To think a 22 year old dating a 16 year old is dodgy?

[Corall]

It was a family member. They are married now. It was the 16 year olds first relationship, she had only just turned 16, doing her GCSEs.
I find it off putting, makes me think badly of the man. He’s always been controlling.
But others think it was fine. AIBU to want to avoid him?

So what about all the people worldwide who marry and bring up kids at that age and have done so for generations. In india for example the average age for marriage was 16.2 years only a couple of decade ago.

I had a boyfriend in his 20s when I was 17. Never thought anything of it and he was a really lovely, considerate bloke. We split up when I was away at university as I wanted more freedom but, looking back, I think he taught me what to expect from a partner- he set the bar very high. Nothing at all weird or inappropriate about it.
Funnily enough I am now the older one in my marriage with an 8 year age gap. DH was only 24 when I met him. We're both in our 50s now.

I was 16, he was 21. Most considerate boyfriend ever.

My DD's are horrified

@Marshmallow4545 With your clearly extensive knowledge of brain development, how old do you think someone should be before they are allowed by law to freely date another person who isn't the same age? Should there be some sort of tapering so that the age gap can gradually increase the older someone is? Do you think there should be a maximum gap at any age?

I'm interested because you have been vociferous on this issue and have even condemned people who have been happily married for decades, having started a perfectly legal relationship in their teens.

The poster said their daughter was in year 13, I was referring to them specifically.

What about it? Do you think they are more enlightened than us?

How do you think the age of consent or marriage aligns with women's rights globally? Do you know infant children are being married off to old men in some countries and this has been going on for generations? Is this okay too,?

Honestly I despair!

I was 16 and met a guy at a festival, it was mid 00s. Found out later he was about to turn 25 and realised it was not uh great but he didn't know how old I was either (I mumbled something about being in college, having just started sixth form). But then we continued to see each other and he leaned on me a lot for mental health support, I came to stay with him, saw him at uni and he revealed he had been dating someone else for a year while taking me out on dates. I forgave him, we had a short reunion and then were friends.

He was at my wedding. Later I couldn't attend his wedding (felt terrible about it) and he cut me off completely, persona non grata. He took some of my friends with him, they think I'm awful apparently. The more time has passed and my DH has said how uncomfortable it made him feel, the more uncomfortable I have felt about our "relationship". He has two daughters now, and I wonder if he ever thinks about how he treated me.

I've condemned the men in those relationships, not the girls that are now adults.

I think there should be a Romeo and Juliet law until someone turns 20 ideally. The permitted age gap could increase with age. I think the science behind brain development should be publicised more widely so people understand that relatively large age gaps at young ages are inherently dodgy.

It's offensive to insist that you know better than someone else about their own situation though. If someone started a relationship especially decades ago where those sorts of age gaps weren't considered taboo, and they've been happy for years, it's not okay to try and retrospectively reframe their lives like that.

Haha she wasn't exploited! She is a very well-adjusted happy professional woman in her thirties, with no issues and with absolutely no need to discuss her marriage with anyone.

So you're saying an adult 18 year old should not be allowed to date a 21 year old, but a 16 year old could date a 19 year old? How old a person do you think a 20 year old should be permitted to date and at what age should people be allowed a completely free choice?

As the legal age of consent is 16 and people are legal adults at 18, how on earth do you think all this could be policed and do you think the inevitable law-breaking would be worth all the time and expense of policing?

When I was 14,I had a 'boyfriend' of 21

All he wanted was sex and to treat me like shit because I refused

My mother treated it as totally normal and wanted to put me on the pill-this was early 90's

Around this time,there where two girls at school (who where in the year below me) and every lunchtime,they would walk down the drive,get in the car of a man who looked to be in his 30's and drive off for the hour

They'd come back looking like they'd been dragged through a hedge backwards,giggling and both seemed to think he was their boyfriend

Parents knew all about it and the teachers would watch them while tutting about 'if they get themselves pregnant...' while making no attempts to stop them or contact the police

My cousin (who spent time in care when her mother died) had a 'boyfriend' who was in his 40's

She was 13

Ds and I tried to phone her social worker and police but where told 'shes making her own lifestyle choices and we cant do anything' and they didnt do a thing even when he beat her so badly,she ended up in hospital and almost died

