Weddingbee Blog

So funny, I have the OPPOSITE situation. My beau is YOUNGER than me. By 4 years. Doesn’t sound like much, but when you consider the fact that I’m 28, and my little brother is 25… he’s actually younger than my little bro! This actually disturbed me a bit before I really got to know him.

In my situation, my parents liked my fiance right away (I think they just wanted me to settle down. hehe), but it took a while for my fiance’s parents to accept me. They wanted him to go back to school, get another degree, and experience other things before he settled down. Basically, they thought he was too young to get married.

Eventually, they accepted me and our early marriage. He is kind of young to be married–at least in the bay area where most are married in their late 20’s/early 30’s–but I tell him that he has a mature soul.

Well, it’s not relevant anymore, but I used to date a guy 9 years older with a child. Most people were thrown about the age more than the child- which was the only thing I cared about.

My dad used to call him “The old man Amber dates”, and all my friends used to ask unkind questions regarding him. All in all we broke up not because of any of those things, but more because of the distance.

My old friend married a man 13 years her senior- it’s her culture. She’s armenian/lebanese and that’s just normal. Her mother is 20 something years younger than her dad. The fact that my friend’s husband was graduating from 8th grade when she was born didn’t mean anything to her.

It’s in your frame of mind, I think. Who cares? You love each other and that’s all that matters. Sucks to get the insults, though.

My parents are 11 years apart and will be celebrating their 35th wedding anniversary this year. They have only started to experience the age difference making a difference, since my father is now retired, both literally and mentally and my mother is far from ready for that.

If your guy is young at heart, you should be a.o.k. ! I know my siblings and I kept our dad young looking and acting, many were often surprised to hear his age - still are.

My fiance is almost 8 years older than I am, but it never really seemed an issue. Maybe it’s because we’re a little older then you? I’m 33 and he’s 41. My family never had any issues (or if they did they were smart enough not to say anything).

my husband is 12 years older than me, closer in age to my mom than me. my family adores him and his age was never an issue. good luck to you!

This is going to sound very similar to lucky7bride’s comment, but my parents are 10 years apart. I always joke that for the most part it doesn’t matter unless you think about the fact that when my dad was a senior in highschool, my mom was in second grade! But they met when she was 24 and he was 34 so the age difference didn’t matter as much.

The biggest issue that has popped up recently is that my dad is now 75 and my mom is 65. My dad has some serious health issues and my mom is still raring to go. They have had a hard time adjusting to life like this, but they have worked through it. The most important thing to remember is that you chose to marry someone who was that much older than you, so you have to be willing to accept the differences that will become more obvious as you get older.

My only experience with dating an older man was when I dated a guy 11 years my senior when I was 19 for three dates. I thought all was fine for the first and second date (when there was no physical contact, just flirting), but on the third date he placed his hand on my back and rubbed my back for just a second. It was a sweet gesture - not overly forward or anything, but it freaked me right out, it felt really fatherly and that was it for that relationship. There was no fourth date.

I wanted to tell you about my sister though. She met a guy in her tae kwon do class when she was 16, and he was 6 years her senior. They didn’t realize the age difference until they’d been on several dates together and had already fallen for each other. Kelsey actually tried to break it off with him but that didn’t last long, she had such strong feelings for him. A few people questioned it, but not her close friends or our family - we all could see how much they cared about each other. They lasted about 2 1/2 years and only broke up because of distance when my sister moved several provinces away for university.

my bf is 5.5 years older. when we started dating i had just turned 20 so i didn’t tell my parents how old he was and i still haven’t mentioned it! we joke that they won’t find out until his 50th birthday party!

To the ladies with the younger SO’s: You’re probably in an even tougher spot than I am because no matter what a woman does, somehow it’s almost societally sacrilegious for a woman to date a younger man. Then there’s the whole “How Stella Got Her Groove Back” thing. Brava for going with your hearts!

To those with the older SO’s: Mr. Pearl and I totally do the same thing with our ages.

Example: We’re listening to the radio and Q-Tip’s “Vivrant Thing” comes on.

Me: “Man, that song is SO OLD! It’s like ‘one of the first songs I downloaded when that brand new invention called Napster was invented’ old. Like, when I was a freshman in college.”

Mr. Pearl: I was 30.

The best part was that his high school has old yearbook pages online and I saw a picture of him as a senior (RIOTOUSLY funny!!!). Then I look at the year, 1987, and we both laugh because I tell him that around the time he took that picture, I was the star of my kindergarten class

My stepdad is 10 years younger than my mom. They’ve been married 20 years and are pretty happy. Occasionally banks, doctors, etc will assume they have the birthdates mixed up and will try to “fix” it, but no major problems.