A Celebration of Women

is reaching and has decided to dive into an area of Women’s lives that may be considered cliche…

the relationship dynamic of the Age Gap in some modern relationships.

The question at the core of this modern interest is: ‘Does age really matter?’ Our question is one with a twist to the obvious …We are curious as to the motive behind these Age Gap couples. Let’s take a ride down the path of the unusual, the questioned, the irregular in the land of the perverbial ‘relationship’. Is it long lost love, pure lust, self-serving contractual behaviour, or the Karmic unfinished business of two souls that now only found each other?

With our modern day attitude that sexuality having a Right of Freedom, these couples can also be stated to have found the courage to get together in the public eye-no longer having live in a Potemkin genre. We believe that these age difference love affairs have been happening long before the famous Mrs. Robinson of the 1960’s…and only recently, in our new social paradigm of gender equity hitting the frontline in every area of life; sex is included.

Any and all relationships in life happen to offer lessons to those that engage …

So, why not have women make the choice that fills their curiousity, their spiritual needs, their physical energy equal….or whatever works for her. Why are women so socially analysed and critiqued….where is the gender equality? Some women have been engaging in these love experiences with younger men for centuries; and now that open and honest respect for these relationships is happening, our world cannot seem to let go. The ‘Awe’ that our society is highlighting in all of our media forums is actually quite astonishing, bordering on insulting to Women.

Is today the equivalent for Women to the famous ‘Coming out of the closet’ social experience our homosexual community experienced in our recent social history. Women are being challenged on an activity that men have been engaging in for centuries; or even since the beginning of mankind. Have men ever truly been this challenged when engaging younger women, or have they been admired for making a choice that offered them higher guarantee on procreation?

A New Social Paradigm: Kitten, Cougar or Milf?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigm

*Kitten: A Woman 12 + years younger than a male, that is seduced as a conquest.

*Cougar: A Woman 12years + older than male, that seduces the conquest.

*Milf: A Woman 12 + years older than male, that is seduced as the conquest.

Age Gap Relationships

… here are some opinions of Active Couples …

I am 43-years-old and my partner is 31. However, I did not consciously choose my partner because he was younger, but because we were on a level spiritually and emotionally and he possessed all the qualities that I would want in the ideal partner.

The age that you are chronologically doesn’t necessarily equate to a certain level of maturity or even attitude or interests. You can, for example, have two twenty-year- olds with totally diverse interests, a different outlook on life and different degrees of maturity and yet you can find a 70-year-old who is on a similar wavelength to a 30- year-old.

The Reverend Barry Trill, 59, is a retired vicar from Hastings and in June 2001, his wife, Sharon, who is 30 years’ his junior gave birth to their first child. If you witnessed the two of them together, you would have no idea that the age gap between them was so large. This just proves that biological age is often so different to your chronological age.

Age is one of the least important factors in maintaining a successful relationship. I have several friends who are happily married to, or involved with, much older or younger partners. Whether the man or the woman is the older partner, the essential ingredients that uphold the relationship are companionship, compatibility, compassion, understanding, kindness, affection and trust – factors that don’t necessarily bear any relation to age.

In the past, the media in particular have insidiously set the framework for acceptability and propagated the idea that in order to be desirable you have to be young and emaciated and that if you’re past a certain age you have little hope of finding a partner. However, an increase in societal acceptance towards age gap relationships has widened the scope for newly single or divorced people, who can now look outside the confines of their own age groups in pursuit of the perfect match.

Jayne says, “I was just out having a few drinks, a dance and a good laugh with the girls from work. The last thing I thought was that I would meet my future husband in a place that was renowned for being a cattle market, where young lads picked up girls for one night stands and vice versa.

Here is Malcolm’s story…

Jayne, a customer service advisor, would agree. She is 52 and her husband, Malcolm is 34. They met a local club in Swindon when they were both on a night out with their respective friends. Jayne, who had already been divorced twice and had three grown-up daughters, was not looking for a relationship and would certainly not have thought of finding a partner in a place that was full of youngsters, mostly under the age of 25.

I was waiting to be served at the bar when this gorgeous, blond guy, with an amazing suntan and smile to match, moved in by the side of me and started making small talk. When he then asked me to dance, I thought he was having a joke or that he had been sent on a dare by his mates. When I realised that he was seriously interested in me, I was quite rude to him and told him that he was only after a bit of experience because I was older. I asked him what he really wanted with me, when he could have had his pick of all the beautiful young girls in the club, with tight bums and boobs up under their chins?”

