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What are the struggles faced by age-gap couples? What are challenges faced by age-gap couples? What is considered an age-gap relationship?
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| Age Gap Relationships |
This article looks at the challenges you may find yourself facing when in an age gap relationship. It is always important to make yourself aware of the difficulties you may face in any situation so that you can make an informed decision on whether or not you would like to proceed.
Remember, there are no challenges that cannot be overcome or battles that cannot be won when you truly love each other.
What are Age Gap Relationships?
Different people consider age gaps differently. For some people a 5 year age gap may be significant and signify an age gap relationship while for others an age gap relationship may only be considered one for gaps of 15 to 20 years or more.
For the sake of this article an age gap relationship will consider a difference of 10 to 15 years or more.
This article is more focused at looking at the cons for a younger person who may be in a relationship with an older person but can also be viewed by an older person in order to see what a younger person may consider the negatives in being with him or her.
The challenging side of being in a relationship or marrying an older man or woman
As with every kind of relationship, is important to measure the pros and cons as well as determine what would be viewed as a deal breaker for you before getting into a relationship or turning a casual relationship into a serious one.
Of course those listed below are not the same with every age gap couple but more a generalization.
1. The older partner may have more baggage
Everyone comes into a relationship with some sort of baggage regardless of age and whether or
not you are the older or younger one in a relationship. Baggage is a common factor even in same age couples. Baggage may include issues within your home environment or drama within your family, emotional baggage whether due to your home environment or past relationships, financial baggage in the form of debts etc.
An older partner, due to having been around longer than their younger counterparts, may have more of this "baggage".
Some baggage common to older partners may include:
- An ex-wife or husband
In most cases (unless this is your very first relationship), we all come into relationships having had previous relationships and thus have exes of some sort. An older partner is no different. The issue and more often the case, is that an older partner may have an exwife or exhusband who they had a relationship with or marriage for a very long period. This is often associated with ties of some sort.
Exwives
You may feel that you have to work harder to pass past timelines that your partner has already passed with a previous partner or that you are competing against years of marriage or a long term relationship that your partner had with his or her ex. Although this may seem like an irrational concern or fear it is very often experienced by the younger person in an age gap relationship.
In addition to this, an exwife or exhusband to your older partner may mean that they have Alimony commitments, shared property or common friends or relationships. More often than not you may be forced to see or have contact with his or her exwife or exhusband on occasion for various reasons - whether this is at get-togethers with mutual friends or family members. - Children from a previous relationship.
On the plus side, things may be a bit easier in that you will not be new to parenting and you and your partner will be in a similar situation regarding step-children and how to maintain relationships with them.
Things may be more complicated if you do not have children from a previous relationship and you will now need to get used to the idea of becoming an instant parent.
Regardless of whether you have children from a previous relationship or not, being in an age gap relationship may mean that your partners children are a lot older then yours and sometimes these children may even be closer to you in age if not older (depending on your age gap). *See Below*
2. The older partner may have kids closer to you in age who do not approve
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| Rebellious Kids |
As was mentioned above, you may be closer in age to your partners kids then to him or her. Sometimes this results in the kids disapproving of you for various reasons. Although generally this should not matter, the issue comes in that the older children may at times have their own opinion on your relationship often times motivated by your partners ex-wife or ex-husband who may not approve of your relationship. At times other family members or even society may influence their mindsets. They may be easily manipulated or convinced that your relationship or age gap is inappropriate or that you are standing in the way of their parents having a relationship or getting back together again.
3. Debt or loans
Debt is a common issue in society but this may be more likely or higher with an older partner as he or she may have an existing mortgage or still paying off loans which were taken out with their ex-wife or ex-husband before your relationship.
4. The older partners family may have a preference for his or her ex
This may also be for various reasons. Sometimes it may be the age difference, other times it may be due to the fact that they have built a longer relationship with the ex. Having a partner who was married to someone else for many years brings with it the realization that your partners family obviously had a relationship with this person too. Thinking about all the Christmas's, Birthdays and other celebrations shared together makes this an easy realization. This relationship may not be easily erased and result in your partners family showing somewhat of a bias towards your partners ex.
Other times your partners family may want to remain in your partners exes "good books" in order to maintain a tie with your partners biological children.
Although these feelings may be somewhat explained, they do not result in any less pain.
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| Age Gap Babies |
5. An older partner may not want to (or be able to) have more children and you might
If you are a younger man with an older woman you both may not have much control over this if your older partner cannot bare children any longer or if it would be too much of a high risk for her to do so. In this case you may have to decide whether or not having biological children of your own is something you want enough to give this relationship a miss. If you are both in agreement to having more children even if it is not biologically possible you may still consider adoption or other similar options.
As a younger woman with an older man, you may not have any children yet or may only have one and long to have another for various reasons. Due to the fact that your partner may feel that he or she has already experienced that with their ex, have enough kids already or feel intimidated by their age, they may not be as keen as you are to have more children.
If your partner is completely closed off to the idea of more children (whether biological or not) and this is extremely important to you then this may result in hurt for you.
6. Fears of running out of time
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| Running out of time |
7. Discrimination and Negativity
Generally when it comes to age gap relationships and not specifically dating an older partner, (for those dating someone younger too) you might face negativity or discrimination from society or from either you or your partners family and friends.
A sad realty is that we live in a judgmental world where everyone feels entitled to their own judgements and generalizations. For the younger person in most age-gap couples (more so depending on the society you live in or the mindsets of the people in your societies or families), being called or labelled a gold digger or something along those lines is bound to be heard from at least a couple of people throughout your relationship.
Unfortunately there is nothing you can do about the ignorance of others but you can do something about the way you deal with this, You can either let other people bring you down and dampen your relationship or choose to ignore and disregard all external negativity when it comes to your relationship.
In conclusion
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| True Love Age Gap Couples |
You alone can make that call. At the end of the day you need to make sure that you are making the right decision for you.
I too am in an age-gap relationship and I love my husband more than I have ever loved anyone else before. I would not change him for the world. All relationships have challenges but I chose and continue to choose our love over the struggles we face because at the end of the day - I love him more.
Are you in an age gap relationship? How do you deal with the struggles you face? Lets chat in the comments below!
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