Dating age differences

What Is an Acceptable Age Gap In Relationships?

A study found that a zero- to three-year age difference might be ideal. When you begin dating someone new, you're likely evaluating the little details—such as values, attraction, personality, and hobbies—to determine if you and your love interest are compatible. But, there's one factor you may not have taken into consideration that's worth giving a little thought: your age gap. While it's true that an age difference of 10 years or more can increase your chances of having marital problems, is there an ideal age gap that'll set a relationship up for success? As it turns out, science tells us that the answer is yes, and the number is a lot smaller than you might have imagined.

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Take, for example, a relationship in which the two people have a huge age difference. Whether we like it or not, many of us can understand that a middle-aged or older heterosexual man might choose to be with a woman much younger than he is, especially if he has money, power, and status. But a young man with a much older woman? Why would a man want to do that? Focusing on those examples, however, can make us forget the many times that huge age differences did work out in the long term. There are couples like director Sam Taylor-Johnson and her husband, actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson, with 24 years between them; French president Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte Trogneux, who is 25 years older than he is; and the late Tina Turner, who was 16 years older than her husband, Erwin Bach. And, on the opposite end, couples such as actors Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones, who is 25 years younger than he is, and actors Warren Beatty and Annette Bening, who is 21 years younger.

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I once thought I'd fallen in love with an adorable lawyer who started chatting with me while we waited at a crosswalk in Manhattan. I felt an immediate spark, and after we exchanged numbers, we planned our first date without ever bringing up our ages. Then he excused himself to the go to the bathroom while I sat wondering what our relationship age gap meant: Would he want to move faster in a relationship? Would he be thinking about children already?

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Should You Date Across Big Age Differences?

Wellness » Love. We are seeing large age gaps in the dating pool and not just the typical old-man-younger-woman narrative. For example, a AARP study reported that 34 percent of women over 39 years old were dating younger men. Add in the popularization of divorce over the last 50 years and the introduction of dating apps and matters of love, sex, and how we connect are utterly transformed.

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