To not look at this couple in the same way anymore?

[AvrilAprill]

At the end of last year I made friends with a mum who’d just moved to the area. We got on great, as did our partners.

However, I’ve now found out that they first got together when she was 16 and he was 20/21. It genuinely makes me feel uncomfortable knowing that, and my husband says I’m being weird

And if after 10 years together with children would you still be judging them or would you have come to terms with it by then.being rightly concerned at the time is completely different to judging them later

Get a grip, and mind your own business.

Yes. Seriously. Say (in this case, not the OP, which is 16) she's still a schoolgirl, she's busy studying
All other times she's supervised and we always know where she is. He may back off. He may be a bit young for his age.
Or perhaps just shout "that's grim! that's icky!"
Whichever.

That's the issue, really.

Beyond the pale?

I genuinely feel like I’m transported back in time on this thread.

Noel Radford gets a shitload of judgement on here for getting together with his now wife when he was 18 and she was 14.

That's a perfectly normal age gap.

So do many of us on here! You're judging this couple (who are settled and with children) because of the age when they first dated, which, by the way, wasn't alarmingly young. What do you want to happen?.

Fwiw - there's a term among young ppl that I learned this morning. I was asking 16yo son (2wks off 17) what the response amongst his peers would be at the 16/20 age thing - if it were a friend of his, what would he think?

It did happen to a 16yo friend & her 19yo boyf, it's called being 'nonced on'. The 19yo lost friends & the 16yo was told repeatedly that this wasn't ok & she needed to be careful of him.

It seems even dating outside of year groups at school is looked down on & if you're at college then secondary school is off the cards entirely.

For the avoidance of doubt - working class here, low performing school in an area with more food banks than there should be. So these are ordinary kids & teens.

To be clear! OP should not change her relationship with the couple but yes that original age difference at those ages was, & remains, inappropriate. The voting doesn't necessarily reflect what this thread turned into.

That’s exactly how I felt back then too.

That's grim. That's icky.

Why are you even contemplating a 15yo seeing a 20? A 20yo should not be going after 15yos, so whether he backs-off is irrelevant. It's a serious safeguarding issue that the parents would 'give him a chance, he might be lovely'. Your hypothetical 20yo man wants to have a 15yo girlfriend, he cannot be lovely.

I'm dumbfounded by this thread.

When PIL met, MIL was 15 and FIL was 20. They were together for decades, until she died.

My kids are those ages. The thought of my sons 21 year old friends being interested in dating my daughter is sickening. Fortunately, they would all agree.

Sometimes mumsnet has a very low bar. I'm happy with my morals and boundaries, I feel sorry for kids who have parents that think it's ok for 21 year olds to be dating them when they're 16.

Generally teens young adults seem to have good boundaries with age gaps now which I'm pleased about. It's their parents/grandparents who seem to see the days of older men and teens as something to aspire to and go back to.

That age gap wouldn’t bother me. In many ways girls mature earlier than boys anyway. If you’d said 16 and 28 that might be a bit different.

I genuinely feel like I’m transported back in time on this thread.

Did you just start this thread to shout about how old everyone is? Because that is literally all you've gone on about.
Overall, you seem absolutely obsessed with people's ages.

I think regarding the age gap at 16 it depends upon the maturity and personality and you/we cannot possibly know that. As far as this situation I don't believe its anybodies concern, lots of people have things in their lives we might view differently and that is their business. So no I don't would not find it uncomfortable nor would it change my opinion of the couple.

@HalfwayToHell Thank god teens seem to have more sense than their bloody parents appear to.

I was a bit shocked when I found out my friend had got together with her older husband when she was 16 and he was 32! He's now retired and she's nearly 50. It was fine between them for years but he's really quite an old seeming nearly 70 year old and she's quite a youthful 49 year old. It does look like she's taking her dad out. But 16 and 20, nothing in comparison.

I doubt that very much.

I can think of at least 3 news stories recently of female teachers sleeping with students
And 1 actual experience at school

Yeah you’ve summed it up perfectly tbh.

I do think I’m wrong to let it cloud my judgment of him.

You’ve also highlight the generation thing I said earlier and I’m thankful that people don’t justify this as “16 can be mature” and “I met my husband at 13 and he was 20 and that was fine as we’re still together”.

When I was 20 I was not hanging out in the same places as 16 year old boys.

I'm not contemplating it. You raised it.

The attitude to teenagers is so horribly censorious, often based on taking specific newsworthy cases of teachers or other situations that are exploitative and applying it to every other scenario where a younger teen is with an older person. The context is everything, it's not just about the age.

People also seem to misunderstand that a 16 year old girl and a 20 year old man is not the same as a 13 year old girl and a 29 year old man. Very different.

Since you're obsessed with online gossiping about this couple's relationship, why haven't you found out whether he was 20 or 21?

I know you're going to ask 'What does it matter?'

But I'm curious, because you seem to know everything else that's not your business?