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?

Would you and your husband be quite happy if your 16 year old child was dating a 25-year-old man?

My sis was 15, first relationship with a 24yr old who still had his ex living with him. Three children later, sis is 52, married, they're happy.

If her 15 year old daughter met a 24 year old man (who was living with his ex) would she give him a chance and think it was in any way appropriate or right for her daughter to date him? Or would she view him as predatory and inappropriate due to the gap in age, life experience and power?

People are really missing the point here

Being ‘happy’ isn’t it. A 24 years old grown man and a 15 year old child is fucking disgusting, no matter how the relationship played out.

Probably best to talk to them rather than coming to your own conclusions.

I know a couple who have two children. Our son's have playdates together. I knew there was an age difference but never really thought about it. They told me how old they were recently. She is 36 and he is 50. They have a 21 year old and got together a year before they had him. So she was 14 and he was 28 when they got together and she was 15 when she had her oldest 🤢

I met my husband when I was 16 and he was 21. We’re still together 19 years later and been happily married for 9 years with 2 daughters. I can’t understand why my parents were concerned but it was never creepy. I would say you’re right to be alert to it but ultimately no one ever understands anyone else’s relationships.

If they could date younger, they would

I cannot imagine how uspet i would feel if an almost 30 year old was "dating" my 16 year old DD. I'd be equally horrified if it was my 29 year old son bringing a 16 year old home. Regardless of how long a subsequent relationship lasts that foundation is not OK imo.

Sadly this.

On a practical level though, how would you stop it? You can't ground your daughter completely, and we all know that clandestine relationships are even more exciting for teenagers. Surely it would be better in both scenarios to let the relationships be in the open, you could then get to know the person better, whilst hoping that the relationship would naturally fizzle out.

As a parent I'm sure I couldn't stop it. I'd still be horrified it was happening and in the situation where my child was the younger would be there to support them. Where my child were the imo predator I'd make my feelings clear to them. I'd hope for my kids never to find themselves at either end though.

I'm in my 40s now and it does sound noncey to me now, but when I was 16 my boyfriend was 20 and he was lovely, treated me really well, however we broke up in my late 20s as we had grown apart, I was a very different person 10 years later than I was at 16.

I agree with @Thepeopleversuswork though that the dynamics at 16 are a bit different now adays. Because the girls are still at school, in school uniform and what happens at this point does to a greater degree determine how the rest of their life is going to go.

Putting AI and the unforeseeable change it may have on the work place aside for one moment, if a girl has an opportunity to go to Uni and doesn't or drops out to be with their older boyfriend - because young love is intense and older men can be persuasive that a waste of money & a waste of time & too far away - then I do think the older man in this situation does not have the girl's best interest at heart, only their own. If they truly loved them, they would encourage them to finish their education, even though the relationship would be very unlikely to survive.

@JudgeJ

Sadly one is expected to accept whatever is the popular prejudice on MN, many members will never have a long happy marriage and seem jealous of those who achieve it. These super mums have generally raised a generation in perpetual infancy, they refuse to realise that their off spring is an adult at 18 and they can't legally interfere in their lives but we are forever reading where mummy is battling landlords and so on about contracts their adult offspring has signed. It seems that the MN-acceptable age difference is about 5 minutes

So you believe the length of a marriage justifies the fact it was entered into in questionable circumstances?

Some people on this thread seem to think the only benchmark for success in adulthood is how fast you grow up: how quickly you can get a job and get married and have kids.

Call me precious but I would rather my daughter took longer to grow up and that it cost me more to support her and that she might be more immature than shove her out into a poorly paid full time job and a bloke who is just looking for someone to be a housewife for him. I kind of want better for her than to be a teenage brood mare on a fast ramp to having loads of kids.

The fact that it was all completely normal in the 1980s keeps being trotted out as some sort of “gotcha”. Slaverery was normal until the 19th century. The reason progress happens is because people wake up to the fact something previously deemed normal is actually pretty dysfunctional.

So sorry but I would rather have a slightly over indulged child than one who was groomed into early marriage by a gross older man. Shoot me.

Yes it was much more usual. I had a 24 year old boyfriend when I was 16/17. I was definitely a bit out of my depth but thought I was really grown up and loved the fact he had a car. We split up when I went to college. I don't think he really took advantage (he still lived at home, was pretty young in outlook) but I wouldn't do it again if I had a time machine, mainly because it was growing up far too soon.

I agree with you OP.

I dated a 22 year old when I was 15 and looking back at it he was a weirdo. At 22 I cannot fathom having anything in common with a 15 year old boy.

Gross!

I think he’s disgusting and likely was delayed mentally if he had much in common with a 16 year old at 26.

Your husband is disgusting.

Trouble is that people are putting todays " standards" for things that happened 30 years ago. Seems to be commonplace on these forums

This is not the kind of thing I would sit on and hope to fizzle out whilst a 29 year old man was getting his fucking kicks out of my child. Fuck that. You talk about grounding but I wouldn’t punish my child for being what is essentially groomed. I did however make them fully aware of the inappropriate nature of such relationships long before they reached that age, so to them it would already seem weird that a man was interested in them.

So you believe the length of a marriage justifies the fact it was entered into in questionable circumstances?

I thought I was clear enough but apparently not. My comments were aimed at those who think an age difference is per se wrong in every case and it simply isn't, cases may differ. To be insulting those who have had a happy marriage despite an age difference is wrong, just because it doesn't fit the current views on MN, to do so is the height of arrogance.

It's the MN way, 'my way or the highway'.

What ?