8.
“We aren’t married yet, but we’ve been together for 8.5 years, and have a 15-year age gap. I’m happy, and the gap really is something we only notice when we talk about our childhoods, or pop culture references that go over each other’s heads. But we laugh it off. I’m 31, he’s almost 46. I have one child; he has none. We won’t be having any more. Truly, he’s a good man, and I never felt like we were anything but equals. I’ve never once felt manipulated or controlled, or like he was a sleazy guy trying to get with a young girl. He’s been supportive of me, my career, and my independence since day one, and I have been for him, too. We are each other’s biggest cheerleaders, and he is my best friend.”
“My daughter adores him and views him as a father figure, and my family all love him too. I worry about outliving him, but nothing in life is guaranteed. My only concern is that someday one of us is going to have to go on without the other, and I can barely think of it. It hurts too much. I hear often it’s a red flag for such a huge age difference, but I don’t think our relationship falls in that category. We had been seeing each other for some time before we actually talked about how old the other was, which was silly, but I genuinely thought he was much younger than he was, and he thought I was older than I was. So, by the time we talked about our ages, we were invested. I will also add that we waited to have sex until about 6 months into dating at his request, so it was never about that either. I’ve always felt that we genuinely connected. We just worked.” —ilikethisplanet
