AIBU to find the Macrons' relationship history a bit weird?

[Gangstamummy]

Have just been having a discussion with my DH about Macron and Brigitte - I said it is a bit weird to marry someone you met when they were 15 and you were 39 and married. He said every relationship has its weirdnesses and clearly it is a successful marriage. We ended up a bit heated on the subject (rose had been taken)! What are your thoughts? I can see that they seem happy now but surely it is quite odd how they met and the large age gap (and before anyone says, I also think that the Trump age gap is weird and that there would have been a power imbalance when they met, albeit the much more familiar one of trading money for looks…

Yeah it’s obviously weird. Not even just the age gap (which would be enough to make it weird given he was 15) but the fact she was his teacher. He was at school with her daughter. His parents sent him to boarding school when they found out, to get him away from her.

You mean the fact she was basically a paedophile? and in a position of power so really it’s grooming? I find that more than just a bit weird.

Yanbu it’s very odd.

She groomed him and it's awful. I feel very strongly about how teachers should behave (I am one) and she should be followed everywhere by someone with a bell shouting 'shame'. No, I absolutely do not care about the length and apparent happiness of the marriage, you make serious commitments when you become a teacher, or anyone in a position of trust, and what she did is wrong.

She’s grim. See also Sam Taylor Johnson.

He was a child and she was his teacher. It’s not weird, it’s perverted.

Interesting that you immediately go to another older woman younger man situation to highlight the issue rather than one one the thousands of older man younger women examples.

it’s almost as if you think it’s worse

I was beginning to doubt myself- I like the idea of a First Lady having a strong character and a view of her own etc, but I couldn’t get over the idea that it is weird to have met when he was so young. DH pointed out they didn’t have a relationship until he was mid 20s, and that there is no point in worrying about how they met because their relationship now is clearly equal/healthy which may indeed be true, but still… He is normally quite reasonable so I will blame the wine…

I find it odd that you had a heated argument about it. My OH wouldn’t care less and if I tried to engage him on the subject he’d just agree with me 😆

Personally I don’t think they look particularly happy. Didn’t she have a massive go at him on the plane recently? Maybe way back when they had stuff in common but nowadays he looks like he’s just counting down the years until she pegs it.

You're being unreasonable to call it a bit weird. She was an adult who groomed a kid.

Have you forgotten that she shoved him for the world to see and had a black eye in Davos, which he blamed on something else?

Goodness, I completely missed that

Agree with this ^

We can do a lot of sugar coating but it’s this essentially.

By the way I think that Melania’s situation is very different. She was a grown up woman, she had a job, she made a conscious choice. We could question her motives, the depth of her love but there was no grooming or anything similar in their relationship.
So how people met does matter.

Yeah, agree that she’s a paedophile and a groomer. No way would they be together if he met her when he was a fully grown man.

Yes it’s really fucking weird. Her kids are the same age as he is.

Yes it is weird. Didn't she shove him getting off a plane last year too?

I think because the thread is about the older woman to highlight it can happen the opposite way round as well. Sam Taylor Johnson was again in a position of power, his employer, it is the way it looks. Nothing normal about a 40 year old woman dating her 18 year old employee.

I think attitudes have changed to some extent, a girl in my class, she was 17, it was 1996, was having an affair with our maths teacher, who would have been about 25 - we all thought it was hilarious. They married shortly after she left school and are still together, she trained as a teacher and joined him back at the school.

I myself became a teacher for about 18 years in FE, and I recall in c2008 when joining a new college that the HR briefing was "if you start a relationship with a student, do let us know so you don't end up teaching them". The focus being very much on concern over preferential marking etc. concepts of safeguarding hadn't come into the vernacular at the time, and being an art college there was a lot of stuff going on you wouldn't get today, for example students (of both sexes) posing nude for paintings and photographs and the resulting prints either hanging on the drying lines in the darkroom or the test prints scattered everywhere.

The world has changed, for the better - in only a fairly short time.

It’s absolutely disgusting. And I wouldn’t say it comes across as a healthy relationship even now: see the video of her slapping him on a plane.

She’s a creep, as the older one in an age gap relationship. where one is very young, often is.

Are they happy? Last time I saw them together was in a video of her hitting him.

Its also worth noting that grooming can happen without a sexual relationship occurring at the time. A mid to late 30 year old does not need to get into a head of a 15 year old, regardless of the gender. That's just where I stand on any of these situations.

I’m not sure that’s right about them not having a relationship until he was older.

This has quotes from his parents about it.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/emmanuel-macron-parents-how-discovered-affair-drama-teacher-brigitte-trogneux-dating-french-president-election-win-a7724201.html#