His reply was, “They may look good, but wait until they open their mouths. You can’t have a decent conversation with them and, besides, you’re not afraid to let your hair down and have a good time and that makes you far more beautiful than any eighteen year old. You’d be lucky if those girls let you near them in case you messed up their makeup or hair. And what happens when they get older and don’t have the personality to replace the looks?”

As you now know, the rest is history.

We began dating nine years ago and have been married for five.”

Jayne and Brian

“My friend and I, who are in the air force, had just returned from a posting in Cyprus and we had a couple of weeks’ break before our next mission. When we are working, we don’t have a social life to speak of, so we decided to make the most of our free time and go out to a local nightclub. Although we were both single, the purpose of the night out was to have a laugh and a few beers. We had no intention of trying to find a date.

We had been in the club for a couple of hours, most of our time having been spent propping up the bar, when we noticed a group of women nearby obviously having a really good time, laughing amongst themselves and occasionally getting up to dance with each other. They seemed different to most of the others girls in the place more laid back, natural, no airs or graces and definitely not there to be “on show”.

I was particularly mesmerised by a tall, more mature woman with red hair, who had an obvious Cockney accent, but was dressed very stylishly, without all her fleshy bits hanging out, like so many of the younger (and not necessarily slim) girls in the place.

She was a bit taken aback when I first approached her at the bar. She obviously regarded me, like most of the other guys in the place, as someone who was just after a one-night stand or a bit of experience with an older woman. It took some time for me to convince her that I was genuinely interested in her and not just for a short-term fling.

Naturally, I didn’t initially know whether or not she was married and the fact that she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring didn’t really mean anything. I have known many people who have removed their rings before going out, although she didn’t really seem the type to do something as callous as that.

Luckily for me, she wasn’t involved with anyone and we spent the rest of the night talking. By the end of the evening, I knew that this was definitely the woman for me. I wasn’t fazed by the eighteen-year age gap and, besides, younger women tend to expect so much more from their men and can make them feel inadequate. You don’t have to teach an older woman anything. I like to think that Jayne has taught me a few lessons about life, amongst other things!

However, it did take Jayne a long time to trust me because she had been divorced twice and was very cynical about men in general.

Initially, Jayne kept refusing my proposals of marriage because she said she didn’t want to hold me back if I wanted to go off with someone younger, someone who could bear my children. Because Jayne has had a hysterectomy, I had to accept that we would never have children of our own. Although I love kids, spending a lifetime with someone I love is far more important. I don’t believe that having children could make me any happier than I already am. Besides, children grow up and leave home, so the relationship with your partner has to be the most important element.

I’m glad she gave me a chance because the last nine years have been the happiest of my life and I couldn’t ask for more.”

Jayne and Brian are just one example of the thousands of couples

whose love and compatibility transcends an age gap, however great.

Heidi, 42, met David, 58, when she began working as a flight stewardess for Saudi Airlines.

David was an airline pilot at the time, but has since retired and the couple now live in Saudi Arabia for part of the year and England for the other half. They have been together for over 20 years and, as Heidi says, “David has just as much energy now as he had at the age of 35 when we first started dating. And the wonderful thing is that I will always be the younger woman, so I have no worries about him suddenly eyeing up a more youthful model. Besides, I think he’s probably already gone through the male midlife crisis bit, not that I noticed!

Age is just a state of mind. We have all known people who look younger than they are and are in better physical condition than others who are half their age. Similarly, you may know a young person who has the mental and physical age of someone a lot more mature.

My partner has a maturity that greatly exceeds his years, whereas I still have the mental age of someone in their teens. Consequently, despite the fact that I am twelve years older than my partner, he has the more mature mind.

As the saying goes, “You are the age you feel.” Therefore, the way that you are in your mind and heart is an important factor in alleviating differences in age, something that is reflected in your appearance, your thoughts, your actions and your feelings.

If we all adhered to the pre-conceived guidelines that society sets about what is regarded as a normal relationship, then there would be an awful lot of lonely and unhappy people in this world. And those who step outside those boundaries would have more chance of their relationships thriving if well-meaning acquaintances stopped judging and interfering. Age gap relationships can fail for the same reasons that any other relationship fails, but it’s all too easy for the sceptics to focus on the age difference as the sole cause and I have also seen several potentially healthy relationships fall apart because of unwanted intervention by other people.

It is time that everyone realized

that true love knows no boundaries, least of all age.

