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

According to the NHS, 16 year olds are adults and are treated as such

If a 16 year old goes into hospital then they are on the adult ward.

Whilst some 16year olds get treated like they are children and act like they are children. Others can be working f/t and have their own place and be responsible for all the things that come with living without parents to do everything for them.
Some even have their own children and are responsible for all their needs as well.

Hardly a sensitive subject lol. I was going out with another teenager at that age lol. I THINK I was 17 before he turned 20 although was so many years ago now I can't be sure

Lol my son is 20. He's at an in between stage id say. Independent and capable but not totally adult minded. But not to worry he might be grooming some child as his girlfriend is 21

19 is a teenager, and 20 is a man! Well, according to the law,you are adults at 18..A recent post on MN,a lot of people said they started having sex at 14!

I was 16 & my husband was 19 when we met
I told him I was 18 because we met in a nightclub 🫣🫣
still together now and I did eventually tell him my correct age

And a 16-year old child can be told they have to leave home by their parents; can choose to leave the parental home; can consent to sex; and has rights of their own, including not to have their life entirely controlled by their parents when they have made legitimate choices about their relationships and sex life. “Children” of 16-years old and above don’t even need to be assessed for “Gillick competence,” because they are presumed by law to have the capacity to make a relevant decision all by themselves.

What I think is creepy is that so many people seem to think a 16-year old girl is automatically safer in a relationship with a 16-year old peer than a 20-year old when they simultaneously argue that 16-year olds are still children incapable of making sensible relationship decisions for themselves. Have they not heard of peer-on-peer abuse? There is a massive problem in secondary schools with abusive and inappropriate behaviour by boys towards girls of the same age. Why trust the boy with the immature brain over the slightly older 20-year old who should, by now, have developed a greater capacity to moderate their behaviour appropriately and be more sensitive to others’ needs than the 16-year old? Why refuse to look at the individual circumstances and focus solely on age and age gaps?

Rather than setting arbitrary rules on appropriate age gaps and whether they think something “sounds icky”, people with any modicum of common sense, and child safeguarding experts, have the capacity to take a nuanced view with respect to children who have reached the legal age of consent. If it was universally believed that 100% of the time, a 16-year old is too young to have a relationship with a 20-year old, there would be a law prohibiting it. The fact is, it is silly to be freaked out by the discovery that a married couple with three children first started to go out together when she was 16 and he was 20, ages when both were perfectly capable of making relevant decisions unless there was a good reason to suggest otherwise (which history suggests not, given the success of the relationship).

@Walkaround excellent points, thank you 👍

@SallyWD
It's easy to say that a 16 year old having sex is nobody else's business, but everyone know that contraceptives sometimes fail. What then? It's likely that the parents will have to pick up the pieces because a 16 year old is suddenly too young to cope with living independently as a single mother. The NHS is on its knees - but every year it has to fund abortions (214, 256 last year). A 16 year old getting pregnant has an impact on society and is definitely other people's business.

Who's saying that this original couple were sexually active at 16+21?
The OP certainly wouldn't know. She's just being judgemental about a couple.

Reaching much?

She was the age of consent an he still very young!

What are you saying then? That the age of consent should be raised? To what?

Those abortion statistics do not refer to 16 year old girls, but the total number..

@Tryonemoretime if they are having sex and get pregnant the other parties age is irrelevant. They can get pregnant having sex with another 16 year old too. Your argument isn't even an argument.

I’m 34 my DP is 28, is that weird to you?

yes at that younger age it’s a little odd but it’s also not your business

Get in touch with the op, you and her can pop round and explain to the married couple and their kids how reckless their past behaviour was and how disappointed you are with them and their families. You should probably make yourself some ick police badges so they know you're in a position of authority.

to avoid unwanted pregnancies? I am guessing the age of menopause, just to stay on the safe side.

If you follow that ridiculous reasoning 😂

Yes, the menopause, and only sex with someone exactly your age!

The initial post was about the OP's feelings about the couple years after they had got together. It then morphed into posts about sex - something entirely different - (I haven't read the whole thread). The history of the very adult couple is in the past. It wouldn't bother me if I'd just made friends with them as it was years ago. But the casual assumption that sex between kids of 16 is acceptable and no one's business is something that I find sad.

I’d admire the fact they’ve defied the stereotypes and stayed together. I know many many couples who got together in their 20/30s who haven’t managed that.

YABVU and judgemental.

Would have been weird if he was 16 and you 22 when you first got together … which is exactly the point of the OP’s post.

Not her post - the sexes were the other way round.

Who says sex between kids of 16 is no-one’s business? Self-evidently saying that a 16-year old is still a child but nevertheless should be presumed to have the capacity to make decisions for themselves is not remotely the same thing as saying that a 16-year old’s decision to have sex is nobody’s business. Being a child means that person’s parents still have to take some responsibility for their welfare and behaviour, but that person is now too old to have their lives entirely controlled for them by others - they can be guided and counselled and cannot argue that what they do is nobody else’s business, but they must not have their own views and choices ignored, overridden or treated with contempt. Unless proven to be incompetent to make decisions, they have the right to make decisions and choices their parents disagree with, including about their sex lives.

Does it matter?

To me it's just that it is felt there has to be an age of consent and it happens to be 16. But there isn't necessarily a huge maturity gap between a person of 16 and one of 20. There are huge differences in maturity of young people and children at any age. 5 year olds can be cool, calm and collected and sensible where others seem like over grown toddlers.

I certainly wouldn't judge a couple like that who have been together in a stable relationship for a good few years. That is weird. Perhaps her parents had worries back then, perhaps his did, but it really is nothing to do with OP.