My wife just turned 30. I’m 45. We met when she was 22 and married when she was 24. She was the most right person for the position, ever, and I could not go through life wishing I had said something and not having done so. Fortunately, she felt the same way. My wife was already independent and educated when we met, and if she had been a child or even like a child I wouldn’t have been interested. She went with someone her own age and it was a mess. After knowing me, she told me that older men rock, because we’ve got more of our **** together. Apparently younger guys haven’t matured emotionally or something, a premise with which I can agree. I would have been a lousy husband in my 20s. The age gap hasn’t been an issue. I guess it just depends on the people.
Wow. I’m really jealous of you now. May I ask at what age did you two meet?
We were 19 and met online.
My Husband is 18 years younger. He turned 40 two weeks ago. We’ve been married 4 years, (today) lived together for 6 years and have been a couple for 8 years. We love each other very much, and are best friends. No one has ever guessed our age gap, because we share so much, we seem to be close in age.
Happy anniversary, picunurse!
My husband’s roughly 3 months older than I am. My dad is 5 years older than my mom. My father-in-law is 4 or 5 years older than my mother-in-law. One of my best friends is engaged to a guy who’s twelve years older than her. I can’t say that any one relationship seems to be any better or worse than the others.
Basically, the acceptable age gap is whatever works for the couple in question (assuming nobody’s at risk for being charged with statutory rape.) Of course, what seems acceptable to most people tends to widen as you get older. There’s often a huge difference between 18 and 22 in terms of life experience, but not so much between 26 and 30, and pretty much none between 40 and 44. So it may indeed seem strange to your friend to be dating an 18yo because she seems so young in comparison.
At my age (28), I wouldn’t want to be involved with someone 10 years younger than me. Not because of the age difference itself, but because an 18yo is just getting started forming their adult identity. I’d want to be with someone who had a clearer idea of who they really are and what they really want. Ten years from now, a 10-year gap wouldn’t be that big a deal.
I agree that it depends on the persons involved.
I want to add that it also depends on what you actually want from the relationship.
I used to have a “thing” with a guy who was (is) 28 years older than me. I call it “thing” because you couldn’t call it a fully fledged relationship. He had a girlfriend, I was the bit on the side. I knew I was never going to actually date him as such and would have strongly advised him against dumping his GF, which wouldn’t have occurred to him anyway.
Had I actually been his proper girlfriend I think the age gap would have become a problem, because of where we were in life, what we still wanted to do etc., the usual stuff. For a fling it was fine, though.
11 months between me and irishfella, 7 years between my parents, almost 20 years between my grandparents.
I’d say that there are no hard and fast rules, if you “click” with someone, and you find them attractive, age isn’t really going to be an issue.
Other, peripheral stuff (one of you at school, the other working) might be important, but not the actual age difference itself, if everything else works in the relationship.
I think it matters inasmuch as I think that people need to have some commonalities in background. I was married to a man 13 years older than me. I was 30, and he was 43. In my experience, the age gap made differences in taste in music. He liked oldies, I liked more modern stuff. Him being more experienced in a lot of life things made him more “fatherly” - he wanted to teach me everything. It probably had to do with his personality, too, but I never wanted to have another older man.
My current husband is 5 years older than me, and we have SO much in common. For example, we both used to be dopers - in the pot sense! - and so have that whole “hippie” era in common, something I never had with my late husband. We like the same music, food, clothes…
Health problems are an issue, too. When you are 50 and they are 65 or 70 - it’s hard is all.
Actually it works VERY well with someone under 14. Just remember to only use the older person’s age. if John is 12 and kathy is 12 then [(johns age)/2]+7= 13. Kath is not old enough for him to date. The opposite also applies. This is because this formula assumes that anyone under 14 is simply to young to date for anyone, even someone their own age.
