Freudian going on there. I can also imagine for the women that choose to do this it's something fun to gossip about with their friends over coffee. Is it really harming anyone?

The word predatory usually gets used when talking about cougars too. Even the word cougar points to this, they're large predatory cats who stalk and kill their prey!

Just because young lads think its cool doesn't mean the woman will abuse that. It harmed me. I have no doubt it harms boys too.

I think that the:
Older man > younger woman
Older woman > younger man
Setups get the same amount of grief AND the same amount of passes, tbh, just maybe from different groups of people?
Look how many women on this very website are in relationships that started when they were in their teens/20s and their DP was 30+. It still happens now, you can see 'age is just a number' in any comments section online about men and women and in real life. I think women are more likely to go 'you go girl' about a cougar situation because women are more likely to be the younger party in their own age gap relationships so have been groomed into thinking it's all okay.
You only have to look at the recent resurfaced interest in director Sam Taylor Johnsons' grooming of Aaron Taylor Johnson - people definitely aren't going 'go girl' at that one.

Also again, it's patriarchy isn't it.
Men who go after younger women don't have a name, other than 'predator'.
Women have 'cougar' - so still a predator, but its ultimately a softened version. Not taken seriously.
If you read a news article about a relationship with an age gap, if its about an older woman with a younger man, you can bet that the age gap will be brought up, or she will be referred to as a cougar. Whereas 90% of the articles about couples where the man is older, the age gap is never mentioned - because it's been so normalised, it's not a novelty. Women are still held to different standards, by being marked out when they ape behaviour a man could exhibit without any raised eyebrows.
I mean, to be clear - any woman engaging in this behaviour absolutely should be judged too.

Is there anyone who met their much older oh as a teenager and ate still together 40 plus years later and happy?
The only couples I know who are still together and met as teenagers, we’re both a similar age.
So I know one couple who were approx. 16 and 18. Still happily married both in their 50s.
Several couples who met in early 20s still together and now in their 50s.
I remember a girl at school who was dating the DJ- she was 13 and he was about 30. He ran the youth club discos.
He later had a relationship with a much younger woman and had a child with her. She was 20s he was 40s. He beat her.
Very dodgy man.
I don’t know of anyone who met their long term partner when they were a teenager and he was much older and are still together in later life.

On your point about the psychiatric nurse, there is a theory that everything we do, men and women is for the purpose of attracting our ideal mate and having children. The psychiatric nurse may have gone into that career because he was attracted to vulnerability. Let's face it some women like being coy, it's another way of appearing vulnerable and men can find this attractive. They say play hard to get don't they.

People just really mind their own business.
Be concerned if your teenage daughter is dating a 40 year old.
Otherwise keep your neb out of other people's relationships and stop judging when you know nothing about what goes on in other people's lives .
Why us it anyone else's business if 30 year old Sandra at number 63 is dating a guy of 50?
Why would you care, except to be a nasty gossip?

I think it may have been more common back in the day. We were in pubs and clubs from 16, whereas boys our own age weren't able to get in. Going out with someone late teens early 20s, even up to 25 wasn't seen as abnormal. But at 25 , I wouldn't have really wanted anyone younger than myself.

I was shagging a 30 year old at 18. He still lives at home and spent most of his spare time playing football or in the pub. Like all the other blokes in our town. We didn't have anything in common, apart from sex, and that was ok as far as I was concerned because I didn't want him as a boyfriend. Even then, I recognised he was a man child.

I did end up in a 10 year age gap reship. I was 24, he 34. I had just come our of a shit 10 year gap reship and did not want another, but this one did not look that much older, so I took him home. We've been together 20 years. We have music, art, literature politics and a strong work ethic in common, although we were initially attracted by looks. We were just lucky.

I'm not suggesting there is anything wrong with women running companies or being successful, but to me they've got to get it right. Is there a trend amongst some of these successful women to wake up one morning at 45 in the 5 bed house with merc on the drive and wonder why she never chose to have kids rather than chase that promotion. One woman who has got it bang on in this regard in my opinion is fund manager Nicola Horlicks; successful career and six kids.

God, you always speak wise words. This is one of the most truthful things I’ve ever read on here.

It’s grim. I was 17 when I had my first relationship with a man I worked with who was 28. Looking back, there was a clear power imbalance and he used me for sex and easy company.

My uncle would make jokes about me dating an old man at the time and I have no idea why my parents went along with it. They probably thought it wouldn’t last long. And they were right, after a couple of months he dumped me.

