LCM 2.0

Your answer to that reflects your own set of values about relationships, and to some extent, pre conceived ideas too.

But allow me to share my experience as a person married for 17 years (to date) to my former college professor who is 9 years older than me, ha ha.

When I started courting her on 1986, wifey thought I was just playing a game. So I got busted twice. When we started the relationship, her friends and family was against it. Everybody thought we had a relationship bound not to last, and wifey will be at the losing end. But on December of 1992, we tied the knot.

Age, of course, matters biologically. That’s a fact, and we can’t do anything about it. When we had our first child, wifey is already 37. 2 years after that, we had our daughter. The thought scares me then. But surprisingly, in the 2 pregnancies my wife had, the only inconvenience she felt was difficulty sleeping on the final quarter of pregnancy. She experienced no morning sickness, neither birth pains. In both birth deliveries, she felt nothing so her OB decided to get the baby via CS. By the way, I forgot to mention, she had retroverted uterus.

But in other departments, age will matter if you will allow it to. Love finds a way to make a relationship work.

⁴Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  ⁸Love never fails. 1 Cor 13:4-8

There is no perfect relationship, with or without age issues. And in most break-up, divorce or legal separation, age is hardly a factor.

In every relationship, logic also plays a role. One has to look into the compatibility issue before diving into serious relationship. This include, aside from the age issue, culture differences, future dreams, family affiliations, wealth etc. With these, you will know early on if the shoe fits. Normally, issues are resolved at this stage and commitment can be given long before the problems happen.

Decisions made based “solely” in emotion is bound to fail. Believe me, after several years in relationship, the goosebumps effect of courtship is diminished. But it does not mean you no longer love the person. At this stage, the commitment plays a big factor.

The success of marriage or courtship does not depend only on age, if one chose to make it an issue, then it will be. Your decision on how to go about the relationship should be based on future considerations grounded on facts, with the balance of cerebral and emotional. Norms of society should not shape one’s decision.