Age gap and serious relationships

[ThisHonestMentor]

Hi everyone, I am 22F, have been in relationship with 35M for a year now. We clicked really well and share a lot of similar values, views on life and goals. I started thinking more seriously about our relationship. He has never been married and no kids.

However an age gap makes me a bit worried, realistically what is a likehood of such relationship turning out well? In the future I'll be in my 40s and he's in his 50s, I'm not sure if our lifestyles, desires, health etc will be compatible. And if we make a child when I'm 25, he'll be almost in his 60s when our kid turns 18.

I'm early 40s and DH is late 50s we've been together 10 years. He does not look or act his age. He's very fit and active and has the same outlook on life as me so we don't notice the age gap. We don't have children together though. I wouldn't have wanted my child to have an older parent so we decided against children together. We both have children from previous relationships though.

I think it depends on the people. My parents have a similar age gap and while it’s never been a huge issue it is becoming one now because while my dad is retired, my mum has another 10+ years of working so their day to day lives look very different, similarly my mum wants to go out together, go on lots of trips/holidays, my dad is starting to get niggles and illnesses which mean he isn’t really wanting to do those things so they are stuck a bit. My grandparents also have an age gap and again, was never a big issue, but now it is becoming one because my gran despite being fit & healthy and relatively young herself has been living the life of someone much older for years now as a carer for my granda. So in my experience the difficulties of age gap relationships become more prominent later in life at which point there isn’t really much you can do.

Also if it were now and you were just retiring from work he would be 80. I know people that it has worked for.

I mean the age gap isn't huge, if you feel compatible now I don't think that massively changes because you'll be going through changes together. At his age I would be thinking about how soon you want a family - do YOU want kids in your mid twenties or is it just so he's not too old? Do you both feel the same about marriage / chores / values etc? Do you think you would be happy growing old together?

Fwiw I'm 43, there's definitely guys 11-15 years older than me I could imagine having a happy marriage with, DH is 7 years older though and I'm not swapping him 😂. 31 would probably be too young only because of life stages but it sounds like yours are similar

The age doesn't really matter. It's the person that does. I'm 38 and my husband is 56. We have 1 DS together and I wouldn't change it for the world. If you love eachother and both want similar things in life there's no reason your ages should make a blind bit of difference

You'll hear age doesn't matter a lot, followed by lots of younger women with older men becuase age does matter, to men at least.

I don't want to sound patronising, because I know it can work, but I wouldn't be rushing to meet the man you want to spend your life with at 22, because what you want and are attracted to changes so much between your age and about 30, but there's no reason not to date, unless you're uncomfortable with the age gap.