I remember when I turned 28 I was repulsed at the thought of having sex with a 17 year old. I don’t think I’d be so laid back if my 17 year old started dating someone who was 28.

They say there's nowt so queer as folk, but as I understand it, the best theory evolutionary science has come up with is that men and women both want nothing more than to get laid and have babies.

When I was 16 I went out with a 25 year old and honestly it still shocks me that I was just "allowed"... all my family just accepted it, his friends used to come out with us too even though we were all at college! I ended up almost moving in with him until my dad refused to be my guarantor. I was 19 by this point and ended up working in a law firm with lots of young secretaries/accountants all early 20s and I discovered having a life and fun with people my own age!

I'm Facebook friends with him and he's married now and has kids etc but still gives me the ick.

Good question.
There's a lot of these types of relationships that have lasted.
But I've never understood why people see a long relationship as automatically a successful one.
Or a seemingly happy relationship as a one without problems.

Or, and people who've never experienced a breakdown of this type of relationship might read this and think I'm being patronising - please know that's absolutely not my intent.
It is quite easy, if a relationship is your first, or you had flings or terrible relationships previously, to be in a relationship where you would declare yourself as happy, and to the outside world you might seem a good match.
But sometimes in these relationships, because you have little context for what's 'good' or the person you are with has conditioned you into thinking certain things are normal, you are a boiled frog, and it's only once you are free that you can look back and go 'I would describe myself as happy, because when things were good, they were very good, but I had no access to joint money without questioning, he would fly off the handle at minor things, and he left all the housework and parenting to me'
And I wonder how many of these age gap relationships fall into this category.

Because it also happens with same age couples. I know of at least two couples who have been together since university, who would describe themselves as happy, yet in one the husband actively despises the wife, and shuts her down constantly, and talks down to her, and she has developed exagerrating illness as a coping mechanism because that's the only time he eases up on her. The other, they argue constantly and think anyone in a relationship who doesn't is weird. Now a lot of people might read that and say 'but if they think they are happy, then what's the harm, if they don't know any different, other people don't get to dictate happiness'
Which is a fair point, but anyone whose ever suffered with chronic stress, or a bad relationship, knows the toll it can take on your health long term. Never mind the fact that these relationships often produce children who look to their parents relationship model, so in fact, there is a 'harm'. But also often these relationships can entail financial control and abuse, because 'he's better at the money side' and suddenly he's run off with a 21 year old from his work and she's posting on here saying 'he was older and good with money, so he dealt with everything so I have nothing' - you see it all the time. It was good, until it wasn't. And no, as I've just explained, not exclusive to age gap relationships. But the risk of a power imbalance, or one person subconsciously taking the standard that the other person sets as 'normal' as part of relationships and being unable to know what's normal ups and downs and what is something more sinister, is more heightened when one person just has more life experience than the other.

😂

@KreedKafer

A man in his 40s dating a teenager is pretty dodgy, because it’s pretty clear that he will have been actively seeking out the very youngest girls he can legally date. If he’s attracted to younger women he could easily meet women in their mid-20s, the kind of women who could be his peers at work, have their own flat, and generally have their shit together. But if he’s meeting teenagers, then he’s definitely deliberately trying to find them because he’s got some ghastly ‘barely legal’ fantasy going on. Which is gross.

YES to all of this! ^ Well said. 👏

I got with my DH, who is 7 years older than me, when I was 17. This was 22 years ago now. Granted, this isn’t a huge age gap relationship.

Nobody was concerned or batted an eyelid. It was just perceived as normal.
Times must have changed?? I know though, perhaps hypocritically, that if my now 17 year old daughter came home with a 24 year old man, I’d be not at all happy.

But in saying that, we have the best marriage. Thank goodness young, naive me managed to find a very incredible, kind, supportive and loving man.

When I see men in their late 30’s-40’s with women who are 19, it’s just sickening.

It's the rule according to some. Personally I don't agree, but as no one else had mentioned it thought it would add to the debate.

Oh please, as if Macron and Brigitte aren’t relentlessly ridiculed.

It's up to the individuals who they go out with. You or I may think its wrong but its not up to us. Both parties are consenting adults.

Yes they are, continually. I won't say too much, as there is not much I can say without potentially breaking MN rooolz! but their relationship gives me the MASSIVE ick. She was 40 and he was 15 when they met! She was his teacher.

Wrong. On. SO. Many. Levels! Just soooooo wrong.