I was in a situation very similar to this (minus the sex clubs and sex toys!), and it was genuinely the worst relationship of my life. I was 19, he was 51. I had very low self esteem and he was incredibly manipulative, and eventually deeply emotionally abusive.
I don’t know how you should approach your daughter without knowing more about your relationship with her and her circumstances. I think once you’ve convinced yourself you’re happy with someone despite that awful age gap you’re into a sunk costs fallacy i.e. it feels like it costs more to admit you’re wrong than to carry on.
Without knowing more I’ll give some background on what I was like at the time and why I think I ended up in that situation and you can see if any of it resonates:
- I had low self esteem. My friends weren’t very supportive, and my experiences of young men were that they were sexist, cruel and disrespectful
- I was a Tom boy - short hair, more androgynous clothes. I wore skirts sometimes but I wasn’t ‘girly’. It wasn’t a popular look and I was always assumed to be gay, or passed over for the girl with long hair
- My closest friends were also In abusive relationships (although with men their own age), so it seemed normal
- My childhood family life had modelled some poor behaviour towards women to me
- I was lonely, and having tried men my own age and been treated badly, thought - maybe this is as good as it gets?
I think you need to find out why your daughter feels attracted to this man rather than someone her own age. There’s a huge power imbalance, though she won’t want to acknowledge it. Has she felt rejected by men her own age? Does she feel she won’t find someone she likes her own age who respects her? Does she have low self esteem?
It’s very easy for an older man to manipulate a young woman in those circumstances. He’ll be able to treat her as if she’s the best thing that’s happened to him, make her feel special and grown up, and convince her that she’s too mature for the boys her own age. It’s a very dangerous position to be in but your daughter may well be hyper sensitive to criticism based on his age, because in her heart she already knows it’s wrong, but feels like this is her last resort.
I would also have a very serious talk with her about red flags and emotional abuse. Make sure that the moment he mistreats her, she walks. Don’t let her be emotionally manipulated by some sob story of how sorry he was for saying/doing those things. The first time it happens, she’s got to get out. Otherwise she’s like a frog being slowly boiled - it gets normalised. Someone with so much more experience will do it very subtlety and slowly until it becomes your normal life.
I’m sorry this is happening. It must be so stressful. My family tried hard to understand and accept this person, and I hid a lot of the abuse because I didn’t have the tools to understand or express it. I wish more people had pushed back at the time based purely on his age - I felt such shame about it but felt that was as good as it would get (he fed this fear). Years on and it obviously wasn’t - happy now with someone my own age who’s never said a cruel word to me.