This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 28th, 2007 at 9:06 am and is filed under Age Differences. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Age Difference in Relationships
Does it matter what the age difference is in a relationship? There are various opinions on this, depending on who you are. Somehow it seems that when a person gets to a certain age the difference in age between partners in a relationship does not matter as much. This magic age seems to be about age 19 or 20 for a lot of people. There are a number of variables that come to mind when thinking about age differences.
Historically, many men have had relationships with women who are younger than they are. This has related to matters of fertility and also pre-arranged marriages. In the past decade or so though, an age gap in which the man is 1-3 years older is not uncommon. The percentage of older women having relationships with younger men is now increasing.
With regard to marriage, it has been proven that the age gap between partners increases between the first and the second marriage. Mind you, depending on the situation, an excessively large age gap can be dysfunctional in some cases. As previously mentioned, there are several variables which determine if age gap actually influences the success of a romantic relationship or not.
Studies have proven that there is also an increase in the number of people who are the same age in relationships together. When this happens, the numbers of older people living alone actually decreases. When older women marry younger men, the number of widows decreases. There are several outcomes, which are impacted by the age gaps of people in relationships.
As mentioned, once a person reaches the age of 19 or 20, the importance of age difference seems to diminish. For instance it would not seem unusual for a person who is 19 or 20 to be dating a man or woman who is 10-15 years older than them. The important thing is that the younger person is of age to be involved in a relationship with an older person. The two in a relationship need to be mature in their attitude toward the relationship.
In most relationships, it is not age that matters but rather spiritual, emotional and mental compatibility between two people. Each person needs to have qualities that the other person is looking for and wants in a relationship. The maturity of two people is important in a relationship, regardless of their age. Maturity does not always relate to age either. A young person can be more, mature in attitude than an older person for that matter. It is important to share interests and values and to be on the same wavelength as each other. When two people really connect and love each other in a genuine way, age does not matter.
One Response to “Age Difference in Relationships”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
September 20th, 2007 at 1:50 am
It is agreed that younger people can be more mature but generally maturity comes from lifelong experiences and to a large degree lessons learned by making mistakes; the more mistakes you make the more you can learn “what to do,” “what not to do,” “what your preferences are,” and how to react in the same situation ‘differently’ in the future.
Being ‘in tune’ or ‘on the same wavelength’ is a major problem in Western society… because we generally are not “in tune” and rarely have the “waves” for very long… statistically the average young person will have 5 serious relationships before the age of twenty and all are said to be “in tune”… until they are not… these are really only metaphors for that suggest “I like you… until I don’t”.
Sites about age gap — it’s a “hot topic”… most sites are just capitalizing on the interest… if you look there are far many more for teens… (but not focused on age gap since from one teen to the next… there isn’t much of one.