I appreciate this take. Personally, I’m leery of wide age gaps, but this arises directly from personal experiences of witnessing a significant imbalance of power/predation within those relationships. At the same time, I find nothing uncouth about those relationships which do have wide age gaps but a balanced give-and-take.
I’m really curious about how wide age gaps may have played out in marriage/partnership within historical contexts versus within today’s culture. Certainly women were bought and sold in many an ancient culture, but from what I gather there also seemed to be a sense of the older man answering to the family of the young woman being married to him. I don’t see that same necessity of answering to family/community around me, and I wonder if that lack of in-built accountability is in part why such stigma has been cast over relationships with wide age gaps. A protective mechanism in the absence of any real guardianship, perhaps?
I really appreciate this and agree wholeheartedly. The usual takes I see on age gaps (like so many things on the internet) are so black-and-white. My husband is about a decade older than me, but I rarely remember our age difference. He is actually in better shape than me (he's very athletic, I am not). But we like each other because we're extremely similar in a myriad of ways, more so than anyone else I've ever met. We're just extremely compatible intellectually and emotionally. He is the kindest, gentlest, truly masculine man I know; I am so grateful that he is the father of our children. When people express that all age gap relationships are somehow bad, I just shrug, because I know that I would be much, much worse off with someone my own age who I wasn't compatible with.
Now, would I be opposed to my husband somehow magically being born a decade later (or I a decade earlier), but still being the same person when we met? Of course not! That would be ideal. But that's impossible, we were created at different times. Not everything is perfect in life, and you have to accept what you've been given. I fell in love with him because of who he is, and I feel blessed to have such a romance in my life. I feel like the online conversation tries to optimize relationships based on statistics too much and neglects the less logical, romantic and spiritual aspect that is critical. Perhaps this is a result of our culture's general dismissal of faith.
I appreciate this take. Personally, I’m leery of wide age gaps, but this arises directly from personal experiences of witnessing a significant imbalance of power/predation within those relationships. At the same time, I find nothing uncouth about those relationships which do have wide age gaps but a balanced give-and-take.
I’m really curious about how wide age gaps may have played out in marriage/partnership within historical contexts versus within today’s culture. Certainly women were bought and sold in many an ancient culture, but from what I gather there also seemed to be a sense of the older man answering to the family of the young woman being married to him. I don’t see that same necessity of answering to family/community around me, and I wonder if that lack of in-built accountability is in part why such stigma has been cast over relationships with wide age gaps. A protective mechanism in the absence of any real guardianship, perhaps?
That is a really interesting point. Maybe the overall societal changes has something to do with the rising stigma against such relationships.
I really appreciate this and agree wholeheartedly. The usual takes I see on age gaps (like so many things on the internet) are so black-and-white. My husband is about a decade older than me, but I rarely remember our age difference. He is actually in better shape than me (he's very athletic, I am not). But we like each other because we're extremely similar in a myriad of ways, more so than anyone else I've ever met. We're just extremely compatible intellectually and emotionally. He is the kindest, gentlest, truly masculine man I know; I am so grateful that he is the father of our children. When people express that all age gap relationships are somehow bad, I just shrug, because I know that I would be much, much worse off with someone my own age who I wasn't compatible with.
Now, would I be opposed to my husband somehow magically being born a decade later (or I a decade earlier), but still being the same person when we met? Of course not! That would be ideal. But that's impossible, we were created at different times. Not everything is perfect in life, and you have to accept what you've been given. I fell in love with him because of who he is, and I feel blessed to have such a romance in my life. I feel like the online conversation tries to optimize relationships based on statistics too much and neglects the less logical, romantic and spiritual aspect that is critical. Perhaps this is a result of our culture's general dismissal of faith.