I now have the 'ick' for my DH of nearly 50 years

[MagicMushroomOmelette]

I love him dearly. We have three adult daughters and four grandchildren. So far, so good. I met him when I was 18 and a half and we married when I was 20 and he was 24. I am 69 and he is 73.

We met in the early/mid seventies. He had other girlfriends before me, as I had several boyfriends. All quite normal. Before I came along, he had split up with his steady girlfriend about a eight or nine months ago. The relationship had just fizzled out, as he put it. His family were very upset as they really liked her...they never took to me.

We never talked much about past relationships or the past in general, instead focussing on the present and our future. But a week ago, we were just chilling on the sofa with a nice bottle of wine, and we were talking about age differences in relationships. It was then that he told me that when he first started going out with his 'steady' girlfriend, she had just turned 14, still at school, and he was 19.

I have been sleeping in the guest room since then, with the excuse of coming down with something, which is true. I have noro.

Am I overeacting here? Or were things really that diiferent then?

I was sexually involved with what became my first husband ( when I was 20) when I was just 15 - I do think things were different then and what was seen as ‘normal’ would now be seen as unacceptable-

I remember a girl at school of thirteen always talking about her nineteen year old steady boyfriend. She had big chesticles and seemed to be very knowing, so I just listened in confusion, with my plaits quaking and specs steaming up. Her parents clearly condoned the whole thing and the whole class was impressed.

20+ years ago...I was 14 when I started dating my ExH, who was 18. My mother was nonplussed about this. Now I tell my 15 year old daughter that if anyone over the age of 16/17 expresses any interest in her, she's so steer clear as it's plain old weird. Hindsight is 20/20

I know people will say “things were different” but I would be grossed out too.

A close friend of mine: her mother was 14 and her father 20 when she was born.

As a teen it never registered with me but as an adult I find my friend’s father disgusting.

Also is that the same girlfriend the family were lamenting over? It’s part of the myth that insists girls mature faster.

I'm a bit younger than you but back when I was 14 my first boyfriend was 20. Most of my friends had much older boyfriends and yes, we were all having sex. I look back at it now and it seems a bit 'icky' but no-one really thought anything of it at that time. Things were just different back then. Surely you get that?

I get that it might make you feel a bit weird but honestly, this was bloody decades ago. Attitudes have changed and you are being a bit unfair on him.

Switch your concentration back onto the positives about your DH and your relationship and leave this in the past where it belongs.

Honestly, things really were very different then!

Just turned 14? As in, 13 a few weeks ago?
Yeah I’d be disturbed by that. I grew up in the 80a and yes some young girls went out with much older men but it’s always been a bit creepy imo.
Plus all the pp saying “ when I was 15/16” it’s not the same. Just turned 14 is a child. Sorry but that’s how I’d feel.

Mega over-reaction @MagicMushroomOmelette .

Many Things happened 50 years ago which would absolutely not be at all acceptable today. Teenage girls going out with older boys/young men happened a lot. Girls mature much faster than boys and it was accepted that was reasonable that girls would therefore have much more in common with those a bit older, than guys of the same age.

I know of at least two 14/15 year olds having sex - one of whom got pregnant. That was late 60's ( 1967/1968).

You are only 3 years younger than myself, OP. Do you really not remember what life was like back then? Or, in your circle of friends, were you just not aware how different things were back then?

Seems a bit OTT this was 50 years ago! Poor man!

Better stop listening to David Bowie and all the other music 'greats' from that era as he slept with 13/14 year olds as did many others.

Billy Whman and Mandy Smith, stop listening to The Rolling Stones!

Time has moved on since those times when it was not seen as being harmful by many.

It's ridiculous to judge your husband about the past using modern day standards.

You can't pass judgement based on today's standards. As others have said, it was not unusual to have large gaps in age back then.

My parents started dating when DM was 16, and just finishing school, and DDad was 26. When I told my kids recently they were absolutely horrified, as if DDDad was some kind of groomer/pervert....but back then it was completely normal, and accepted by society. Although DM's parents (very sensibly) made them wait until she was 21 before they got married.

Hmm. I'm only in my 50s but none of us had boyfriends that had left school and were working when we were 14. It would have been shocking for a 14 year old friend to be having sex with a 19 year old then. We were nowhere near the level of maturity for that and were inner city comp not sheltered in any way. 14 is so young, so totally understand how you feel OP. And to be sexually active after a few weeks with a 14 yr old when you're 19 just knocks me sick.

And just because it happened to a few outliers doesn't mean it was normal. It definitely wasn't. I get that it makes it easier to pretend that it was though

Sorry OP but to me it sounds like you have latched onto this to justify you ick with him which presumably you had before he told you about that?

Even in the late 90s the 14/15/16 year old girls I hung out with generally had boyfriends 3-4 years older than them. They had money and could drive - highly desirable! I agree it’s not right and I think it’s good that attitudes have changed but I think it’s a much more recent change.

My parents were older than you, a 10 year age gap , mum worked at 15 and fell for dad, she went after him...
Had a very long happy marriage.
Thinks were different then.

Mandy Smith has publicly spoken about how she was groomed and how she has suffered greatly both physically and mentally because of being in the relationship so young. It wasn't normal, it was tolerated because he was famous.

Late 80s my bf was 21 and I was 16… pretty normal tbh. Different times tbh,

Add Elvis Presley to that list. Priscilla was only 14 when they first met - and Elvis was 10 years her senior. He 'courted' her for 6 weeks before he was posted back to the States from Germany, but they maintained their 'romance' in letters during the next 3 years, before he asked her to marry him when she was 17

I'm in my 50s but it was really common in the 80s for older men to pick up girls from school in cars, they used to park in a line down the road. Lots dropped out of school at 15 and I can remember a few marrying at 16. I had a boyfriend of 32 at 16.

One of my friends married a 45 year old at 17, they're still together. Bil met his now wife when he was 19 and she was 14. It was wrong but wasn't seen as such. Looking back now, it's grim what was seen as acceptable. I know if at least 2 teachers that were in relationships with pupils, one was seeing more than one girl in shades of Rita Sue and bob too.

I think it was normal @XiCi - I went to school in a small market town, not an inner city comp.

Girls do not mature much faster than boys. They are just held to a higher bar and the expectations on boys are in hell.

Eugh! So many gross men.

But I recall the age I got hit on the most by men was when I was in school uniform. And I mean I was 13/14/15 and these would be men in their 30s / 40s.

But this was the 90s and I saw those men as gross.

At 14 I definitely had more in common with 14 year old boys than 30 year old men.

I remember the Bill Wyman story breaking. It definitely WAS seen as shocking but, as ever, famous men got away with stuff.
I was about the same age as Mandy Smith, maybe a bit younger and I felt sorry for her at the time.

This was 50 years ago and things are very, very different.

Look at your own marriage, you were married at 20 years of age which is practically a child bride these days. But I'll bet it didn't raise many eyebrows back then. My DMum was in her late teens when she married and my DDad was ten years older.

When I think of it now, and in the context if our own teenage kids, my siblings and I are horrified that my grandparents, friends and family not only approved but fully supported it. In theirs (and everyone elses) minds back in the 70's it was a totally normal thing to do and DM was marrying a respectable professional man.

No that would give me the ick too. It’s actually disgusting. He was a man and she was a child.