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

It's nothing to do with driving tests. Plenty of 16 year olds date. If she's attracted to a respectful and responsible 20 year old I don't get the problem with them dating. It's a sixth former with a uni student, so?

I don't know what country you live in, but in the UK the age of consent is 16. So comparing it to a 13 year old is just silly. 13 year olds will be in school, and some won't have even begun puberty yet!

This couple I'm assuming aren't still 16 and 20? Therefore times were different 20, 30 years ago etc.

I left school when I was 15. I met DH who funnily enough was 20, when I was 16 and working full time. I also went down the pub most nights after work at 16. This was the 90s when no one asked for ID and most teens were pretty independent.

I went away to university at 18. I found my male contemporaries silly and immature. So I dated a Master's degree student, who was 5 years older. No it wasn't "icky" or "grim" and no, I wasn't groomed. We split up, not because of the shock of societal response, but because we just went our separate ways.

I'm not saying it is; but by way of analogy, I'm commenting on all the people on here brushing away four years developing in the life of a teenage child as though it's nothing.

Also the truly bizarre people who claim to think that you mature and change just as much between 46 and 50 as you do between 16 and 20!

Doesn't it depend on the teenager? My daughter was still quite young at 16. She liked studying, going to Guides and bird watching with her dad. She only started dating at uni. That was her. Other girls are different.
The OP is judging a couple on the basis of their initial relationship probably 20 years ago, which I find odd.

No they cannot marry. Get your facts right at least!

Really OP it's none of your business and yes you are being weird making a thing of it.

yes it does very much depend. At age 14 I had zero interest in boys or dating, and most of my friends were casually in social groups with boys and starting to pair off and change partners. The first time I met DH, he was 17, we looked at each other and that was that. He was in college away from home so we didn't see a lot of each other but he used to turn up when he was home, spend time at our house and chat with my dad. I wasn't groomed or pressurised. We started dating when i was 17 (still at school shock horror) but then I went away to college for 3 years so we were apart for most of the time. We married when I finished college at 21. If my experience of a loving and wonderful man gives you the ick then that's on you.

At 16 I was living in a shared house and working f/t
At 17 I was married to a 23 year old (40+ years married) and at 18 we bought our 1st house

Definitely not a child

At 16 dd was working over 40 hours per week
At 17 she passed her driving test and became a manager at one of her places of work
At 18 she too had bought her first place and had a team of handy men and builders to do the things she couldn’t

Definitely not a child

Every 16 year old girl isn’t necessarily a school girl or even in any sort of educational setting

Everyone quotes the legislation and wrongly thinks it means you have to be in education until you are 18

At 16 you can be married working a f/t job
and have children of your own

@godmum56 I love your last sentence. So true..

No, I don't think you mature and change just as much between 46 and 50 as you do at 16 and 20! If you'd bothered to read my post properly you'd see I was pointing out the is no difference between me and DH now at 46 and 50 as there was between us at 16 and 20. Obviously, we've grown and matured, but we were on the same level as each other then just like now.

Why what?

A 20 year sleeping with and being sexually attracted to a 16 year old is gross. It was “back then” and still is now.

No one is saying age gaps are wrong when both people are over 18 and adults.

‘Legal’ doesn’t always mean morally okay.

How do you know they were sexually active at first? I doubt they told the OP.

Genuine question, can you tell the difference between a 16 year old and a 20 year old when they're standing next to each other?

Neither was I. I'd moved out & had 3 jobs. I also split up with my then boyf, who was 19, cos he was caught sleeping with...a 13yo...

I say 'sleeping with', I of course mean statutarily raping.

Both my parents left school by that age, my dad at 12. And yet, here I am having a decent grip on what is appropriate for mid teens to be doing with adult men. Which is absolutely fuck all 🤷🏼‍♀️

Hang on, so you think an 18 year old and a 30 or 40 year old is fine, but not a 16 year old and 20 year old?

There's a reason the age of consent is 16 and not 13. If you can understand why I can't help you.

It doesn’t matter. Genuinely, how old or young someone looks genuinely does not matter.

I’ll say it one last time, a 20 year old finding a 16 year old sexually attractive is gross. A 20 year old sleeping with a 16 year old is gross.

You’re obsessed with challenging this with anyone who doesn’t agree with you. I cba to continue to explain the point which I’ve said at least 3 times now.

So you admit that you can't tell the difference between a 16 and 20 year old. Yet a 20 year old being attracted to a 16 year old is "gross" (are you 12?) even when no one can tell the difference between a 16 and 20 year old? Make it make sense.

Gross? I don't think so. Many, many 16 year old girls have older boyfriends. They often find boys their own age to be immature. At the same time many 20 year old women want older men. I really don't think there's anything that weird about it.

Never heard of Gretna Green? You can in Scotland.

As seen below

Let's not forget Gillick and capacity for consent

You're being silly. How can you judge people based on their past experiences, I'd not want to be friends with anyone like you.

Only in the last couple of years has the age of marriage risen but that was brought in to protect people from those countries that have arranged marriages but unfortunately impacts those who aren’t being forced into marriage

Although you cannot enter into a marriage or civil partnership at 16 or 17 in England or Wales since 2022. It doesn’t say anything about living together or having a child or going to Scotland or Northern Island to marry