Do you think they work out? Anyone in one?
Currently I’m with a guy who’s 13 years older than I am (I’m 26, he’s 40). Sometimes I feel like he’s THE One. Other times I freak out and think, “Jesus Christ, he remembers the 70’s/moon landing/angel flight pants/etc!!” what the hell am I thinking?
I don’t know…I am a bit concerned about the age difference. Anyone in a similar situation or have been in one??
My wife and I are in very similar circumstances.
We have just got married. We love each other very much and that is all that matters to us. Age is just a number. My advice is go for it. See how things develop and if he turns out to be the one, great. 
Rick
My friend married a 45-ish guy when she was 24. They’re still together five years later and have two children. It is kind of weird – he looks his age, and has a daughter the same age as my friend – but they don’t worry about it. She’s always gone out with older men, though; when she was 13 she was going out with a 27-year-old. (Yeah, I know. URGH.) Not that this is always the case with May-December relationships, but she does have a fairly pronounced father-figure issue, and I’m sure it’s significant.
I’m 40, my gf (I don’t know if the relationship is longstanding enough to call her my so yet) is 29.
Woohoo! I feel like a rockstar!
Anyway, I see no problems that can’t be overcome if she’s willing to listen to her elders.
I’m 26 (f), my SO (m) is 42. I spent a couple of months worrying about that a bit, but came to the conclusion that it just doesn’t matter. We have far too much in common, and far too much fun together, to let our ages get in the way.
One of my great-grandmothers was something like 17 years younger than her husband, so my family doesn’t care either. Neither does his.
I’ve always had a thing for older men, but in the last few years the age gaps have dropped from 10 years to 5 years, and loupdebois is only a year older than I. Obviously the other relationships petered out, but for reasons which had little to do (at least on the surface) with age. It all depends on the people. General temperament is much more important, IMHO, than age.
I dated one woman who was 10 years younger than me and it turned out to be a huge mistake. Aside from being immature she was also a liar. I know not all younger women are like that, but I personally would be leary of getting involved with someone that much younger again. Most of the women I have dated since have been about 5 years older, but we also have more common interests than I did with the younger one.
Currently I have an interesting situation. There is an older woman who I think is seriously interested in me, but I am not sure if I should do anything about it. She is probably about 20 years older than me. She has kept herself in good shape and seems nice, but that is a quite a large gap. If our ages were a little closer, I definitely would see what would happen. As of right now, I am not sure what I am going to do.
There’s 14.5 years between Mr. Kitty and I; we’ve been married almost 6 years now. I had a lot of fun with the “Is your father home?” comments, but other than that I’ve never had a problem with the age difference. In fact, I find the “personal experience” thing really interesting- I like hearing his perspective on world events that I’ve only read about.
Of course, all arguments end the same way:
Me: Gee honey, was that before I was born?
Mr. Kitty: Shut up and get in your car seat.
::snicker::
-BK
Been there, done that, got my heart ripped to shreds. On the other hand, I don’t want the relationship in question not to have happened, so I dunno what to tell you.
May as well give it a shot, you’re more likely to regret it if you don’t than if you do.
I’m curious as to how large a gap one considers to be a May/December relationship. My cousin, 31, recently married a man who is 50. I myself am married to a woman who is 7 years older than I. I’m 33 and my wife is 40.
There hasn’t been a problem at all. There are times when I will be teased about being such a young punk, but then the people doing the teasing are generally in thier mid to late 40s and are good friends of ours.
The age difference does come up in the "Where were you when . . . " discussions all the time. Its no big deal anymore. The moon landing ribbing is very old by now too. My favorite comeback is to make stuff up to see how long I can play my wife along. I was recently telling her of my storied career as a grade school sex counselor. Ha!
cj
My husband is 10 1/2 years older than I am. Right now he is 41, and I am 30. We’ve been together since I was 22. Our relationship has been working well, and I think that the relationship really depends on the people. I think that you should be concerned if he speaks down to you because you are younger, or if age becomes an issue. It never does in my relationship, but for some people it does.
I dated a woman who was 24 years older than myself. I had a great time with her and thought the world of her. The problems that many (not all) couples have don’t appear in the first 5-10 years, I think. I think it’s after that, when someone is 35 and the other is 60 that really huge differences appear. That relationship ended with her believing that the age difference was far more significant than I thought it was. I do, however, now believe she was right.
24 years is a huge age difference. 12 is half that and doesn’t seem to freak me out quite so much. My SO is 10 months younger than me so we’re very close in age. I think that at some point, age makes a difference. Does it make or break a relationship? Only in extremes, I think.
