Age Difference

[honeytoast]

I have been seeing someone for the last few months and he is ten years younger I am 38 he is 28 and we are getting more serious, ie falling in love with each other. But I am scared that things wont work out and can feel myself holding back. Do age difference relationships work? Any advise helpful.

I'm 8 years older than DH and it's no problem at all for us. Except when he asks me if I remember a particular episode of Thundercats and I have to tell him I was at work/getting drunk/having sex at the time

Oh good I do worry, but we get on great better than anyone I have ever had a relationship with. I worry that he will want children in the future etc and that I wont be able to provide that. But I am so happy and dont want him to feel that he is coming out with a old lady

My previous partner was 11 years older than me and never an issue. We were together 8 years, and the age gap wasn't anything to do with up splitting up.

my DH is 9yrs older than me , but i swear i am more mature than he is we have been together 18years now , please try to stop worrying & enjoy this relationship .

honey, i am going to offer you a hideous word of warning i'm afraid....

i do know that this can work for some people, the age difference. But not always and you are right to be cautious because if he wants kids, it could become an issue.

4 months ago i could have written that post of yours word for word, almost exactly the same age difference (my boyf was 30 and i'm 39), fell in love, madly madly, best ever... then after 6 months he realised that he would need to have children basically NOW if he is to spend his life with me, and though he really really wants a family he is not ready for all that responsibility yet.

So we broke up. That was a month ago. I still cry every day, so does he, we miss each other like crazy, but there's not getting away from the facts... i already have a son and that didn't help because i didn't have the freedom to run off at the drop of a hat. He said it's the hardest thing he's ever done. But ultimately he wanted to do it all 'properly' (my word, not his).

We try not to have contact because that doesn't help.

On the other hand i have a friend who's 47 and her partner is 34. They have two kids - but they met 7 years ago and spent a couple of years together before settling down to a family... i think if i had been two years younger and able to do that i would still be with my boyfriend...

When i tried to bring up my worries about all this with him he would say - it will all be OK, i just know it will. Anyway, it wasn't.

I'm not saying don't do it, i'm just saying before you fall too madly in love, try and find out what he wants from life so you can make a decision about what risks you want to take with your heart.

And if you do want more kids, you might have to talk about that soon-ish.

I just jumped in with both feet and had the most amazing 6 months. I'm not sure it was worth it for the pain i am in now though.

Good luck, whatever you decide to do.

Thanks for your advice pintandchips and thats what i am worry about us splitting up and being in pain. So is it better now to ask the question if he wants kids. or just go with the flow.

You have to talk about it, maybe not right now, but over the next couple of months. Because if you DO want to have more kids and he's not going to be ready for a few years, you may have to end this now so you have time to find someone else. And even if you aren't bothered about missing your final window for getting pregnant, if he wants kids then in a few years he will leave you because you can't give them to him. But you might be willing to take that risk.

Everyone kept telling me to just 'go with it', but there are truths in life that no amount of 'going with it' can get around, the fact that it gets vastly more difficult to have children the older you are will not disappear, and for us, it was always there in the background.

It could be that you talk about it and neither of you are really bothered about having kids, in which case brilliant! no pressure, you can get on with enjoying each other.

The age difference in itself will not be an issue - as a 52 year old friend of mine said after she split from her 39 year old husband 'it wasn't the age difference that split us up, it was the arguing'...

I met my DH when he was 16 and I was 26, we started dating when he was 19 and I was 29, married when he was 24 and I was 34, first child when he was 27 and I was 37, second when he was 31 and I was 41 and third child when he was 33 and I was 43.

We have arguements but they are the usual ones over money, kids, housework etc. never over age.

We talked a lot about what we both wanted out of our lives and our marriage before we ever got married. The thing with me is it wasn't certain I would ever be able to have children because of medical issues so we had to discuss the fact that I possibly wouldn't be able to give him any offspring when he wanted kids.

You need to talk about what you both want from life.

18 years between dh and I, he is 47. He has 2 (almost) grown-up children from his first marriage, we have ds 2.10.

Only issue we have had is whether to have another, he feels that he is too old, which tbh I can understand, and we are able to give ds more than we would if we were to have another. I have accepted this though.

Oh and we have very different tastes in music, and he joined the army the year I was born

May I just add that I do think it can work sometimes.
Something worth thinking about is the important milestones you have both reached in life. What he has experienced that you haven't and vice versa. And whether or not you could watch that other person experience it and help them thru it.
I must admit I've never been in one but this was an issue for a close friend of mine and I've thought of what it would be like to be in that position.

Newly single myself, if I were to embark on (and I know this will make me look bad but whatever) if I were to have a relationship with someone who hasn't had kids and we ended up happy, in love and had a kid... I just don't know if I could have the patience to watch as that other person goes thru (what I consider) to be one of the steepest learning curves in life - dealing with becoming a parent and the first year or two of adjusting. That's a big milestone for me.

I have a current "interest" that is 10 yrs older than me and a great guy, who wants kids, but seriously, that thought kind of puts me off it. I'm sure he'd make a great dad tho. He's a great friend too.

What can I say, I'm human, flaws and all. Don't jump on me fellow MNers.

I am 48 dh 38 been very happily married 13 years now. I had ds when I was 39 and adopted dd last year. The only differance we have is his crap taste in music.

lol dolphin,yes he thinks I have crap taste in music as I like all the dance stuff. That is great to hear that you been together that long. I think I am going to try and stop worrying and just get on an enjoy the relationship and if it leads to other things will jump that hurdle when we get to it.

I think you should enjoy it for now, but you should go into it realising that it is even less likely to be a 'forever' kind of thing than if he were the standard age gap within 2 years of your age.

Also, it's not JUST age. He doesn't have a child. Yet.

JoeCoolBeans, don't blame you at all. There comes an age for a man, when if he hasn't had a child yet, no woman he's with should ever feel obligated to produce one for him,or guilty about being too old to 'give' him a child. I'm not expressing myself very well. But I suppose I think if a man gets to about 44 and doesn't have a child, and if he asked me out, i would feel that his 'childfree' or childless status was already established and NOT MY business. But with a man of 36 ... it'd be trickier.