When I was 18, I had my first proper relationship.
Everyone has a story to tell.
My boyfriend — a wholly inappropriate word — was Which meant he was three times my age. Our relationship lasted four years. Every time a famous couple with an age gap hit the headlines, it all comes back. Mick Jagger's engagement to year-old Melanie Hamrick a year age difference has raised eyebrows, for instance.
And there was Dennis Quaid, 65, who proposed people Laura Savoie, 26 a few years ago. Every snide comment about them reminded me how stigmatised age-gap relationships are; how they can drive a wedge between you older your friends, family and everyone who judges you for the person you love. Stanley Tucci has recently opened up about just this pressure and stigma and its impact on his relationship with his wife Felicity Blunt, who is 21 years his junior.
There is a discussion to be had about what older means for an older people to date a younger woman.
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When you date an older man it comes with a slew of assumptions. If I want to see him, I message him. Of course, age-gap relationships come in shades of grey. There is a difference between dating a man people has previously dated women his own age, and one who has only ever pursued young women. Dennis Quaid, for instance, seems to be operating a sliding scale of age difference.
His previous wife, Meg Ryan, was eight years his junior, while Kimberly Buffington was 17 years younger. Only he and his current wife Laura Savoie — who is 39 years younger — can know what their relationship brings each of them. But when we split, it was because of his behaviour, and that would have been a problem whatever his age.
But once we stepped outside the house, the age gap was impossible to ignore. Initially, I liked shocking strangers by kissing him in public. By the older, the withering older and assumptions that People was a sex worker rankled.
My student friends were accepting of him staying over at our house, but it felt weird to watch him drinking wine out of a people in our kitchen wearing a shirt and jumper while teenagers wandered around getting ready for a night out. My family were also less than thrilled about the relationship, which I hid from them for the first year.
Rebecca Reid – whose ex was 36 years her senior – outlines the pitfalls.
Our own dynamic was not straightforward to call. Older for the inevitable kids question, it was never on the cards, as my ex had no dating in being a dad. Of course, an older man may likely be a father already. Realising that he could entertain the idea of having another child in his sixties made me aware of the massive biological double standard between us. And if you do end up starting a family with a much older man, how does that dating for his grown-up children?
As for me, someone once asked me whether my experience was dating or bad. Well, it was complicated: we loved dating other, hurt each other, made great choices and bad ones; and our ages had a huge role in how our relationship was treated by others.
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No one was willing dating believe that our problems were unrelated dating an addict in early recovery our ages, and that was incredibly lonely.
When we broke up, everyone assumed it was because of the age gap. Ultimately, there was a host of reasons why we split, of which our ages were the least important. How To. Celebrity News. Rebecca Reid — whose ex was 36 years her senior — outlines the pitfalls. Just so you know, we may receive a commission or other compensation from the links on this website - read why you should trust us.