Tibs.
I don’t remember the search terms I used, but I once came upon a few older threads on this same topic. Experiment…
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Anyone have any thoughts on why it seems so much more socially acceptable/common for a woman to date an older man, but not the other way around?
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My boyfriend is twelve years younger than I am. We’ve both never been happier, and are making plans to spend our lives together. Of course, the age thing is the least of our obstacles; we’re gay, and different races as well. But we love each other, and we’ve been looking for each other for years, and if we were to let these things get in the way, I don’t think I could ever find anyone anywhere near as perfect.
Love who you love.
Mrs. Kunilou and I don’t count as May-December, it’s more like May-July. The “where were you when…” stuff isn’t a big deal, but we do recognize that we share some priorities (about money, security and things like that) that come in large part from having our values shaped at the time we were growing up. There’s also something to be said for our energy levels dropping at roughly the same rate that makes it easier to plan vacations, entertainment (early show rather than late, cabaret instead of club, etc.) and things like that.
The big, unspoken cloud over the relationship is children. Even if you both want them, there are questions about how soon to start, how many to have and so on. I knew several people in high school with one or both parents already in their 60s, and they had problems with it, even if the parents didn’t.
Since Daerlyn has given her opinion, here’s mine: these relationships make compatibility difficult but the basis isn’t strictly age. The whole challenge is finding similar life experience. The older person in the relationship will often find the younger partner says things which are perfectly logical and reasonable to a 20-year-old, but which every 40-year-old remembers saying and being proven wrong at 30. Daerlyn and I both preferred older partners before we met each other, mainly because both of us have had life experience beyond the norm… being a young guy dating a 40-year-old (a previous relationship) was fun, but I found that I ran out of things to say… when you have decades of life experience behind you, you tend to get a bit condescending. I felt that my opinions fell victim to one-upmanship a little too often.
The other thing which hits me about most May-December relationships, whether they’re seniors dating freshmen or my 40-20 relationship… often the older partner has at least some aspects of their personality that are childish, or underdeveloped. Most people prefer the company of people their own age, in the long term, and generally a May-December relationship occurs because one or both people feel uncomfortable around their own age group… or they’re looking for a trophy, but let’s give humanity the benefit of the doubt… :rolleyes:
My parents were 40 years apart. My father was older than my grandfather on my mom’s side. And I never saw a happier, more loving couple ever, together until the day he died (at 92).
I’d like to second what kunilou said about children. A large age difference is going to create pretty different mindsets about that kind of thing.
I just finished one May-December relationship, and the age difference was significant. He is about 33 years older than me. It was a wonderful relationship and it lasted for about 5 1/2 years – the only problem was that we decided neither of us had the balls to get married. Plus, I would like kids at some point, and he didn’t want to have to deal with that, understandably.
All in all, it was a wonderful experience, and we are going to remain close friends. I think a relationship like that can be a very positive thing, as long as you are realistic about the problems you will encounter. For us, there was a lot of negative reaction that made it rather stressful, but that was because of the very large age difference and my youth (I was 19 when I first got involved with him). I understand the reactions, but they were still tough to handle.
I have to admit, though, that I’m a perv. I dig older men and I have since puberty – I was looking at 40 year old guys when I was 12 :eek: . I don’t think I have father figure issues, but I don’t much care even if I do. I’m happy the way I am.
BTW, I’m now just starting to date a guy who is 18 years older than me. I’ve been in the other relationship so long that it seems like no age difference at all.
I’ve gotten to know a 43 y.o. man (I’m 23 & female) very recently - we hit it off immediately & after a few days, got to talking about how we both feel about May/December romance…The upshot of it is, we like each other a lot, but we’re not sure that the difference in life experience wouldn’t be a problem - we’re going to continue getting to know one another & see what happens.
I wanted to add that I wouldn’t have up and ended the relationship had my family had a collective heart attack at the idea, but it WOULD have put me in a difficult position. I value my mom’s opinions, even if I don’t always go along with them! Even when I was a kid, though, I always got along better with my mom’s friends than with people my age. She wasn’t at all surprised when I told her how much older he is.
And since we’ve started talking, tentatively, about getting married, it’s a relief to me that our families are okay with it. He’s met my mom and stepdad and I was informed that I had official Parental Approval. Phew. (Not that I NEED it, but it’s nice to have!) And from all reports his family seems happy that I came along. It’s been seven months, and he wants to wait until at least a year before doing anything official. That would be December. One area where I guess my age DOES show is in my impatience; I don’t see a reason to wait to get engaged, except that he wants to. Arrrrgh!