Hello from Israel!

Greetings everyone! I'm a 36 year old American expat in Israel. My family background is Christian, but I'm Agnostic. I moved to Israel 10 years ago with my ex husband (an Israeli) and stayed after the marriage ended because we're still as close as brother and sister, and the school here is better for my daughter.

I live in Haifa because is one of the most diverse cities in the country, but unlike Tel Aviv, it hasn't become a cold block of concrete and cars.

The reason I'm here is because normally in the U.S. I dated older men almost exclusively, but things changed when I found myself available again in Israel. For some reason here, most of the guys I get along with are under 30. Those over 30 are usually overly concerned about religion and ethnicity. The exceptions are already taken.

My current boyfriend is 26, and a Christian Arab. I don't know how long it will last because he's under ALOT of pressure from his family to marry an Arab woman younger than him.

I'd like to talk to other women who are dating younger men mainly because I'm having a bit of a problem with patience. One reason I usually dated older men is because I have my s#!t together, and I like my partners to have their s#!t together too...but most of the geek/freak guys here under 30 have not got their lives fully in order yet. They're smart, educated, and have brilliant futures ahead of them, but they live with their (often racist or some other -ist) parents, so there's the ducking and dodging.

Sometimes I feel like telling them to call me when they've moved out, but that wouldn't be fair.

Has anyone else had a problem about their partners' parents? How did those situations turn out?

Hello Ulibka!
I do not have problems with parents but I have problems with patience too. I do not know if my problems are reasonable or not, but then, this thread is about you, not me. :tongue2:
Great AV by the way, and welcome!

Hi and welcome to ageless Ulibka!

I haven't had too much problems with the parents of my husband other than that they were sceptical in the beginning due to the fact that I am 13 year older and that I did live 6000 miles away (he in WA and me din Norway).

I have two kids by "muslim" men and I have been living some months in Morocco and know what you are talking about. Men often doesn't even move away from their mom and dad even if they have gotten married and what their parents say is often the "law" throughout their adult life.
I don't know if this is the case over in Israel, but I would think that it is pretty much the same.

So unless you have met a guy that is determend to "break lose" you may have a tough time. And I'm also aware of the racist part.. it is the same in Morocco...

Welcome to Agelesslove!

Hey, I have one of my best friends ever living over there in Haifa. He was probably my first age gap relationship where the man was younger than me. He was 8 years younger than me and at the time (I was 33), that seemed like "grand canyon" of a gap... hahaha! Now I'm in an age gap relationship where I'm 46, almost 47, and my young man is 20.

When I first got on the internet in 1991, I used to go to the old mud/moo type places (multi-player/object-oriented player sites where everything was written in text, but you could chat to people). In 1993, I was in the last stages of a very abusive marriage, we were planning for divorce, and things were really awful... just a nightmare, really. Then I met this guy from - what a coincidence... Haifa! and he was such a good friend, he tried through chatting, to help me with my marriage. Sometimes he chatted with my husband. It had a little bit of a good effect for a short time, but nothing significant enough to save the marriage.

So divorce was still on track, and for another couple of years, I endured the last and worst years of the marriage. During that time, my Israeli friend and I chatted more, and he fell in love with me. For me, he was my best and only friend at the time, and he provided a lot of support and comfort as well. He wanted to marry me, and one night, after I'd been beaten by my husband, I called my Israeli friend and wanted so badly to just drop everything, and run away to Israel to be with him, too. Then the guy disappeared for a while, and when he came back, he told me that his parents had arranged a marriage for him. (He's Jewish, by the way, and I was Christian at the time.) I was crushed. It seemed like there was nothing that could be done because he would do whatever his parents wanted him to do, even if he loved me.

Years later, he moved with his wife to southern California (I'm in Northern California), so I got to meet him a couple of times when they were up this way for some site seeing. It was so awesome to finally meet him in person. He told me then that it wasn't just that his parents had arranged a marriage for him, but also that he was afraid if I ended my marriage back then, it would have been because of him, something he didn't ever want to be blamed for. My marriage was already over before I ever met him, but I could understand that fear of his, and it endeared me even more to know about that.

But the parents there in Israel are very pursuasive and have a strong influence on what the children do, especially if they are from a family that has been there a long time (his family had been there for generations, but further back had come from Persia, so still very traditional). I think the age gap, and the fact that I had 2 year old babies at the time, too, would have been something his parents didn't approve of. On top of that, I couldn't have any more children naturally either, and I think that also would have been something his parents would not have approved of. I'm assuming this though, just because they are from that culture. He used to say they would understand though.

By the way, an 8 year age gap to me now is like... no age gap at all! My second marriage was with someone who was 8 years younger than me. We never noticed any age gap, although he was living with his parents before marrying me, and is living with family again now that he's divorced from me. He never really learned to live on his own and our marriage broke up because he couldn't cope with married life (nor being able to cope even with his own problems). I think my Haifa friend lived with his parents before he got married, too, but for him it didn't make a difference. He ended up in a good marriage, and he's a very hard working, dependable, good husband and father - very responsible man.

So I don't know... don't give up hope just yet. Even the traditional Haifa families may be "progressive" with good sons who can stand on their own.

Thank you all for the warm welcome. :)

Having been on the other end of the age gap with most of my partners, I probably make the mistake sometimes of using myself as a measure of where someone should be in their life and thinking by a certain age. I'm sure that's where some of my patience problem comes from...but some things are well, you know, BLARRRRRRRGH!!! You end up in that dilema of when to advise because you do have a friendship with them, or to let them make the mistake and learn from it on their own. Those are the eye twitch situations for me...especially when it has something directly to do with the relationship.

Here in Israel, religion/ethnicity polarization is a big problem. It's on the level of genetic warfare because there is a sort of a weird demographic crisis that is compounded by the adoption of overly westernized fashion/beauty ideals. People with very strong cultures feel that they are under attack from the outside and the inside, so it is important to most parents here that their kids marry someone of the same religious/ethnic group, and they will actually severe penalties to breaking this. I've even heard of girls being threatenned by the families of their male partners, and males simply getting stabbed or shot over it. A friend of mine was stabbed multiple times by the brother of his former girlfriend.

It hasn't gotten to the point of people taking it upon themselves to attack intercultural couples outside their families, but with the incidence of Gay bashing on the rise, I suspect it may come to that eventually. That kind of "genetic panic" violence seldom stays isolated to one group.

More than one Jewish guy has asked me, with a tinge of anger and jealousy, why I date Arabs, and I'm not even Jewish. Weird.

So I know what's at stake, but I live my life and anyone who doesn't like it is welcome to bring it on. In that way, I'm pointedly typically American...no ethical dilemas about defending myself or my family "by any means necessary". This is the way I've been though, since my teens. My parents wouldn't have thought of pressuring me to marry or not to marry anyone, and they are like, UberChristians. Certain things they wouldn't tolerate, but I know they love me, and I love and respect them. So they wouldn't actually do something to harm me. If I was with a same sex partner, they might not welcome her into their home (which means I wouldn't feel welcome there either) but they wouldn't go out of their way to insult or harm her.

I guess what I'm having a problem with is that anyone over let's say, 20, would be uncertain about whether or not they would resist parental pressure...and if they are uncertain, why they would even pursue relationships outside of their religion/ethnicity in the first place.