To think this is beyond grim?

[stunnedbythis]

I was talking to my mum this afternoon, she mentioned that one of her friends is celebrating thirty years living with his boyfriend. It suddenly occurred to me to ask how old they were when they met because her friend doesn't look old enough, and she said he was 18 and his boyfriend was about 32. I knew there was an age gap, but I can't help but think this is really, really grim.

My mum go really defensive about this as she's very close to her friend and to some extent his boyfriend too, but she said things were very different 30 years ago and that it was her friend who did all the chasing (she's know this friend since he was about 16/17 as they worked in the same shop for a while). She said he met this man in a pub and they just hit it off.

My mum is in her 60s now and has a very different outlook, I asked her how she'd feel if one of my children turned 18 and started dating someone in their thirties, but all she could say is "its different now". How is it different?? What am I missing?

No because women get pregnant and that’s the only mechanism that basically welds you to somebody for life. So in the event they think ‘actually I don’t want to be with a much older person, this was a massive mistake’ they may not have the luxury of simply moving on.

This doesn’t apply to gay couples.

You don't have to get it! It's bugger all to do with you!

There was more antipathy to gay men when AIDS was a new thing in the 80s not less. Characters in a film don't imply a general acceptance.

It was never normal but it was tolerated.
I have a brother who dated 16 year old girls when he was 16, 18, 20, 22, 24.
I told him it was predatory and to look for someone his own age.
He ended up with someone 10 years younger.
A lot of men think having a younger girlfriend (or boyfriend) is an entitlement or a trophy of some kind. There is nearly always a power imbalance in the form of how much each one earns.

30 yrs ago I was at uni. One of my friends at sixth form was gay and had a boyfriend he met on a train he was Dr and in his late 20s or 30s. No one thought it was odd.
Life was different in sense lots left school at 16 to work ft. There wasn’t this long young adult period.
I went to quite an academic girls school and only a few of us went on to A levels and university. A typical 18 year old would probably have been working ft for a couple of years.

You don’t have to ‘get it’. They’re not your friends, not your relationships, so you don’t even have to give it a minute’s thought.

You sound like Saffy from Absolutely Fabulous - it’s like your mum is the fun one with an open mind and you are very judgemental.
The fact you are so shocked about this makes me think you aren’t the type of person people confide in - probably because they know how harshly you will judge them!

That's only a 14 year age gap, totally normal in any relationship. An 18 year old is a grown adult.

Not every relationship with this kind of age gap
will be some kind of grim, abusive situation. They’ve been together several decades, are presumably happy, I don’t really see the issue.

I met my husband when I was 19 and he was 31. Two kids, 24 years together, 18 years very happily married. Definitely no power imbalance here! I was an 'old' 19 year old and he was a 'young' 31 year old I guess!

I suppose it depends what area you live in / what your family and friends are like whether it's normal or tolerated

My 14 year old friend had her first baby at 15 to a 19/20 year-old man that her parents happily let move into their house,

I was 15 and allowed to sleep over at my 22 year old boyfriends house 🙈.... it was normal in our tiny town as horrible as it is ( I would go mad if an adult was sniffing round my teenage daughter )

My friend had her 2nd baby to a 30 year old man and there were eyebrows raised at that but that was tolerated

As an adult I agree there's 100% a big power imbalance in a lot of age gaps relationships

But teenage me and my friends would argue till we were blue in the face that there wasn't 😅

So are you calling your mum “grim” for being in her 30s and friends with a teenager?

A couple has been together longer that adults alive why on earth do you need to think anything? Are they asking for your blessing?

A Slate letter dealt with an age gap (woman in her twenties had a dad who was dating someone the same age) and the response was that as long as there's not a power imbalance then it's fine.

I wasn’t saying it was an equivalent. I was saying that it was a leap to imply that OP’s concern is homophobic.

I think OP is very unreasonable to find this 30 yr relationship “grim”. I just don’t think that her thinking that automatically suggests she might be homophobic.

Male homosexuality was legalised in 1967. Almost 30 years before they met. A thirty year marriage - whether same sex or opposite sex sounds pretty good to me. In previous generations a 14 year gap between husband and wife was not so unusual. They sound like a pretty based couple ( now aged 48 and 62) and nice friends for your mum. Nothing "grim" about it.

I'm in my 60s and have two female friends who, separately (they didn't know each other back then), met and married "older" men. One was 17 and one was 18, both husbands in their early 30s and both still married today.
I think there is, probably rightly, more concern about age-gap relationships today but that doesn't mean they are all "grim".

You sound very judgemental, your mum sounds like a nicer friend than you!

You should read the problem pages of the teen mags from the 80’s. Unashamedly full of 15 year olds pining after gown men and the agony aunts who see no issue with that.

My 15 year old friend was actively encouraged by her parents to form a relationship with a man of nearly 30. This was the eighties. The man had several businesses and continued to do well. They are still together. Looking back, I’m amazed no one made more of a fuss.

tbh, I am thinking of several hetero famous marriages where one partner was teenager when they got together & the other person age 40+: marriages that still exist & have lasted decades.

YADBU.

Of course I'm not! She's just a friend, nothing else, I'm just saying I don't understand the need to be around people so much older. All my friends are a similar age to me.

People did used to socialise more with colleagues. Drinks after work etc. They were colleagues and you were all adults. Our office junior came to pub with us.

So you think your mum’s friend (the younger one) is the grim one then? For hanging out with her, his older coworkers and eventually his partner?

I think it's grim a person in their 30s would date someone in their teens, and I think it's weird someone in their teens would socialise with people in their 30s or even older. What would they have in common other than in this case their place of work?

Isn’t it a good thing to have friends of all ages though? Broadens your mind