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

At 16 you are not necessarily in school? I was working at that age as were a lot of my friends the same age.

I do understand what you are saying about her being a child and him an adult but also she's 16 and a legal age to make a decision about a mature relationship. Plus he is not 20 years older or anything. It's 4 years.

I certainly wouldn't see it as any of my business if it was a friends situation many years ago.

Oh yeah, I just worked out that the poster was born in the mid 60s, wasn’t really thinking it through properly.

Theres no “fury” but yes there’s distain. It does make me feel sick to read posters say things like they knew a 23 year old man like them as a 15 year old girl - and that was 100% ok. That way of thinking is horrible.

I have a friend who is 23 and if she told me she liked a 15 year old school boy I would genuinely end the friendship and tell her to get help. Some posters on here have genuinely tried to imply that nudging down the age of consent should be allowed which is just ..

Who wants to nudge down the age of consent? So what are you going to do, OP?

How old are you and how old are this couple? Are we talking about a couple who are now in their 20s, so the relationship started relatively recently, or are they 30s and been together closer to 20 years? Or more?

40 years ago it was the 1980s, not 1960s. In my experience, even much more recently, certainly within the last 20 years, in my social circles, no one would have blinked at a girl in Y12 going out with someone who had left the year before because they probably had mutual friends/siblings.

People assess by their own normal.

Again. It’s getting boring with these generational views. Funny how things were different in the mid 60s. It was still illegal to be gay for a majority of the 60s. Times have moved on.

This.

You'll always get people that fight against good progress being made that actually protects people, because they look through rose tinted glasses at the past, or sometimes they don't want to face up to the fact that things in their past were 'grim' to use a mumsnet description. It's strange.

When I was a teen in the 90s, it was common for 15 year old girls to date men in their 20s. It wasn't a good thing, even friends that did it and thought they were 'mature' now admit it was bad and it was actually a sign of immaturity on their part and creepiness on the men's part.

They've brought their kids up to have better boundaries. To continue the cycle just because you did it is crazy.

Some posters on here have genuinely tried to imply that nudging down the age of consent should be allowed which is just ..

No-one has implied that. That's a really unpleasant thing to accuse people of.

I was 15 when dating my first boyfriend of 19 and couldn't stand boys my age

Don't ask AIBU when you are so dead sure this is wrong. Not sure if you really wanted to know if you were being unreasonable. You call him creepy and by extension the woman stupid for staying with a creep for so long. Some 16 year olds do look and act mature, you don't know how they met and he has proven that he was not a vulture preying young girls, by having this long term relationship with someone he met at young age. 20 is also young, its not like he was 30. Billie Ellish's bf was 10 years older and 25, this man was 4 years older and 20. You are exaggerating numbers to justify your judgements.

How is it your business?

but people are still people !

oh and if you do the maths we met in the 80;s !!!

At the start you said 16 and 20....now you are saying 15 and 23...is that to make it sound worse?

OP- are you saying that you feel a bit weird about their relationship, but will put your feelings to one side and continue to develop your friendship. Or are you saying that you will actually treat them differently and probably back off from the friendship. The first is reasonable, the second is not.

I don't know where you're getting the "nudging down the age of consent" thing from OP. I firmly believe that there has to be one and 16 is about as right as it's possible to get. I certainly would not support lowering it and haven't seen anyone else on this thread saying different.

So you're not getting the right answers?

Absolutely this. Do you want to be accusatory because you didn't only get the answers you wanted?

No-one is talking about lowering the age of consent except you.

You are talking about two friends, presumably in their late 20s or 30s now at least, who have a five year age gap and you don't want to be their friends any longer because they got together young, though entirely legally.

Unless you are proposing time travel what are you actually proposing to do about it now? Gossip about them to other parents about how "ick" they are? As that is what you are doing here.

It is what it is. 93% of people think you are being unreasonable, but I'm sure it's not you, it's them.

I really hope your friend finds and reads this post and kicks you way into touch.

You sound uptight and judgemental. Concern yourself with your own business.

And they made the news, as you say.

Of course, it does happen; but I think we can see the way that the wind usually tends to blow - in real life, and just from people's experiences as recounted on this thread.

How old are the couple now, @AvrilAprill ?

I don't think you can make a judgement like that, considering their marriage has stood the test of time. You don't choose who you fall in love with. I grew up with a man who started dating a 14 year old, it was a huge scandal in our village at the time. He was 27. But he was a lovely, kind gentle man. They've been together ever since, over 35 years. I don't think they would agree with you, or their families.

Honestly, what has it got to do with you?

I agree with your husband, I think you're the one being weird here, not them.

I think the crux is not all 16 year olds are the same.

My best friend by that age had lost her mum to cancer, seen the family home repossessed and had to leave education to work to pay the rent because her dad had a full breakdown.
What she'd have had in common with a 16 year old boy still in school I don't know. She's still with the person she met at her work who was a couple of years older and an apprentice at the time.

Life experience matters as much as age and if you didn't know them then how can you judge now?

There were similar arguments for Luke little the darts player. Yes he was 16 (away to turn 17) but he was mixing in a very adult world with very different responsibilities so can see how he might get on with a lass a couple of years older.

i think that there is a difference if the older person is in a position of responsibility towards the younger, eg a teacher. I see different risks and concerns there and can see why such cases make the news.

Crab bucket is the situation where a social group uses group pressure to enforce its rules. So in this case the consensus is that you don't socialise outside of your year group. Females of the group are told that its dangerous and males in other year groups lose friends over it. The action is given a name with unpleasant connotations.