Based on that, it seems a woman should marry a man 5 years younger than herself, so they both die about the same time
Generally it’s none of my business unless it is, i.e. I’m asked to comment or it directly affects somebody I am close to. As Bob Ducca commented, the power gap/dynamic is a potential problem. It all depends on the situation and circumstances.
I had a friend (a lurking Doper!) who at 22 married a man twice here age, 44. We had sporadic, inconsequential contact over the years. The friendship rebooted when she was 49, he was 70 and had been ill and housebound for serval years. Additionally, her 95 year old mother-in-law was living with them. Their daughter was going off to college. Her world had gotten very small, consisting of going to work, stopping at a pizza place to watch Jeopardy & have a drink with friends, then going home “to take care of the olds” as she put it. They were married but the marriage had ended long ago.
Many, many hours were spend discussing her situation and circumstances and possible options. I would have supported whatever action she chose (none involved me). But, to her, she had made a commitment to her husband, she would take care of him and see things through. I admired and respected her for her decision even though it cost her dearly.
She soldiered on as best she could until the situation resolved itself: mother-in-law required care in a nursing facility and husband passed away but she kept him going long enough to see their daughter graduate from college.
I hope she’s catching up on the years of fun and happiness and experiences she missed.
I would never want to put a person in the situation and circumstances she had to endure.
In general, without being privy to all the details, I would counsel against relationships with big age gaps.
I guess it doesn’t creep me out, but it does kinda make me go WTF? A good friend of mine from work is married to a man 30 years older. I was trying to imagine what my reaction would have been if someone had told me when I was 30 “Hey, your future wife was born today!”
Good friends are 15 years apart (51/35). Happily married. I didn’t know them while they were dating.
My wife is ten months older than I am.
If it works for that couple then I have nothing to say about it. Personality is more important than birthdate.
I don’t mind unless one party is old enough that they shouldn’t be having children, yet do it anyway. If your 72 and your kid is just now entering elementary school, that’s not really going to be fair to them to only have one parent growing up.
8 years? No big deal.
10 years? Eh, not too bad.
15 years? Starting to get uncomfortable.
20 years? Kinda weird and uncomfortable.
25 years? Not healthy.
30 years? That’s some weird shit happening.
My Grandpa and his second wife are over 20 years apart. She is about the same age as my Mom. She’s been my Grandma since I was born, which means they’ve been married more than 30 years, ever since she was in her early 20s and he in his 40s. I have never thought of her as anything other than a doting old grandmother.
My Aunt is married to a man 10 years younger. He is only 2-3 years older than I am. Both of them are more like close friends or siblings than older relatives.
Man, I was just raised to believe age is just a number. I’ve never seen evidence to the contrary.
My husband is 12 years older than I am-- I am 30 and he is 42. Sometimes it seems like he’s had multiple lifetimes of experience in comparison to mine. I have had to summon all my inner strength to combat his very well-meaning attitude of, “I’ve done that many times before and here’s how it should be done…” You do get the benefit of wisdom, but it can be frustrating not to explore certain things together for the first time. For example, we were together (but not married) when he bought his house, and, because it was the third or fourth time he’d bought a house, I felt railroaded through the whole experience while hearing a lot of, “trust me, this is what we want…”.
YMMV, but IME, you have to have a lot of willpower as a younger girl in a May-December relationship, or else you’re just going to be a passenger, not the driver.
I’m in my mid fifties. Mrs. Frig is ten years younger than I am and my next closest female friend (sort of but not quite like a second wife) is twenty one years younger than me. Age it not an issue at this time, but it could become one later in my life.
If you’re compatible enough to really love each other there’s no reason why being close in age should be a requirement. And if you’re not compatible, even being born on the same day won’t make it work any better.
I dated someone who was 2 weeks older than me - drove her crazy.
So it’s impossible to fall in love with someone that’s got more money than you? That’s weird. Which is better, being pursued by a deadbeat loser living in his parent’s basement that’s the same age as you, or someone a bit older that’s successful and independent? Most men aren’t worth a damn until they’re in their mid-30s, and the women dealing with them before that put up with a ton of crap. I’d recommend a woman in her 20s skip ahead a decade, regardless of his financial status.
As far as I’m concerned different things work for different people. I’d say as long as one part is over 20 or so, in the teens I question it a little bit.
That’s not to say I don’t bat an eye when I see a huge age gap, but I try my hardest not to judge on just that.
But it’s still totally cool when 200+ year old vampires, time travellers, demons, angels, wizards, and other various immortal beings get together with teenagers and twenty-somethings, right?
Meh. Every gnarly situation has a few examples where, for whatever reason, it actually works out for the best. Some people find their purpose of life in prison. Some people find their careers through their drug dealers. Some people get rich off the lottery. Just because it works sometimes doesn’t mean it’s a good idea in general.
It depends on how age-aware someone is. Most people seem to embody the period of their adolescence and early adulthood in various ways such as aesthetic preferences, cultural frame of reference, even colloquialisms. Other people seem to have what might be considered a “timeless” quality in the sense that although they may look their age, they don’t seem to be the product of any particular era.
When a certain cultural frame of reference is a significant part of your identity, a relationship with someone who doesn’t share that, whether because they are younger, foreign, etc, will probably be a serious impediment in the long run. It’s possible that you may still have common tastes and predilections and may overcome that deficit, but you start out at a disadvantage.