This was 3 years ago

Times are changing and we see it for what it is-abuse but things move very slowly (as in my cousins case) and much more needs to be done,instead of blaming the girls,the men need to be dealt with

I can and will say what I like. When it comes to men with sick perversions involving 16 year old girls I will never remain quiet. I’m not trying to reframe anything btw, it is vile now and it was vile then.

so your nearly 30 year old partner was attracted to children?…

No, the Romeo and Juliet law would allow you to date your own age and so many years. The number of years would go up as you aged. So a 16 year old might be their own age plus 2 and a 19 year old might be their own age plus 5. Obviously you can't protect people forever with laws and it would be inappropriate at some point (probably 20) but it does emphasise to people at young ages that age gaps aren't just innocuous things but have very real implications for a relationship in terms of maturity and power dynamics.

There are lots of kids having underage sex now, do you think there shouldn't be a law to protect them? The police system seems to be coping just fine currently and with current attitudes turning against age gap relationships amongst the young I don't see this being a massive problem. Most young people would call a 20 plus year old chasing a 16/17 year old a nonce.

Do you think it's sensible at the moment to have laws where you can't have sex at all until you turn 16 then miraculously you are mature enough to have a sexual relationship with much older adults. It's insane!

There's always been people having underage sex though. That nothing to do with ages gaps. A friend's of mine got pregnant at 14, but her boyfriend was still 13 at the tine

Yes, my point is though that you don't just remove the legal protection for children under 16 because it's difficult to police. Same should go for age gap child exploitation, sorry I mean 'relationships'

No, because boys mature much more slowly than girls, both physically and mentally.

16 year old girls are never suitably ‘mature’ enough to be in a healthy relationship with a man in his mid twenties. Ever.

So what about all the people worldwide who marry and bring up kids at that age and have done so for generations. In india for example the average age for marriage was 16.2 years only a couple of decade ago

In India until fairly recently (within my parents’ lifetime), it wasn’t uncommon for women to be burned on funeral pyres alongside their husbands after they died.

I wouldn’t be pointing to India as a beacon of progressive policy or women’s rights.

Barbaric practices change because people wake up to them and change society. The lowest watermark of poor behaviour should not be a benchmark for how we behave.

Hard agree. There’s never been any excuse for this.

You don't say how long ago this was, OP. If it was during the 1990s, say, then as many have said on here, it wasn't uncommon, and part of the issue here is - was your brother doing something which was a) objectively abnormal, or b) deeply frowned upon by society. The answer to a) depends on the individuals involved, while the answer to b) depends when it happened. A 16 year-old girl, while under 18, is generally well past puberty and could well look and act older, while the man may have been quite immature, so it is a stretch to assume that this man was a nonce or manipulative just based on that. Regarding b), doing something which is socially disapproved of is suggestive of particular personality types, and that's why it would be more worrying to see this age gap today than it would in the 1980s. Nowadays we are aware of the potential issues, PLUS 16 year-olds are very different in terms of emotional maturity, precisely because society has placed so many limitations on them eg regarding employment opportunities and education. They are kept in the 'child' role for longer.

As with so many attitudes which change over time, most people like to think that they would have been the ones calling out society's errors throughout history, but in practice they probably would have thought it was perfectly normal. Imagine going back in a time machine and asking your 1925 counterpart what she thought about gay marriage and adoption, or the abolition of the death penalty. Would she share your own modern views?
TL:DR version: If this was in the 1980s or 1990s, stop judging your DB and SIL and treat her as an adult who has made her own decisions. If it was in the last decade then it was certainly dodgier!

Asserting that doesn't make it true, and the lived experience of women who feel that their own relationships were healthy should not just be dismissed.

For clarity, I am not in favour of relationships with a big age gap and I would be hugely disapproving of one like this, but I disagree with making absolute judgements about other people's lives where those individuals have mental and legal capacity to make their own decisions.

It's quite a recent trend to refer to 16 year olds as children though. They're not little children, they're the other side of puberty.
Again no I wouldn't love it if my teen daughter had a twenty-something but it's a completely different scenario to an actual paedophile.

Not all 16 year olds are on the other side of puberty at all. It is totally normal to still be in puberty when you're 16 or 17. Some 16 year olds really do look like little children. This whole discussion is making me feel a bit sick to be honest. Who does it service to have these children viewed as adults and therefore ripe for sexual exploitation?