A Few Thoughts On Age-Gap Relationships

Everybody wants to talk about age gap relationships. The topic comes up again and again in online discourse, with everyone asking what’s ok and what the limits are.

These questions inflame people. Women tend to see men invested in the answer as predatory lechers intent on exploiting young women’s beauty and vitality. Men tend to see women invested in the answer as insecure, afraid of being passed over in favor of someone younger and prettier.

As with many questions of this sort, the extremes lead us toward too easy an answer.

Those of us who were around in the ‘90s might recall when Anna Nicole Smith, at 27, married 89-year-old billionaire J. Howard Marshall. Their marriage might serve as the ultimate example of an age gap relationship. Most of us rightly sense that this is beyond the pale. We assume such a relationship is marked by predation and exploitation on both sides. And yet, we cannot determine a normative answer to these questions from an abnormal case.

Most situations are not extreme. They involve men and women whose ages may differ anywhere from a few years to a couple of decades. Everybody knows couples like these.

I certainly do. When I think of age gap relationships, I think of friends I know—a solid, mature, admirable couple married now for decades—whose delight in each other has been evident all that time. He is 18 years older than she is. Theirs is not a predatory relationship. To anyone who knows them, it’s clear that they have each, over their years together, lifted one another up.

Since so many of us can point to examples like these, how ought we to think about them?

First, we must recognize that age is far from the most important factor. It is, at most, a secondary factor in the process of wisely choosing a spouse.

What matters more is whether the couple is compatible, whether they are in the same stage of life, and whether their relationship can meet both partners’ needs. A difference in age, even a significant one, is not necessarily in conflict with any of these.

The wisest course of action is neither to ignore an age gap nor to exaggerate its importance. Instead, we must consider whether each member of the relationship is fully an adult. An age gap of 17 and 23, for example, is more significant than an age gap of 38 and 50 because, in the first case, important developmental processes are not yet complete; one partner remains a teenager. It is not the number of years that matters so much as which years they are.

When both partners are adults, it’s important to consider stage of life. Do both parties have children? Does one desire children and one not? Are they stable in their careers? Are they both on good terms with family? Are both physically healthy? All these factors put pressure on a relationship that can be exacerbated by age difference.

Perhaps the unspoken question that troubles people most with regard to this matter is whether each person is capable of functioning as an independent adult or whether the relationship involves an unhealthy dependency that mirrors the parent-child relationship. Such dependency is a sign of an unhealthy situation. Still, it should be noted that terrible dependencies can be present in relationships between people of precisely the same age.

In the end, age, like wealth, is a material factor. If we are going to argue that two adults ought not marry because the age difference between them, while not extreme, is significant, we must be prepared to argue that adults must not marry if one is considerably wealthier than the other.

Beyond age and wealth, beyond all material factors, stands the importance of character. What matters most about all of us is the level of commitment we have to our values and to living a meaningful life in pursuit of the Good. Nothing hedges us against exploitation like a commitment to a life of virtue and the demand that any potential spouse, regardless of age, share that commitment. Better to be married to a moral giant thirty years older than you than to be shackled to a scoundrel your same age.

Character is a factor human beings in the flush of romance are prone not to consider until it is too late. Instead, we focus on shallower factors like age, personality, and good looks.

These material factors, though important, are, in the end, temporary. They are already passing away. What matters most is that when considering the question of age gaps in relationships, we prioritize character, integrity, and the presence of genuine love. Whenever possible, it is these things—these eternal characteristics—that lift us heavenward and transcend time, to which we all are bound, and which makes us all old eventually.

The ultimate truth about age differences is that all of us are destined for frailty, loss, and the grave. Even if some are slightly further down the road, we are all headed for the same destination. In light of that final reality, let us be wise and, whatever we choose, love well while we have strength.