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Another post about young guys, worried about losing all the hot girls and girls of all ages afraid of losing the really hot (and wise) older guys!
Eat your hearts out.
This thread was started by a woman
Pay attention bro.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chicago South Sider
Why are so many people hating on these two? The age gap is probably a bit much but whatever floats your boat.
It's typical around here. The people doing the hating make themselves look lame. It's hilarious how people think they know what's going on in the relationships of others. It's really just their own projections and biases shining through.
Depends on the two parties involved. My wife and I have been together for 6 years now, and she's 21 years younger than I am. Oh, wait.... she just had a birthday. Ok, she's 20 years younger, for the next 3 months, and then 21 years younger again. I'm 56, she's 36. Neither of us have ever met anyone in our lives who was more compatible, more interesting, and just plain more thrilling to be around. I learn as much from her every day as she does from me, probably more. I can't imagine ever being with anyone else; I don't even remember what it was about women that I found interesting before I met her.
Coming from such widely different generations, there are obviously many areas in our lives where we don't share a common frame of reference, but when those things come up, they bring us closer together, rather than drive us further apart, because it's an opportunity to learn from each other. I can't tell you how much I've learned about so many things I grew up with, simply by her helping me "see" it through the eyes of someone who learned about it after the fact, rather than lived through it as it happened. Although I will say it still throws me for a bit of a loop when I say something like, "well, you remember when Reagan was elected," and she says, "uh, no I don't."
But at the same time, it's fun to explain to her what it was like to be alive when Sgt. Pepper first came out, and what it was like to watch the Watergate hearings on TV during summer vacation, and how amazing telephone answering machines and VHS recorders were when they first came out. By explaining it to her, I relive the experience and appreciate them on a level that I had forgotten, and hearing her discuss the relevance of those things in her life puts them in a different perspective for me. It makes my world a bigger place somehow.
Obviously there's going to be a time when our age difference matters much more than it does now, and I often remind myself that by the time she's my age, she'll probably be alone. I'll spend the rest of my life with her, but she'll spend half the rest of hers alone. I don't like that, and I don't think she does either. We have an understanding not to talk about it much, to focus every moment of every day on what we have now, rather than what's to come. For the most part that works, but I'd be lying if I said that it doesn't weigh heavily on both our minds. It seems to me she has the short end of that particular stick, and I sometimes question whether we're doing the right thing, but there is no painless solution to that dilemma. We both feel that all we can do is keep doing what we're doing, and never let ourselves take a single day for granted.
I will say that having met in her mid-life and my middle age is probably the best time frame; had she been in her early 20s, the age gap might have been too great. She was old enough to fully understand what she wanted from me and why she wanted it, and what she was getting herself into; had she been 20 or 22, I'm not sure I would have felt comfortable going forward. As it was, I very very nearly said no when she pursued me, but I was already half in love when she made her intentions clear, and didn't have the strength to pull back. I just thank god every day that I threw "common sense" to the wind and followed my heart, because the whole first half century of my life feels now as though it was just a stage I had to go through to prepare me for my real life, the one I've been living the last 6 years. I can't imagine a life without her.
^Funny, I was just about to post something about the age gap being less of an issue if the woman was just a little older.
I do know a couple that had a similar age gap and began dating when she was right out of high school. They ultimately divorced, but were married for over 20 years.
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My original thought would probably be that the girl is a gold digger, especially with an age gap that big. At the end of the day though, I really couldn't care less about other people's business.
My daughter is 22 and her boyfriend is 39. It was a little weird to me at first, but after checking the sex offender registry and making sure he wasn't on it (no joke), and seeing how much they love each other, I was okay with it.
I figure it would be rather hypocritical of me to support interracial relationships (I am white, my ex-husband is black) and gay marriage (many of my friends are gay and married or want to be married), but not be okay with their relationship simply because of some numbers (their ages). As long as two people make each other happy, who are we to judge them?
20+ years ago I took a consulting job in another city that lasted 6 months. While there, the office manager and I became best friends, often took coffee breaks together, worked late at the office, and eventually started going out for lunch and dinners. We kept it on a "friendly" basis, but fell pretty hard for each other. She was 26; I was 46.
We had a lot of fun joking around, but one night at the office she cornered me (literally) and forced me to physically hold her off and to have a frank discussion about our relationship. She wanted me. I wanted her too but wasn't free to act on it, plus I thought I was way too old for her. In short, I turned her down but said we could reconnect later.
After the talk I walked her to her car and we kissed, for the first and last time. It's a good (or bad) thing that we hadn't kissed before, because I never could have resisted anything at that moment. My knees folded. Thankfully there as a car behind me, and I fell against it. Otherwise I'd have collapsed into a heap onto the ground. It was THE kiss of a lifetime for me. I've thought about it, talked about it and laughed about it since then. I was like all my muscles just turned to jello. Never before, never since.
Our timing was off, and we both went our separate ways. Between marriages I'd look for her but could never track her down. I assumed she was married so never put much effort into the tracking.
A year or two ago we reconnected on Facebook. We haven't talked much. Frankly, I'm afraid to. But we did talk some last week. She brought up "THE PERFECT KISS" that we'd shared (said she'd never experienced anything like it before nor since), that she'd seen a shrink after I left, that she wanted to follow me but the shrink advised against it, etc. etc. She said not doing so was probably the biggest mistake of her life.
We've both been through two marriages since then. (The first was basically over before we met.) If I had it to do over again, I don't know what I'd do for sure, but one thing I know I wouldn't do is worry about the age difference. We connected because we enjoyed each other -- to the point of eventually falling in love. That's what relationships are based on. Everything else is unimportant details.
My daughter is 22 and her boyfriend is 39. It was a little weird to me at first, but after checking the sex offender registry and making sure he wasn't on it (no joke), and seeing how much they love each other, I was okay with it.
I figure it would be rather hypocritical of me to support interracial relationships (I am white, my ex-husband is black) and gay marriage (many of my friends are gay and married or want to be married), but not be okay with their relationship simply because of some numbers (their ages). As long as two people make each other happy, who are we to judge them?
The problems come when he is old, 70 to 75 and maybe in ill health, and she is fit and still youngish at 50 to 55. She may run off and he is left in the lurch. This is quite common, unless he has her financially. BTW, in my last relationship, she was 15 year younger than me. She went for me, not the other way around. A 39 year old may find a 22 year old too immature.
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