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?

Yes it shows he is really immature emotionally. By this time and age where there's a lot of way to meet people it's indeed creepy. She is in developmental teen age and he is an adult by law. Bizarre.

Right. I feel very uncomfortable around him now despite him being a seemingly normal bloke!

Unless I've missed a response, this is once again a thread where multiple posters have come on to say 'I was 16 and my husband was 23 and we are still happily married 20 years later' and other posters ask
'so if your 16 year old came home with a 23 year old, that would be okay?'
Or
'So did you fancy 16 year old, when you were 23?'
And noone ever answers...

The law needs to be changed to make it illegal.

To make what illegal exactly?

Relationships with a large age gap. Half your age plus seven should be the law.

Haha that's ridiculous, no country on earth could bring in such a law, how on earth do you imagine it could be policed? Too silly for words.

The fact you're married and have two children now doesn't make it all OK. You are now only 6 years older than he was when he started a relationship with you. Are you sexually interested in 16 year olds? If not, why not? I suspect when you were 25 you were married and had kids. Would it have been appropriate for you then to get into a relationship with someone that potentially hadn't even completed their GCSEs yet?

I'm sure you believe you were just super mature and he was a bit immature for his age. That this essentially eradicated the age gap entirely and removed any power imbalance. A story as old as time and a very convenient one for men.

It was very strange what happened to you 15 years ago and certainly wasn't the norm at that time. The fact that he pursued you in this era is even more of a red flag. I am genuinely sorry and hope that one day you can talk this through with someone and get to the bottom of what actually happened and why a 25 year old man was interested in a child.

For the 16-18 year bracket I'd support a maximum age gap. Romeo and Juliet laws and clauses exist in some countries/states. Then full anything goes consent from 18.

You can't change the past but we can look at it with a more informed and knowledgeable lens. Lots of things were acceptable in the past that were often rooted in racist and misogynistic thinking. The acceptance of age gap relationship is one of these things. It's no suprise that as women's rights have risen, our perception of these relationships has also changed. We now expect women to be equal partners in relationships. This is almost impossible to achieve when a 16 year old girl is in a relationship with a 20 plus year old man. She legally can't do as much as the man, has so much less life experience and isn't even entitled to earn the same minimum wage as him. The dynamics are wrong from the start and asking a 16 year old to navigate this successful and healthily is ridiculous when a year ago she wasn't even legally allowed to engage in any kind of sexual relationship.

The dynamics are wrong from the start and asking a 16 year old to navigate this successful and healthily is ridiculous when a year ago she wasn't even legally allowed to engage in any kind of sexual relationship.

This. It’s actually very unsurprising that a girl of 16 who marries a man twice her age is still married 15 years later. What else is someone who started having children as a teenager going to do to support herself?

Saying “Oh but we’re still together so it’s all OK,” completely misses the point. You’re likely still together because you’re trapped.

I agree with a PP that you can’t really legislate to prevent this happening. All you can do is educate girls to understand its not in their best interests. And people who have done it can absolutely make the best of it. But can we please stop pretending its all tickety boo because it happened in the 80s.

Yes, most of us aren't with the same aged boyfriends that we had at 16. We change a lot as we mature into adulthood, life changes a lot and it's actually totally normal and probably healthiest in many years for the relationships we had at 16 to breakdown. I know I am deeply incompatible with the boyfriends I had at that age and could never build a life with them in the way I have done with my DH.

Those that are proudly stating that they are still with the much older boyfriends they met when they're 16 are problematic. I imagine you get a lot of doubters so sticking together would feel like you're proving then wrong. Sad really!

@Marshmallow4545 totally agree. If I had married or bred with any of my teenage boyfriends I would have been stranded in some depressing village somewhere with a husband and kids and nothing to do.

I was with a boy when I was 19 who wanted to get married and for me to abandon my plans to go to university and have kids. He was the same age as me but I knew then that marriage at such a young age would drag me down. If he had been 15 years older than me he would’ve been much more persuasive and I might have been more likely to take him up on it.

There but for the grace of God etc…

Of course it’s wrong

just because many of us did this back in the days (I was one of them) doesn’t mean it was ok. There are some differences now as many were working at 16 but still the vast majority were being taken advantage of by adults and this was almost always young girls and older men

thankfully children and young adults are more aware now and do not see this as normal or a situation to aspire to

I can only speak To my own experience, I met my husband when I was 16 and he was 23. We got married when I was 22. We didn’t have a child until I was 30. We’ve been together 25 years, and have supported each other through career changes, bereavements, education and many other major life changes. We’ve grown and matured together. In terms of relationship dynamics I’m the career driven, logical and pragmatic one, I make the big decisions and manage the finances, he leans more towards the emotional aspects and the household stuff he has a great work ethic, has always maintained a good stable job just doesn’t want to be in charge.

There is and never has been any kind of abuse in the relationship.

I know a lot of stories like yours, with bigger age gaps.

As we see from this thread, there are a lot of judgemental types who will have an opinion on other people's relationships. They aren't concerned about abuse or power imbalances it seems to me. What really pisses them off is that it was never submitted to them for approval. Other people live their own private lives as they choose? Unthinkable!

I never had this type of relationship so have no skin in this game... I just can't muster opinions on other people's lives like that.

That's really unfair!

I generally don't care about adults forming relationships with other adults. It's none of my business and as long as it's consensual and not abusive then I wish them luck. Sixteen year olds are children so I'm afraid it's a whole different ball game. Trying to imply that people that have an interest in child protection and safe guarding are interfering or judgemental is really strange.

There are videos circulating on SM at the moment about country's where child marriage is legal. In almost all of the countries where there are different legal ages for marriage between men and women, women have the lower age. Why do you think this is? Who do you think has set these laws? In some countries the age of puberty is the age where a girl can get married. It is sick and wrong! I really hope you would agree.

I'm afraid allowing sixteen year old children to have legal sexual relationships with 20 odd year old men (and even older) is a milder version of this in my mind. I don't see how this benefits girls but I can see how men with questionable motives would benefit. What do these fully grown men see in children that they can't get from a woman their own age?

I’d say it feels “wrong”, although that is based on zero experience of a similar situation so my opinion isn’t entirely valid.

It makes me wonder though, a 6 year age gap is nothing when you’re “older”, at what age does it become ok. I’ve no idea really.

What about us older people with age gap relationships then? Should be suddenly be illegal. ( 13 years between me and DP)

I assume you met your DH when you were an adult and not an actual child?

Yes I was in my 40s but someone stated the age gap should be illegal.

@RubySquid

What about us older people with age gap relationships then? Should be suddenly be illegal. ( 13 years between me and DP)

It's not the age gap that's the problem. My ex husband was eight years older than me, I'm four years older than my current partner. It's when it involves an adult being in a relationship with a child that it's problematic.

It's an abuse of power.

My mum was 16 (and had been working for 2 years) when she met my Dad - who was 22.

She was the boss in the relationship right from the start, and they stayed together until Dad died in his late 80s.

I dated a 24 year old when I was just 17, and I was perfectly capable of not being dominated by him. Unlike when I was 41 and with a 28 year old who abused me for 6 years plus.

Power dynamics are not always only about age.

My problem with grown men having a sexual interest in just legal children isn’t much about power dynamics, it’s more about the depravity of their minds.

Why do you think these men were all attracted to barely legal girls when there would have been plenty of women their own age around?