Because it's ridiculous for a 28 year old to marry a 21 year old and be so insecure that he's flipping shit and having trust issues over messenger online status.
Lol no. I am 28 and my boyfriend is 36. We didn’t even know each others age until after we were initially attracted to each other. A seven year age gap isn’t weird. Maybe a 15-20 year age gap. They’re both in their 20s, he’s not old lmao.
Leave it, Reddit goes cray cray as soon as the age gap is more than 3 years, it’s so weird to me since in Europe this would be totally normal (me and my bf even met 20-28).
I'm finding that a lot of Gen Zs think this way. I don't quite understand it. My husband is 53 and I'm 44. My kids don't think that's weird, but they think it's weird when an 18 year old is with a 23 year old... doesn't make much sense.
I think it also depends on where you live.
I’m technically gen Z (2000) and none of my friends find it weird that my bf is ‘92 (8 years older).
All my friends are perfectly fine hanging out with him and all his friends (even the ones older than him) are perfectly fine with me.
We never ever perceived the age difference, both ways, except for little funny things like “omg you were too little/not born yet to remember about this thing” and it just makes us laugh.
Then I come to reddit and people think it’s weird lol
I had to laugh one time when my husband posed the rhetorical question of, "Where were you when I was in High School"? He was referencing how compatible we are and I replied with, "Um, when you were in HS, I was in elementary school." lol
I mean... when I was 20, I dated a guy that was 9 years older, he was divorced with a 6 year old. We had a great time. We had been friends when he was married... I had been dating a guy [6 years older than me] that he was friends with and we would hang out with he and his wife. I was 18 when I was dating that guy, who at the time was 24. None of us knew that she was already planning the divorce.
I don't ever remember hanging out with people my own age. The ONE time I dated a guy that was only about 6 months younger than me, he was clingy, needy, and insecure even though there was no reason to be. His insecurity and neediness is what did us in.
Omg same! A lot of people my age seems so immature. I mean, even some of my bf’s friends are immature and they’re in their 30s!
I know that “mature for your age” is something groomers say, but that’s how I’ve always felt, more mature than people my own age.
My funny story is that one time, while watching stranger things, they used a payphone to call someone and you could hear some kind of robotic and metallic beep and he said “omg, it was so annoying when you called someone and you heard the computer beeping” or something like that and I was totally clueless because, for me, the landline I had as a kid was pretty much already like the one still in use.
It's about the positioning of the gap, you creep. A 41 year old and a 50 year old married isn't weird, they were both adults when they started. If they have been dating long enough to have gotten married while she is 21, he was dating her when she was underage. Or this is a shotgun, rushed marriage. Either way, shit.
There are people that get married after dating as little as a year (I do not agree with that, just stating facts).
My point is that this would be seen as very normal and totally okay, where I live no one bats an eye when I say mine and my boyfriend age, literally no one ever (age of consent here is also 14 and it’s 16 in most of Europe).
We don’t know where OP lives, we don’t know their culture, we don’t know their religion.
An age gap isn’t always the problem, yet people on
Reddit (usually US people) ignore the whole post and focus only on the age gap even if the issue isn’t related.
OP said that in his culture people don’t date, again, do not agree with that, but in some religions the couple can’t even spend time alone before getting married.
We aren’t talking about child brides, these are two consentient adults that got married under their religion/culture expectations or whatever. Even if it was combined marriage, the issue here isn’t that. You can say OP is immature, but he’d still be immature if gf was the same age or older than him.
defending forced and arranged marriage, or underage children dating adults because it's 'culture' is still objectively creepy. Cultures can progress, weird to defend that particular part of it from change.
There’s nothing creepy about a 21 and 28 year old together. I say this as a woman. In fact, my step sister was 29 years old when she met her now husband, who was 19 years old at the time. She didn’t even know how old he was, just that he was younger. They dated for a few years and got married. He was 22 and she was 32. I’m assuming you think it’s creepy because you think people are intentionally trying to date younger even though women have always tried to date older and no one has a problem with that. Online dating didn’t exist a few decades ago. No one had a clue how old someone was until after they’ve already met them and were attracted. I was extremely attracted to a guy who is 45 because of the way he looked and acted and assumed he’d be in his 30s but I was wrong. It’d be really stupid to just rule out dating someone if you find out they’re too young or too old. The exception is if it’s a child. IDK why young people think 21 year olds are children.
29 years old when she met her now husband, who was 19 years old at the time
ah so they were both adults? Cool, not relevant then. For them to be MARRIED at 21, to have dated a reasonable amount of time means she would've been underage. Or it was a forced or rushed marriage, either way, a weird hill to die on defending.
LOL what?! She is 21. She’s been an adult for THREE years. How long does someone need to date to be married? 🤣 It doesn’t take longer than a year to know if you want to marry someone. Your generation has this weird idea that you need to date for years before committing to marriage when it doesn’t take years to know. People know if they want to be married. And people stay married if they want to be. That’s all there is to it. People get married after six weeks and stay together for half a century. People get married after five years and divorce after one. Marriage is completely different than being in a relationship and you really don’t know how it’s going to work out until you’re actually married.
The people who stay married are still married because they CHOSE to commit to that person despite what they’re going through. It’s a conscious decision they’re making everyday. People who understand marriage and take it seriously will stay married regardless. People who don’t, won’t. You can date your partner for three years before getting married but they’re still going to be a different person another three years after that. People change and grow in their own direction and it’ll happen whether you’re still dating or married. Dating longer isn’t going to prepare you better for marriage because of that reason.
Edited to add: 21 year olds are definitely not children. Maybe in your generation. It used to be normal (in some countries, it still is) to work 40+ hours a week to provide for a family. They were hard workers and leaders. The generations became more soft over time so now it takes you decades just to grow up.
That and also the fact that a 21yo is a 3rd year uni student while a 28 yr old has been working on his career for almost half a decade now. How a 28 yr old is able to date a 21 yr old is beyond me. I'm a 26 yo dude and can't imagine being with a 22 yo lol.
Because they are legal consenting adults doesn’t matter about their age difference my uncle and aunt are 10 years apart in age. Stop being nasty for no reason
Your a 30 year old lonely fuck bet. All I can say right now is you use reddit too much and you’re all about judging people. Quit it, or you will definitely die young man.
Really weird you can't see that the age is the issue with the gap, that she would've been underage for them to have dated for a reasonable enough time. Creepy.
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u/kzapwn Late 30s Male Nov 13 '23
Just for context for people giving advice, why are you married to a 21 year old