Have you been in a “May/December relationship” with an older woman / younger man? Has it worked out for you? How did your friends and family take it?
(I’m being specific because it seems much more rare than the older man / younger woman relationships.)
Until anyone else replies have a read through this recent thread , altho’ it’s not specific as to male : female or female: male there are a coupleof examples in there. I personally know of two relationships like this - a women (previously widowed) in her late 50s with a thritysomething boyfriend and another lady in her late forties whose husband is about to trun forty. I don’t know either couple well enough to say how the family 'reacted but I know the lady in the first couple has problems remating to her boyfriend’s parents - they have nothing in common and she doesn’t fit the trad. role of girlfriend. I get the eimpression that the second couple self censor which colleagues they socialse with. That’s it. Best of luck.
Miguel and I are ten years apart at 35 and 25. Not that big of a difference I guess, but I’m older and people tease me for robbing the cradle.
Mrs. Kunilou is five years older than I. That isn’t much in the grand scheme of things, but I guess 5 years is such a nice round number that some people raise their eyebrows when they learn.
What amuses me more is that I’m exactly midway between the missus and her “baby” sister. Whenever my wife agonizes about what her sister might be getting into, I remind her of the age breaks.
I don’t have any personal experience (except in high school, and that was only a year), but my sister is involved with a man 13 years younger than she. He is 33 and she is 46. They have been seeing one another for a couple of years and get along very well, but they have acknowledged that this is not a permanent relationship. He wants to have kids of his own, and she’s past that point.
I don’t know how his family feels about it, but our family has no problem with it. If she can keep this young guy interested, all the more power to her. The only one that may be not so thrilled about the boy friend is her 20-year-old son. It hasn’t caused any major problems, though.
My wife is 37 and I’m 27. We have been married 7 years now, and she is accused of “robbing the cradle” occasionally. In fact, someone mentioned that just Monday.
My girlfriend is 52 to my 46, which isn’t much of an age-spread. I had a good relationship with a woman earlier, who was 52 when I was 35 for a spread of 17 years. (We had other problems but the age diff wasn’t much of an issue). And when I was 25 I had a 40 year old girlfriend, for a spread of 15 years back when 15 years was 60% of my age. I’d have to say age was a factor in that one — not that we didn’t have fun but clearly she did not see me as a “partner”.
I’m 42 to Drachillix’s 35, married 3 years. I have never been accused of robbing the cradle, as he is no baby. We look around the same age and we’re in good health. Family and friends have no issue with age; as a 32 year old bachelor, I think his family was thrilled he was marrying at last. My family ( read my mother ) was less than over-joyed that I was considering remarriage after only 6 years of divorce and to another white guy who looked a lot like the evil man who broke my heart. And I met him online! We dated 2 years before we tied the knot, so friends, co-workers, etc. saw us together a lot and wished us happiness.
It’s working out fine. We both appreciate being in love and don’t take it for granted. Being partners, being a strong team is important to us both and we work at it and are glad for the opportunity. Our life is wonderful in our eyes.
I (25) am just out of one leaving a pregnant 43 year old woman behind me.
It was good fun at first, but then I have nothing to compare it too. My first relationship, first girlfriend, lost my virginity to her (thankfully not the same morning I got her pregnant 
) but it went downhill a few weeks ago. She just didn’t seem to want to do anything any more and then blamed me for not taking her out any more. And while trying to patch things up I found out she was pregnant :rolleyes:
We didn’t do things together with some of my other friends, loud smoky drinking dens just didn’t seem like her sort of place and she and they never met over the few months we went out (combination of bad timing and not liking the things I do with my mates)
Mum seemed ok about it but then she puts on an enthusiastic face for a lot of things. Dad disapproved but his speech on what I should be doing with my life went on a bit when he hit the wine and started bragging about his past love life. Then it went on a bit more in the pub and he returned home considerably more drunk than I and a bit hung over.
And as a final note, she and I lived in very different parts of the city, she in the north of the city in a Loyalist housing estate with her cats, dog and daughter, I in the south of the city in smallish rented accommodation.
In reflection, I think she noticed the age difference a bit more than I did. She noted that it didn’t seem to bother me as much. I was probably too taken up with my first relationship to really think about it, but she looked younger than her age and had a nice sense of style that helped.
Oh and lest I forget my ex’s two daughters. They seemed to get on with me ok, but when the pregnancy came along it all went a bit sour, they didn’t want another father figure coming into their lives and pulling their Mum away from them.
Heheh Miguel is halfway between me and my DAUGHTER! Funniest part about that was he looks much younger so when I first started working with him I thought he might be a nice match for her!
When I was in my late 20’s, I dated a woman who was 40. The age difference wasn’t a problem; it didn’t last on account of she was kind of nuts.
I’m 41, my wife will be 50 in October. Absolutely no complaints at all.
That’ll be the senility kicking in.
When I was 29, my girlfriend was 18. It didn’t last long, but not because of the ages; more because there was no real emotional connection and only a thin intellectual conenction. “Physical” doesn’t necessarily last.
My SO is eight years older than I, and we’ve been together off and on (more on than off) for nine years. We’ve had some really rough times, but for some reason we’re still together and we get along very well. I have no earthly idea why this is the case, as all of my relationships (and there were a lot of them!) before her were much shorter. I don’t think our age difference has anything to do with the success of our relationship, either. It’s more of a nuts and bolts thing: we have similar interests and passions, and the things she likes that I don’t like I don’t hate to the point of distraction and visa-versa. We’re good about respecting each others’ space and we keep our money as separate as we can (which is harder now that we own real estate together, but still doable.) In other words, we like each other and minimize the potential for distructive conflict in our relationship, which is just good relationship advice no matter what the age difference.
And the sex is great. Really great. Like wow great.
Great.
I am 16 years older than RickQ. It still shocks me a little–especially when I think that he was 24 when we met and I was 40. That just sounds bad, you know? Add to that the fact that we met online–right here, as a matter of fact.
I am sure his parents were worried, to say the least. Especially since he had already met one crazy woman online. I am sure they thought I was more of the same.
I remember my brother-in-law saying that if his daughter (my niece, who is only 3 years younger than my husband and whose husband is older than my husband) met a 40 year old man on the internet, he would go after said man with a shotgun. I think that was when it really hit home how weird our age difference is. I know if I heard just those facts about us, I would raise an eyebrow. Fortunately, the picture those facts paint is not the couple we are. Rick and I are one of the happiest couples I know. He adores me, I adore him. Strangers ask us all the time if we are newlyweds. The age difference just doesn’t matter, except when we watch Jeopardy and I know all the 60s and 70s TV questions. 
As far as telling people goes, we would tell anyone who asked (I don’t know if anyone has, though). Some people we tell, with others, the subject never comes up. Rick looks older than his age, and I look younger, so I doubt anyone would guess that the gap is a big as it is.
In college I dated a woman 13 years older… I was 19 and she was 32. It was fine while we were both students… it didn’t last too long after graduation. We were together for 3 1/2 years. It didn’t help that she started to get back into her church and I had no interest in it.
:eek: I had no idea. I would never have guessed that when I met you.
My husband and I have been together for 15 years. I am 45, he is 37. Any weirdness in our relationship has had nothing to do with age.