Quite often I see people saying that an age gap of 10+ years in a relationship is a red flag, but why?
I’m not talking about an 18 year old with a 30 year old
For me, my mum is 14 years older than my dad, and so it’s something that I have always seen as normal.
My mate Dave (38m) is 9 years younger than his partner Jane, they have 2 kids and are happy.
My mate Carly (34f) is 12 years younger than her boyfriend.
All these people that I know have had happy relationships with equal dynamics.
I’m sure that there are instances where there is a power imbalance, but that happens in equal age relationships all the time.
So why is there stigma against age gaps within a relationship, and what is the maximum acceptable gap before it starts being considered weird or creepy?
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Generally there is no issue with age gap relationships once everyone is over 27 or so. It’s about life experience and being in the same stage of life.
A 22 year old dating a 30 year old is at a disadvantage because of the lack of life experience in adulthood.
(76m) My wife of over 50 years is nearly seven years younger. She was 19 and I was 25 when we met. Friends jokingly accused me of ‘cradle robbing’ at the time and my parents thought she was a child when they first met her.
Eventually, the age gap ceased to matter. My parents fell in love with her and told me that should we ever divorce that they would be keeping her and shedding me (semi-serious).
Now that I’m about to turn 77 and she’s 70, the age gap means that I’ll probably die long before she does. I’m both sad about the thought of leaving her on her own after all these years – and glad it’s likely to be me instead of her. I can’t even begin to imagine my life without her in it.
Once you hit late twenties, I feel like it’s more acceptable. It’s when you’ve got 30-40 year olds dating 18-19 year olds that people start having a problem with it. My brother in law is 50 and just married his 19 year old girlfriend. I don’t let him around my child.
How long before it’s creepy: The general rule of thumb is Age/2 + 7 is the minimum age of someone it’s not creepy to date.
1: Power imbalance is of course obvious
2: Life stage. If Partner1 is reaching an age where the kinds of things that are important are different from Partner2’s life stage, then it becomes difficult to form a partnership. For example, a 40 year old and a 25 year old may currently both be looking to settle down and have kids, but in 20 years, P1 will be looking to retirement, while P2 may well be in a completely different place.
3: Life end. Again with the 40 yo and the 25 yo; in 40 years, one of them is going to be in a significantly different medical place than the other. This means the younger one will de facto spend their golden years first caring for an aging, dying partner and then subsequently being alone without help for their own failing years.
Age gaps where the younger person is at least late 20s/30ish aren’t as big of a deal as a younger partner being in their early 20s. Most objection to age gaps is in response to older people preying on very young adults without life experience or boundaries.
It has nothing really to do with whether or not it will be an enjoyable relationship for both parties. It is just pointing out the life experience differences. You say Carly is 34 and her bf is 46, so that would mean Carly has about 34/46 the life experience as her boyfriend which is approximately 74%. That means her bf has a quarter more life experience which is a pretty big difference but does not mean they can’t have an enjoyable relationship.
> What is the issue with age gaps in relationships?
People like to whine about this is all, really.
If a 19yo prefers to date a 30yo, go ahead…you’re an adult now. Both adults can learn why this is or is not a good thing….because you’re both adults. Life is a learning game.
Consenting adults, end of story.
There has been age gaps in relationships since the beginning of time.
There are more people of other ages than your age. It’s less likely that you would be the same exact age because of math and human attraction.
Men are attracted to fertility subconsciously women lose that as they age.
I’m not trying to be mean just stating facts.
People worry to much about things that are not their business. 😆😆😆. Especially old broads that have aged out of high value times. They then think a guy their age should be stuck picking from the pile of aged out broads to try and start a family with. That’s a terrible idea for a guy. He B is wasting money on a gal so he may as well get what he finds worth his money Both will cost but will your enjoy your money spent?
There is none. The only people getting upset at such are (1) ageing women. They worry that nobody wants them if all men want younger girls. (2) simps.
To hell with both sets of groups.
If it’s legal, it’s fine.
