Age in Relationships

[Bubbles]

I just read the Scarleteen article "What's Age Got To Do With It?" and realised it's not something I thought about much since I haven't really socialised since finishing high school, where there were grade levels and everyone was sorted by age anyway.

I imagine only considering people the exact same age as you could be limiting, but I can see how like... 8 years is a rather significant gap. I don't know what kinds of age ranges people usually find healthy relationships in most commonly. What kind of age difference would that article be referring to? And what is generally the best age range to seek relationships in? (I know there would always be some healthy relationships with large age gaps but I just mean in general, like to avoid risks posed in that article I mentioned for instance)

[Sam W]

Hi Bubbles,

The article is built around data that's primarily about teenagers, especially teen girls, and significantly older partners (often men in their twenties). Those types of age gaps, where the younger person is in a considerably different stage of life than the older person, are the ones that often pose the greatest risk of being unhealthy (or just plain not working because people in radically different stages of life often don't have compatible goals or needs). Age is most likely to be an issue if the older person is leveraging it somehow to control or manipulate the other person (like saying they know what's best for their partner because they're older). That's especially true if the younger person is a teenager, because an adult looking to date someone in their teens likely has some very not-good reasons for doing so.

I don't know off the top of my head if there's data on what age gaps, or lack thereof, seem correlated to healthier relationships (if you're super curious I could see if there are studies out there that look at that). I'd say anecdotally from my work as a sex educator and personal experience, ten year gaps seem to be the point were age-based incompatibility or other issues seem to pop up, but as you pointed out there will always be relationships with big age differences that are happy and healthy.

[Bubbles]

Oh okay. So as a hypothetical example, if one person was something like... 22, and the other was around 27-ish maybe, would that be reasonably normal or a bit of a stretch?

I totally get what you mean about the teen thing. I read a post here about someone who was 13 with a guy who was 18 and that made me really uneasy, not just because it obviously breaks consent laws but because teen years are kind of vulnerable and even if they weren't so young that they were under age of consent, I could definitely imagine them at risk of being manipulated by their older partner like you said. I feel like financial manipulation could be a big risk too maybe if the older one tries to make the other dependent on them then that would be kind of a scary way to control them?

[Sam W]

You're absolutely right that financial manipulation or dependence is something that can pop up in relationships with big age gaps (making someone financially dependent is something that often arises in abusive relationships with partners of any age, but if someone is at an age where they haven't had much chance, if any, to start building financial independence, that dynamic can be even more severe).

With your example, it depends a lot on the context and dynamics of the relationship (like the example questions at the end of the article you mentioned). People with a five year age gap may still have a lot in common and be in similar places in their life, and be looking for similar things in terms of what they want from relationships, or the opposite could be true. That's part of why it's tricky to nail down an "acceptable" age gap in a lot of cases; there are going to be a lot of factors that influence whether or not age plays a big role and whether that role is positive or negative. Does that make sense?

[Bubbles]

Yeah that makes sense. Is there an age gap that's totally safe though where it's unlikely age would be the source of any issues at all? Would a 2 or 3 year age gap be safe from that stuff? Or is there definitively no problem-free (In terms of issues caused by age) age gap?

[Siân]

Hey Bubbles,

Relationships are so varied that we can't give hard and fast rules for what a "good" age difference is. In your twenties, a 2 or 3 age difference would often be fine, depending on the exact people involved. We can't say that something is *definitely* going to be ok because these dynamics can also crop up in relationships where everyone is the same age. Does that make sense?

[Mo]

One thing I've noticed, when it comes to age gaps, is that if the older person is aware of the risk of an unequal power balance in the relationahip, and they're openly talking to a younger partner (or potential partner) about this and about how they are planning on making sure it isn't a problem, that's a really good sign. If someone just says "age is just a number!!!!" and that's it, I might worry that they aren't prepared to do the work to make sure it's a healthy relationship.