Does It Run In Your Family?

I was wondering, are you the first in your family to do the YM/OW relationship or want a YM/OW?

My ex-husband and I were 14 years apart. His grandmother married a guy that was 18 years younger than her. They were married until she died about 8 years ago. NOW... and it gets good, my ex-husbands MOTHER is dating her step-father who is 11 years older than she is! (of course they live in Arkansas... ha!)

My son, who is 33, dates women who are generally 8 to 12 years older than he is. My youngest daughter was dating a 42 year old guy (the father of her baby) but has recently started dating a 32 year old. She is 20 years old. My only sibling, my sister is married to a guy that is 8 or 10 years younger than her. Her oldest daughter is married to a guy who is about 16 years older than her.

Does this run in your family? Or is it just mine that is wacky? ;)

Really, your family has it in many possible ways.. I think it is just an indicator of the social changes and more and more freedom of choice and outter tollerance.

I have no siblings and not a big family, but of what I know my father was 2-3 yrs younger than my mom and she had b/fds in both groups - mostly little older.

One of her sister was married to a man 22 yrs her senior, another aunt was older 2-3 yrs from her husband. My only cousin was living with older women - but he was not quite a good guy, so I may suspect that his reasons were not very noble either..

I myself had husband 2 yrs my junior, one affair with a man older 11 yrs and all other romances were with the guys much, much younger... Ooops, the last one, Handsome, was only 3 yrs younger..

My daughter is 28; she isn't dating much, but as far as I know her guys were about her age or few years older.

It is quite a subject for a scientific research.. there might be some patterns..

Teli

I won't go through my entire family tree for this one,I'll just say as I have before that my mother was married to a wonderful man who was 20 years younger then her,they were together for 28 years until his death.he died first despite being 20 years younger,she's still alive.proves that one never knows who will go first,despite the ages.
so I was raised as a kid seeing an age gap relationship.One that worked.he was 30,she was 50 when they got together.I'm sure because of being raised around it,I never really thought much about it,It was NO big deal,and this was at a time when it wasn't a"trendy" thing to do.

so yes,it's in my family,but i didn't "look" for a younger guy because of it.age was never an issue with me.

My dad was younger than my mom & now that they are divorced, she is once again dating a younger guy. She doesn't mind me dating younger guys, just wants to me eventually marry someone who is right for me be they younger, older, or same age.

IM THE FRIST ONE TO DO THIS AGEGAP THING.

This is my personal thought.

I truely feel, if it runs in the family it is something that stems from childhood or other, ie...something that's happened thru there life.
family etc...*does this make any scense* Urgh sometimes to type what one would like to say rather than speaking or feeling it is not the same......pardon if this post is confusing !@

I am absolutely not the first in my family!!! Most notably was my mother. When I was 10 she was dating my brothers friend who was 21, she was 42. She has always liked younger men. My sister was always into older men but I never thought about it till I was older. My family is accepting of EVERYTHING! lol

I WOULD SAY THAT IT RUNS IN MY FAMILY!! CAUSE IM DATING A MAN WHO IS 42 AND IM 21. MY MOM IS DATING A MAN WHO IS 26 AND SHES 44. AND MY BROTHER IS DATING A WOMAN WHO IS 22 AND HES 32. SO I WOULD SAY IT RUNS IN MY FAMILY!!:)

As far as I know, I'm the only one in my family who is into younger guys. But I do have an uncle who is married to a much younger woman. He is probably 72 and she is 52. They've been married well over 30 years. I also have a cousin who is 50 and married to a man close to 70 and they've been married probably 25 years. So there are a couple of 20 year age gaps in my family but of the om/yw sort.

Southerngal

Nope. Never happened. Lots of OM/YW and nothing the other way around.

Wow, this is fascinating! Most of us have been exposed to age gap relationships in our lives, and that probably made us more accepting of being in one ourselves.

My dad is 13 years older than my mom, and they've been married 43 years. My brother was always attracted to OLDER women, ever since his hormones first started to kick up (teen years). My grandmother met and married a younger man after her husband died.

Foxyeyes, your family sounds like Robin's. His is big too, and age gaps aplenty. His brother got involved with his stepsister (no blood ties, obviously)! It didn't last though. Now his brother is with a woman 6 years older, and she's a gem.

Midnight Rayne, nice pic! :) Blondes seem to outnumber brunettes on this site! :D

Gosh, in my family we didn't do age gaps of any kind really.

It was quite a big thing to learn that our beloved grandmother who was married to my granpapa for 60some years, was actually 5 years oler!!!! It was such a family secret at the time and she would never tell her age - southern belle that she was - reigning from Alabama (psst.. hi Julie). It's funny to think how surprised and shocked we were.

My brother was married to a girl 12 years younger than him and we thought that was a big deal too. Whooooeeeyyy!!!!

And then there is me..... dating a guy 16 years younger. I don't know what anyone is saying about this. We don't really talk about it much. But I'll bet it's in the waves.

Cindy

ps Yellowrose- good thread!

It was hard to know how to vote on this -- considering I don't really have many family members!

My mother is almost 3 years older than my father; hardly a gap at all.

But we're certainly not the most conventional bunch. Two of my mother's uncles lived with two women (and one of the women's daughters -- father unidentified), and none were married. I don't think it was ever clear who was with whom, or if they had an open foursome going on there. I'm sure it raised eyebrows in the 40's? 50's? when they started cohabiting. By the time I came along, they were a family fixture -- and quite elderly to my eyes, so not the stuff of scandal. Just two sweet little white-haired old ladies (with an incredible collection of Royal Doulton figurines) and two doddering old men. They continued to live together even after the great-uncles passed away (the daughter never married).

