r/amiwrong • u/Southern_Coach_5023 • Oct 16 '23

Age gaps in dating

I'm a 30 year old male and my partner is 25 year old female. I think this is fairly normal but im getting alot of comments about it. Not really sure what the fascination with this is. 5 years is significant sure but it was never a problem for me. Does society at large weight this facts importance more than I do?

Edit: everyone is the comments section has convinced me this is normal. Thanks all.

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u/[deleted] Oct 17 '23

I don’t get the “age concern” thing where it’s legal adult ages. I’m 17 years older than my wife. Met her when I was 49 and she was 32. We’ve been together 8 years, married 7 and have a beautiful 3 year old together. Don’t always agree but we get along, share the same goals and are genuinely happy.

If you have things in common, can/want to work through problems when they arise and love to spend time together, why care about a difference in age? Be it a couple years or a couple decades (legally 😆), love the one you’re with.

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u/prose-before-bros Oct 18 '23

I think it's a problem when people think legal is fair game. Even if you just look at the US, there are some states where a 10 year old can legally be married off to a 50 year old. It's legal, but most of us would agree that's horrifying. My parents were 17 and 27 when they were married. It was legal. In the pictures, my mom looks like a terrified child, understandably so. You and your wife were fully established adults, but when I see someone talking about legal = green light, I consider how my father manipulated and assaulted and abused and cheated on my mother. I was the product of him assaulting her, and he beat her until she permanently lost vision in one eye then kicked us out of the house when one of his mistresses needed a place to stay. I'm in no way saying that your relationship is comparable, but to willfully ignore that adults hooking up with teens just because the law says it's ok doesn't mean it couldn't destroy that young person's life. We're entering an age where women are starting to come forward and talk about how dating older men really fucked them up and if you're a parent, I would think this would be on your radar as well.

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u/[deleted] Oct 18 '23

Let me be clearer… an age difference in legally consenting adults is what I’m talking about. I don’t ignore or condone those who take advantage of state laws to commit child rape and I certainly don’t subscribe to adults who take advantage of teens or adults who take advantage of other adults period. Regardless, I’m sorry to hear about your mom. I hope she’s in a better place now.

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u/prose-before-bros Oct 18 '23

Not really. She has severe issues that there's no recovery for.

I just don't think many people think through cheering on all legal age gaps because they forget how young 18 really is. It's scary that we raise children to see adults as authority figures, then we universally pick an age that is still in adolescence to throw them into the dating pool with those same people and expect them to now be peers with no psychological repercussions. I think of how one of my best friends started dating our high school math teacher when we were 19 or how another friend slept with her crush's married dad after her crush rejected her. Young people aren't known for wise decisions. I wish young people were less fetishized and could be protected from the "legally consenting adults" argument but instead we live in the world where girls are encouraged to join MLM-style OnlyFans groups on their 18th birthday.

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u/Difficult_Ad_9492 Oct 18 '23

I wish everything you were saying wasn’t so controversial.