Will a 35 year old man have a lot in common with a 21 year old woman? Probably not, but it’s a free country and they can certainly have fun. If they genuinely love each other, even better
Most people who get upset by age gaps are just insecure and bitter
It can be an issue sometimes because men and women have different timelines for fertility and at which ages we have the most attractiveness. Sometimes an age gap might be bad if one party is substantially older and it can be seen as unfair to the younger person if the matchup is not in their best longterm interest. Let’s say a guy is with an older woman but he may want kids in the future but doesn’t want them at the time. Or a young woman is with an older guy that already has kids, and she may not want kids at the time but then ends up having to raise his kids instead of having her own. He may not want more kids. I think these issues are what can make significant age gaps undesirable. But 10 to 15 years gap isn’t as problematic.
The only time I have issues with age gaps is when there’s a CLEAR imbalance in maturity and life experience in an otherwise “legal” relationship or parents dating people their kids age and vice versa because that’s just uncomfortable for anyone involved
I think it’s that a lot of age gap relationships come from inherent imbalance because the majority we see are older men going for women 15+ years their junior. The issue is these men have been around, they’re established, and likely have some kind of financial stability verging on what you’d call ‘rich’. The imbalance comes from the younger people not being settled in themselves, they’re adults but they’re still inexperienced with life. The men usually have the financial power over them.
That being said, its weird when say its an 18-20 year old with a 40+ year old – it’s also weird when the older person knew and was close to the younger person when they were a minor (you hear a lot about family friends or neighbors with an older adult son hanging around, and then once the kid hits 18 they swoop in)
Age difference also matters way less the older you get, especially once you’re in your late 20’s and into your 30’s.
My parents have a 9 year age gap in between them. I think my mom was 24 or 25 when she got married to my dad. They had 5 kids who are all well into adulthood now. My dad died in the last few years at 82 or 83.
It can also be a bit generational – it was way more common 40-50 years ago, but people these days can see that there can be some significant issues with power in a relationship with a big age gap and its more common than in relationships with less wide gaps. It hearkens back to the days of 12-14 year olds getting married off to 50+ year old men. It can seem creepy when the young person is TOO young and the person is significantly older.
A lot of it is because as you get older and more experienced, you typically get better at spotting red flags and resisting manipulation. Many manipulative, abusive people end up getting to the point where almost everyone the same age as them is either taken already or easily spots their red flags and doesn’t want to date them, and one tactic these people often try is looking for younger partners who haven’t yet learned how to spot red flags so easily.
This is especially true with the 18yo dating a 30yo, but there’s no hard and fast cutoff to this.
I will say, at a certain age, it becomes the opposite dynamic, where the younger partner is more likely to be a manipulative, abusive person. This is around the time when the older partner is likely to be a widow/widower who may not have much experience outside of a single relationship, and may be starting to develop age-related health issues that could affect their ability to accurately judge the character of a potential partner. For example, a 50yo dating an 80yo would be more likely to be exploitative of the 80yo than the 50yo.
in the dating phase is just about relating to similar events growing up music movies etc. is one going to be working for 12 or 15 years longer than the other? and finally in old age obviously it’s physical ability – whether that’s sexually or mobility related
I was 26 when I met my gf who was 19 at the time (now 14 years together & married), a good friend was 29 when he met his gf who was also 19 (now 10 years together). All of us have the feeling we met irreplaceable loves of our lives. All are super happy together. These women are strong, independent, successful, and they would never put up with disrespectful or manipulative guys. In fact they had the bigger influence on us guys by independently convincing us to go vegan (and in my case, because she knew she never wanted to have a closed relationship ever again after her last before me, to get into the whole open relationship/marriage thing which is also great).
Blanket statements about consenting adults are rather harmful.
I was in a significant age gap “relationship” for 2 years. I call it a relationship even though it wasn’t because it felt like one. I was in my early twenties and he was over 10 yrs older. At first I didn’t notice but there is a strong power imbalance if the person you’re with has manipulative tendencies due to experience and overall more knowledge of life than you. If the dynamic is healthy and everyone is of age it’s fine, but often times the older person can use their experience to their advantage to influence the actions and boundaries of the other person. I am only speaking from experience so of course it’s not an end all be all for age gap relationships.