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Why do people criticize men in their 30s+ dating women aged 18-25?
For example, when Bradley cooper (40) dated suki Waterhouse (23). People are saying Bradley should go and date a nice woman his age, now. I don't get it. Why is it assumed people the same age would necessarily be right for each other, and that legal adults with age gaps aren't? There are many happy couples with relatively large age gaps. Why are some people so bitter and critical about this? love is love. It doesn't mean the younger girl has "daddy issues" or the older guy is some kind of pedophile, like a lot of people usually stereotype. Personally, I've never really had a good bond with any guy around my age and thus see it likely I'd seek to be with a guy about a decade older than me. a single guy with no kids, it doesn't mean I'm going to be some kind of home wrecker. But if I did get in such a relationship, would I be criticized or pitied? I'd just want to be seen as any other couple, but I don't understand american society's weird unwritten rule.
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Because of a perceived, and sometimes very real, power imbalance. That's why people have a problem with it.
You aren't wrong. People should stop being so judgy and catty about adults in consensual relationships and there are TONS of kinds of relationships that are subjected to these sorts of derogatory judgements, not just relationships with an age gap.
However, you also aren't entirely right. It's romantic to say age is just a number, but it's not actually. Age is not just an arbitrary number; it’s a solid gauge for life-experience, a loose one for self-awareness. Age can impact what a person's needs and expectations might be from a relationship, it can also impact the kinds of career and financial choices a person wants and needs to make.
Having significantly less life experience can result in a person putting up with abuse or bad behaviour that a more experienced person would not. Having very different needs, expectations or lifestyle and career goals can also make things very difficult. Of course these problems can arise in any relationship, but relationships with significant age gaps are more likely to have those sorts of difficulties, because many of those things are impacted by our age and our stage in life.
Almost every man I dated in my life has been older than me. I don't think I've dating someone less than 9 years my senior since I was 19. I didn't set out to live that way. I don't have problems with guys my own age, but it's just how it worked out for me.
Some of those older guys were great - and some of them sought out younger women for really awful reasons. They wanted to date me because they thought I'd expect less of them, they wanted to date me to impress their friends, or they wanted to date me because woman their own age called them on the nasty, manipulative shit they did, and thought - sometimes correctly - that a younger woman wouldn't have the experience and confidence to walk away from their bad behaviour.
More than a few of the older men I dated were expert manipulators, and took advantage of the fact that I was less experienced than they were and less able to recognize the problems with what they were doing. They talked down to me, took my opinions about my life less seriously than they took their own. I end up accepting, in a lot of these situations, a position of less power in my relationship. I let them call the shots because duh - they were older and smarter! The age difference absolutely came into play in negative ways with a lot of those guys. They were looking for a fun exciting little girl who looked up to them, they weren't looking for a equal partner in life who just happened to be a younger than then.
So yeah. It can totally work out and adults in these sorts of relationships deserve respect! Although there is a lot of unfair judgement out there, people aren't evil to remember there are also people - lots of people - who will use a large age difference create an unhealthy power imbalance. Just the same way it's not evil to point out that the people who do get married at 18, are significantly more likely to experience domestic violence and divorce. Those are things are true. They might not be true for everyone, but they are still generally true, and it's not evil to point them out.
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It goes the other way around too. For the most part, it takes men way longer these days to mature to the point they are ready to settle down, marry and have a kid. Its a matter of maturity. So the mature younger girls of course will look for a mature guy and the majority her age just arent yet so she finds herself attracted to the older ones. Nothing wrong with that.
Why the older man wants a younger woman? Well, it may be the ones his age are already jaded by failed marriages and/or have kids and have a bad attitude. Or they are unwilling to have at least one more kid with him. Most think automatically its to relive his younger days...well yeah, if he was the partying kind looking for a different girl each week but the serious one looking for a long term relationship isn't looking to relive his childhood, just find his life mate.
Now for the few males who mature fast and seem like a much older wiser person in a young body, they have problems too because most females at their age are way too immature for him so he starts looking for older women and age doesnt matter at all. This is when older women are called cougars, as if they preyed on younger men, robbing the cradle...you've heard it all. This happens too but not as often as younger female older male and males tend to take more time to mature.
Interesting that you used the age bracket of 18-25 stopping at 25 because scientists & psychologists have discovered it takes until at least age 25 before the pre-frontal cortex of the brain is finally done growing and maturing in the person. As always, there are exceptions to the rule but this part of the brain is responsible for what you'd consider mature traits as far as thinking goes. This is largely why many are not mature until somewhere between 25-30. So yes, maturity has no correspondence with a persons chronological age, but it has a lot to do with their brains mental age.
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You're right, people should mind their own business. Age is but a number. A chronological way of accounting for our time on this earth. Now the only problem I would have is say a 30 year old dating an 18 year old and only because the 18 year old may be naïve or immature and infatuated mistaking infatuation for love. That would be the only reason. If she was a bit older and more mature there is no problem.
We do get a lot of letters along the line of should I start a relationship with him, he is 10 years older than me or she is 7 to 10 years younger than me. My answer is generally to go for it. Though I will point out the pitfalls that can come for large differences in age.
My mother in-law was 5 year older than my father in-law. Her family and friends accused her of robbing the cradle. Her marriage lasted a lifetime. Many of theirs didn't.
Knowing what you want, being aware of the pitfalls which are greater as the age difference is greater. There is no reason not to explore life with an older person. Just be sure of what you want from life for the greater the age difference the more the younger person gives up and misses out on. This can cause trouble for the couple later in life.
Most importantly don't listen to the busy buddies. which includes me. Take from me what feels right and go forward.
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