The OP asks whether we support such relationships, which is a step beyond not minding or not thinking it’s our business. While I don’t feel entitled to criticize or intervene in any situation in which the younger party seems old enough to meaningfully consent, what I actually support varies. The “half your age plus seven” rule puts the skeevy line in about the right place for me, noting that it’s more of a rule of thumb and not suggested as a law. I’m much more inclined to support relationships on the boring side of that line. But I also think if the younger person is at least mid or late thirties, they’ve been an adult long enough have to take care of their own interests – unless they’re unlucky enough to be relatively immature.
That’s a good point; I don’t know if I support them or not. I do think it’s kind of moot whether I do or not, because I don’t think it’s any of my business so I wouldn’t say anything negative about it to either one of them. Is that supportive?
Does he know he’s dating a Grapist?
I Love This Quote! So old-school, so damn appropriate. Whatever happened to snapping your fingers against the back of some self-appointed busy-body’s head and saying loudly, “Hey! Ann Landers! None of your F-cking Business, right…?”
Be Happy! Life’s too short…
My mother was 6 months older than my father. He brought this up at every opportunity, throughout their 57-year marriage.
My husband is 21 years older than me. Of course, when we got married (first time for me, 2nd for him) we were 50 and 71. Now I’m 63 and he’s 84. The happiest years of my life, and he says the happiest years of his life.
Occasionally women will ask how it’s going. I always have the same answer: “There are real advantages to doing business with an established firm.” And yeah, I can figure the percentages, but I could get run over by a bus tomorrow. So I make the most of today and so does he.
Wow! That’s pretty judgmental. Do you feel the same way about gays? People shacking up before/outside of marriage? Multiple divorces and remarriages? People killing their babies? Why don’t you remove the beam from your own eye before you remove the speck from someone else’s?
Just because something is rare and unusual doesn’t mean “that one is easy” to sit in judgement.
Who other people choose to sleep with doesn’t really have anything to do with me.
Two adults making each other happy will always have my full support, regardless of age.
That’s what I did. Still do, occasionally.
Disapprove, huh? OK. You mean trot out old saws from the 50s & 60s TV that weren’t funny even said with laugh tracks back then? Just to show off how witty you are at making people who love each other feel badly about it?
Nothing shows off how superior you are than when you throw out the window solid friendships and trust… just for a cheap cutting laugh.
Disapprove and give them a hard time, don’t let me stop you. Its your duty to expose to the world someone who acts like a Dick…
What if the older partner is a zombie?
In theory, consenting adults have my support to do as they wish with each other.
In practice, if my 21-year-old offspring is the youth in question, I would not be happy about a relationship with a 50+ year-old, I would be very upset. I wouldn’t try to break them up, and would try to keep my feelings to myself, but I would not like it at all.
I support all relationships. People should have a relationship with whoever they want.
This. As long as one person isn’t too young to consent (or for that matter too old and senile), then it isn’t my business and I don’t care.
Eh, nothing wrong with that even if she is just sleeping with him because he’s got money. If they are both getting what they want I don’t see anything bad about such an arrangement; “love” isn’t the only thing of value in the world.
What if the 21-year old daughter had a 200 IQ and the 50+ year old man was Bill Gates?
Here’s what kills me.
We live in a world today where everything is accepted and tolerated. Four or 5 states and the District of Columbia have legalized same-sex marriage. Young people shack up, get knocked up, marry, divorce and re-marry like nobody’s business and no questions asked.
Yet for some reason, social acceptance of large age gaps, particularly if the man is much older, seem to be regressing.
Consider that in the 1800s marriages between 50-something men and 20-something women, even teenagers, were common. Two presidents prior to 1900 married 20-something women when they were 50+… Grover Cleveland married a 21-year old the year he turned 50, and John Tyler married a 26-year old when he was in his fifties. By contrast, the largest age gap between president and first lady after 1900 was 12 years between John and Jackie Kennedy, and we’re a decade and a half into the 21st century with the largest gap being 2 years. Yet in the 1800s homosexuality was unspeakable, divorce and pre-marital sex were strictly forbidden, you could go to jail for using the Lord’s name in vain in public, and you weren’t allowed to sell merchandise on Sunday.
Today all those antiquated restrictions on human behavior are outmoded, but if someone with John Tyler or Grover Cleveland’s age gap shows up… OMG!! What gives??
FWIW, my father was 26 years older than my mother (he 58, she 32 when they married). My mother told me at some point that the 17 years they spent married before he died were the happiest of her life, and that she did not regret a single minute.
(She also chose to never remarry, although I know she had suitors, one of them a seriously rich dude).
I meant my actual 21-year-old, who is kind of an idiot.
It’s more the difference in maturity and life experience that is concerning. Like when a 30-year-old dates an 18-year-old high school student who has a curfew, lives at home with parents, etc., it seems like there is something deeply wrong with the 30-year-old to choose an adolescent as a partner.
As far as Bill Gates goes, no, I would not want him dating my daughter, regardless of whether she had a high IQ. He is a very powerful person, and I don’t think they could relate as equals. Plus, I despise Microsoft and all of the pain and frustration they have caused innocent people, though I do respect his intelligence and philanthropy. If he’s cheating on Melinda to date my daughter, I’d be doubly upset about the situation.
Some people in prior posts have claimed that this age-gap disapproval thing is like a “religion” for people. I agree with that assessment.
It’s a “religion” in the sense that it drives people’s morality and sense of right and wrong. What is that if not a “religion”, even if there is no concept of “God” involved? In fact, “God” to these people is whoever or whatever created the belief that the age difference (or whatever difference) is wrong – at one time it was black dating white, Catholic dating Jewish, etc. Some people will say that “society” created that belief. Then, for those people, “society” is “God”.
We have a law that defines the limits of acceptable behavior. Who are people to overstep that law and put restrictions on people over and above that law? That seems pretty arrogant to me.