Count me as another “as long as it’s legal” proponent. Maybe it’s safe to say that most people’s lives follow some sort of quasi-linear progression from immaturity to maturity, but a lot of people just don’t fit that pattern, and in my experience they tend to be the ones who get paired up with people significantly older or younger. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I never really went through the “stupid youth” phase of life - I’ve always been pretty level-headed, responsible and mature, even as a teenager. The vast majority of my girlfriends have been older than me, several in the range of 11-13 years, and not once has age been an issue. Only three times have I dated someone younger - my very first girlfriend, who was a year younger than me (and she doesn’t really count, as we were something like 13 and 14 at the time), another girl who was 17 when I was 18, and my last girlfriend, who turns 27 this year, and I just turned 32. But I’d never completely rule someone out based on any remotely-likely age difference. I can see myself dating anyone from 18 to 50+. It all depends on the person.
In my last personal ad, I specified “For legal reasons, female person is to be over 18; for medical ones, best if she be under 75 or in remarkably good health and of great stamina. I’m 40.”
There’s only 4 months between my husband and I (he’s older).
I don’t think you can say “This is the optimum age gap between partners”. What works for some doesn’t for others. It totally depends on the people involved. One thing I’ve noticed is that age gaps become less of a problem as you get older. My brother is 24, his fiancee is 21. People seem to think that’s fine now, but when they started dating he was 19 and she was 16, and some of the same people thought that was a bit iffy.
Oops! Just wanted to add that my brother in law (aged 29) was seeing a 17 year old. We thought that was seriously pushing it. Luckily she was a very mature 17 year old and he was a very immature 29 year old. Eventually she outgrew him.
I first met my wife when I was 19 and she was 9. :eek:
Of course, back then she was just my buddy John’s bratty little sister. I would see her perhaps once a year or so until she hit her teens, and then she be off with friends and such, so I didn’t see her again until I was 28 and she was 18. I was living with John at the time, and our place was pretty much the hangout for all our friends. His sister started hanging out, and we just hit it off.
It was really tough for awhile. In my mind, I kept thinking “Are you nuts?? She’s basically a kid! A year ago you didn’t want to date a girl because she was only 20! And John is going to fricking kill you if he finds out!” Of course, the other side of my brain was saying “Holy crap, she’s hot!” 
After a few weeks of minor flirting, I came to realize that she was very mature. She wasn’t a dopey teen who just wanted to “tee hee! go find some boys!”. She was looking for something serious, as was I. Six months later, we were living together. Three months after that, we were engaged. Shortly after she turned 21, we were married (there was no way she was going to have a wedding reception at which she couldn’t legally drink :)).
It was tough going for a little while. John was pretty pissed, but he leared to deal (His wife got through to him with “of all your friends, which one would you want dating your sister?”). Her parents were more or less ok with it, but then, they started dating when he was 32 and she was 18, so there was little room for argument.
Ever since then, it’s been pretty golden. We had a rough patch a few years ago where we split for a few months, but we patched it up and the relationship is now the best I’ve ever seen. I’m 36, she just turned 26, and our 5th anniversary is in July.
I suppose it comes down to matching up maturity-wise, not necessarly age-wise. She’s about five years ahead of herself, I’m about five years behind, so we match up perfectly!
Ardred and I are four years apart. He’s 29, I’m 25.
I think it all depends on where you are in life… he and I are in the same phase of our lives… finishing or finished with college, taking our first steps into the ‘real world’ and separating from our parents.
Why such rules, Xavier? If you met a girl that was three years older than you are… you wouldn’t consider dating her? That’s kind of messed up, if you ask me.
Count me in with the half your age plus seven folks.
My wife just turned 34. I’ll be 26 on Bastille Day.
We met when I was 20 years old, piss drunk at a bar, natch.
If I could do it all over again, I wouldn’t change a thing. Though she was a little freaked out about it at the beginning of our relationship.
As long as the two people involved are happy and of consenting age, anyone else’s acceptance/approval is moot.
God Forbid we should get together with someone who is compatible, fun, loving, easy to talk to etc. irregardless of how much older or younger they are…*
*keeping the consenting age factor firmly in mind of course… no children!
My son’s father is 10 years 6 months and 14 days older than I am. I’m one year too young for the “half plus seven” rule.
Oops.
I am 10.5 years younger than my husband. When we married, I was 26 and he was 37. The gap in ages just means that he doesn’t understand my amusement when a local radio station plays “Safety Dance.” 
Well, my (biological) parents were 40 years apart, and I’ve never known two people more in love and devoted to each other as they. FWIW.