 

Contributed by: Jan Andersen ©2000 Jan Andersen

• WHO ever came up with formal names for women?

• We would like to know what the names for the ‘males’ in these relationships are.

• Have You ever heard any of the media attack, question or even acknowledge men that choose much older or younger partners?

• When will society attack same-sex relationships that engage in large ‘age gaps’ in their relationships?

Common Challenges to AGE GAP Relationships

Interestingly, a study on age gap relationships indicated that cases in which the wife was older than the husband showed a higher than usual proportion of good adjustments, as did those in which the husband was eight or more years older. Yet these same marriages showed also the highest proportion of poor adjustments.

It was found that the happiest group of husbands had wives twelve or more years younger, but that the happiest wives were from four to ten years older than their husbands. Yet the happiest couples were those in which the husband was from three to five years older. So you figure it out.

Here are some helpful principles:

1. If the man is about the same age as, or somewhat older than the girl, there will be no special problem of age suitability.

2. If the girl is slightly older there will be no special problem unless one or the other feels sensitive about it. The only question then will be, “How do they feel about it?”

3. As people grow older, age differences become less important. Other things being equal, there will be less difference between a woman of fifty and a man of seventy, than between a girl of twenty and a man of forty.

4. When one is relatively young and the other as much as twelve years older, the couple should carefully review the following problems.

In these age gap relationships, there may be real differences in their interest in physical activities. If the man is the elder, this may not be too important. A man of thirty-five may play as good a game of golf or even tennis, and swim as well as a girl of twenty.

In fact their age gap may actually make them more evenly matched. A greater age gap relationship problem will be the stage in which their interests happen to be.

Younger people often want to gad about at dances, parties, night clubs, and similar activities. When people become older such activities are far less attractive and may, if indulged in too much, become boring.

If the male is considerably older and he and his wife do what he wants, she may miss out on a phase of her experience which, rightly or wrongly, she may always regret. If they do what she enjoys most, he is being dragged through the same experiences twice, perhaps after he is eager to go on to something else.

A compromise may work out. On the other hand, it may result in a type of social life which is satisfactory to neither of them. A deeper phase of the same problem concerns one’s attitude toward life. To those of less experience the problems of age gap relationships seem much simpler than they actually are.

Young people are quite likely to feel that the older generation must be knaves or fools, or they would long since have abolished war, poverty, industrial strife and mosquitoes.

Older people,on the other hand, often find the enthusiasms of youth amusing. They may tolerate them in their children, but do not want them in a spouse. If the age gap is so great that the wife regards her husband as an old fogy, and the husband thinks of his wife as a simple child who spends too much effort and time in things that do not matter, the situation is not favorable to a successful marriage.

Yet the fact that age gap relationships are risky does not necessarily mean that it should not be attempted. One young lady of twenty-five who was marrying a man twice her age strongly stated that she would rather marry a first-class man of fifty than a third-rate man of thirty.

There could be other advantages to such a union. The girl who marries an older man has a better chance of knowing what she is getting. In any case, the most important consideration is not age, but maturity.

Younger people who are more mature than most of their contemporaries may actually find an older mate to be more congenial. Yet as in any age gap relationships, the preference for a much older mate should be scrutinized with great care.

The danger is that the older person is psychologically a substitute parent,

rather than a mate, opening doors to take more than give…creating imbalance.

Now, if the ‘relationship‘ was respected mutually for a blessing and not a curse, both parties involved would inevitably have learned lessons, hopefully cleaned up some Karma froma past life and moves forward from the experience a better person with a larger capacity to love, understand others and own themselves for who they really are; not what they think they should be.

A Celebration of Women

suggests to the world that everyone, Men & Women, focus more of the quality of relationships; and less on the physical dynamics. If each of us, as individuals are absolutely honest with ourselves, (an action that takes brutal honesty) the comprehension of the reason we engage in any of our earthly relationships will all make sense to us, and last for the time they were destined to last; all the while not hurting the growth of any parties involved. The nucleus of a Divinely Blessed relationship is one whereby both parties grow and become more giving naturally, expanding desire to help others, as we truly are all part of a Master Plan, and everything happens for a reason.

There are no accidents in this life, so let’s respect each others decisions more.

“… a Season and a Reason…”

Take Action in Your Own Life!

…with more honestly, fearlessly,

filled with dignity, self-love & respect.

Catherine the Great’s Secret Marriage/Love: http://www.amazon.ca/Potemkin-Catherine-Greats-Imperial-Partner/dp/1400077176