But mine was the first divorce in the family!! Tsk, tsk.......

Wouldn't you love to know more about your uncles and their "commune"? Do you know the "aunts" very well? It would be so much fun to interview them. What pioneers! I wonder if they had many other friends. Do you recall what everyones' profession was? Did they live in a small town or city? Sorry but the older generation that lived outside the norm fascinate me. Thanks for sharing that.

And many thanks to everyone else that posted. I really enjoyed your responses!
http://www.gifs.net/animate/yellowrose.gif

Julianne, I did not know that about your Mom, but that sure gives me inspiration. And same with you Nafadda. And both those older women outlived the younger men, so as Nafadda said, we just never really know how things are going to turn out.

My Aunt Dot, who never married, lived with a man in California that we called Uncle, even though they never married, for as long as I can remember. He was probably 25 years younger than her. As she got older (she lived into her late 70s) I remember him still being very sweet and caring and loving to her when they visited.
My parents were 8 years apart (dad older). My mother is now with someone about 10 years younger.
I wonder if because we are raised around what some people consider "alternative relationships" if we just find it more more normal, accept it more easily and see it more as an option.
I don't know if I always want to be with younger men, I just want to fall in love with a man without having limitations such as age, race, religion, income, etc. I can say I don't find men my age as attractive (which is kind of funny because the men my age ARE the younger men to some women, so it might be just some preconceived notion in my head)...I tend to be attracted more towards men in their early 20s (I am 34).

As far as I know, there is only the daughter and one of the women left alive (whether it is her mother or not, I don't know). We moved away when I was very young, and weren't able to visit very often.
One of the uncles owned a business, something to do with sound systems/public address (I do remember being very impressed with his stereo!) where he supplied and set up equipment for large events, and I think there was a recording studio as well. His brother did something in radio -- I don't think it was actual broadcasting, but possibly writing copy. Not on the electronic side, unlike his brother! If any of the women ever worked, I never heard about it, and they certainly didn't by the time I knew them. Lucky them -- "kept women"!
The business owner was quite wealthy, and I'm sure that helped to smooth over the community's acceptance of his lifestyle. The less wealthy have "moral failings", and the rich are merely "eccentric". It certainly didn't have any negative impact on his success. My earliest memories of them are in a very large country house -- that probably kept their living situation fairly private. And it was large enough that they could have pretended that everybody had separate bedrooms had they wanted to.
My later memories are from the time they had moved into the city (fairly large, about 250,000 people). They all moved into a huge apartment over the business premises -- that's where I remember the sitting room with china cabinets lining the walls, filled with the Royal Doulton ladies. And where I was plied with endless cakes and cookies.
I know that in the early years I was very curious about how to "label" this arrangement, and my very proper British mother struggled to give me an explanation that would put an end to my questions, without any references to sexual activity! She used to tell me they were all "friends", but with a certain intonation that she uses for polite euphemisms. I definitely pressed the issue of the daughter's paternity, because for me at that time there were only two possible options -- one of my great-uncles -- but apparently not. I don't think my mother ever knew, or inquired about it. After all, this illegitimate child was older than she was, and the mother contemporary with her own mother. And my grandmother died when my mother was in her early teens, otherwise she might have been able to pass on some more details when my mother got older.
But I never thought there was anything wrong with this arrangement, I just needed to put these people in some sort of perspective. As the only member of my generation, I was cooed and fussed over as all adults fuss over small children, so I only knew them as very loving people who liked to spoil me with treats and presents. They were never shunned or snubbed by the "legal" wives in the family. And, despite the connections with the music industry, and the unconventional lifestyle, there was nothing remotely "bohemian" about them. (Not that they let me see, anyway -- who knows what they did when the relatives departed!)
By this time, if they were still alive, the great-uncles and the women (and they were always called by their first names) would be in their 80's, and the daughter is in her 60's. I do wonder why she never left, or worked, or married. And no one has ever spoken about their families -- it's as if they didn't have any. Or maybe they were ostracized for their choice?
And there you have it -- my slightly colourful family!

What a wonderful story! Thanks for sharing it with me. :)

There were 2 couples in our church when I was a kid that did a lot of things together. They each had a son about my age (12). In fact one of the sons gave me my first real kiss later on at 14-15. Anyway, like I said the 2 couples went on vacations together and visited each other regularly. One of the families lived right across the street from me and I took piano lessons from her.

Well, one bright and sunny day, they BOTH got a divorce and promptly married each other's spouse! It was a scandel for awhile but then my piano teacher had the cutest baby girl and she continued to play beautiful music in our Baptist church.

I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when these discussions were taking place between the four of them!

I don't know of any other age gap relationships in my family. So, I guess I become, yet once again, the trend-setter ;).

I don't mind, it's become a way of life, lol.

Princessdy :D

Yellowrose, that's so weird! My best friend's cousin's parents did the same thing (before she was born). It was two couples who were together all the time, and presently, the husbands traded wives! They got divorces and married the other ones. It's like that saying, "The grass is always greener on the other side."

Her parents conceived of her after they married, so there was no "Who's my daddy?" thing going on. They are still married today, so I guess they made the right choice in the end.

Barb,

I voted for me being the first in the family. I rarely know my relatives back home that is into this type of age gap relationship. I can't wait till my next lifetime to have another age gap relationship! It would be so cool!