Joan Collins, 84, married Percy Gibbons, 52, 15 years ago and Michael Douglas, 72, married Catherine Zeta-Jones 47, 17 years ago but they are the exceptions to the rule. Large age gap relationships are much less likely to last the distance.
I have been Matchmaking for 29 years, having started Sara Eden in 1988 and my wealth of experience has taught me too big an age gap creates huge obstacles. In order for a relationship to work you need to share memories, values and experiences. If one of you was born in the 60’s and one of you was born in the 90’s your childhood experiences are likely to be vastly different and you need to ask yourself are your life stages too?
How are you going to feel if you’re mistaken for your child’s grandfather at graduation? Becoming a father at 50 means you’re likely to be over 70 when that ceremony takes place.
Recent research in the Journal of Population Economics has proven this by suggesting relationships where one partner is much younger that the other tend to last for a maximum of 6 to 10 years. “Couples have to make a lot of joint decisions for example, where to live, how many children to have, and how to spend their money. Couples who are more dissimilar, and age difference is one source of dissimilarity, may be less likely to agree on these joint decisions. This will then become a source of conflict.”
At last some research to prove my theory!
As time passes the basic nature of the relationship changes particularly as one partner retires and is less active than the other.
So my advice would be pick a partner you can grow old with, stay healthy with and enjoy yourself with in later life.
Karen
