In Western culture, it is not unusual to see a man who is ten years older than his wife, and among the rich and famous, this age difference can respectably extend another ten to fifteen years.
Let me weigh the pros and cons of living in an age gap relationship.
A twenty-year age difference isn’t a problem if the younger couple is in their mid-thirties, but move forward a couple of decades and the older of the lovebirds will start to look a bit creaky.
This might not matter if the younger partner is prematurely fixated on their forms or, conversely, if the older of the two is unusually fit, but if you’re an energetic young woman, you don’t want to feel like you’ve just inherited another “dad”.
You may be right in thinking that the marriage between Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones has, to date, lasted very well, but there are three factors that gave him an unfair advantage over his less fortunate counterparts: money, fame, and his own confession, “Viagra!”
There is the double standard of aging that treats women rather harshly and this attitude is strongly supported by Hollywood, which allows men to be macho leading men into their seventies, while sending women to the scrap heap of symbols. sex when they’ve just finished college. .
There are a number of celebrity marriages that blatantly buck tradition. Maxwell Caulfield and Juliet Mills, both British actors, whose marriage has been going strong for almost three decades, despite the fact that Juliet Mills is 18 years his senior.
The most high-profile celebrity marriage to have tongues wagging over the age gap is Demi Moore and her 15-year-younger husband, Ashton Kutcher. As of this writing, her marriage has been intact for over 5 years, which is, by Hollywood standards, almost forever!
We never get to choose who we fall in love with and if your perfect match happens to be ten (or twenty) years older (or younger), then so be it.
The real key is how much you’re willing to go to make a relationship work, and the more it deviates from culturally acceptable norms, the more pressure from friends and family, fans and critics will try to drive cracks into the “unacceptable” union. .
My advice to any couple in a relationship with a significant difference in their ages is to simply enjoy your time together and get over those who would want to negatively affect your happiness.
We all have to live and let live, after all.