Working with teenage girls, there’s a lot of things I worry about because the teenage years are so perplexing, especially with teenage girls who are often searching for a sense of belonging to the point that they are willing to starve themselves, cut themselves out of pain and shame, sleep with boys just to feel wanted, and sadly, even attempt to take their own lives when they feel as if they don’t and will never belong.
This search for belonging, often sends teenage girls into unhealthy relationships that further damage their self-esteem and often expose them to other damaging factors such as unprotected sex, drugs, alcohol and violence.
During the teenage years, young people are trying to come into their own and often rebel against their parents and other adults, which is why they often chose friends and relationships that their parents disapprove of, including dating older men.
I hate when I am working with a teenage girl and she tells me she is dating an older man, usually because I know that this relationship, while to her may be idyllic and dreamy, is more often a disaster waiting to happen on so many levels.
Recently a client of mine who is 17, started dating a 23 year old man, and while the age difference isn’t drastic, one has to think, what would a 23 year old man who could date anyone 18 and up, want with a 17 year old high school student? Did someone say sex? Of course they had a lot of that, often unprotected, but luckily she never got pregnant although she hasn’t gotten tested for any sexually transmitted diseases. I told her when she initially talked about him pursuing her, his reason was that there aren’t any girls 21 and up that were “cool”, that there just wasn’t something right about a man who should be on the verge of finishing college, dating someone who’s in high school.
I told her that had to say something about his motives, personality, etc., but of course she didn’t see this as a red flag, but was instead flattered that someone who could date anyone his age or older, chose to date her. After several months of bliss and sex, he started treating her badly and her moods were very erratic, varied by however they were doing at the moment. If they were good, she was happy, going to class, doing good. If he was ignoring her, she was depressed, missing class, consumed with anxiety.
Eventually he left her for a woman his own age and that should have been the end of it, but now she is talking about dating his OLDER brother who is married with a kid, but text messaged her one night at 3Am, “I think you are so sexy, and I’ve been fantasizing about you”, from his wive’s phone nonetheless. Once again, all bad signs, but she’s an emotional, hormonal, vulnerable, teenager trying to belong so she see’s this as another challenge.
Why Do Teenage Girls Date Older Men?
Some of the reasons include genuine chemistry. Chemistry doesn’t know have rigid age boundaries so there is a chance that there are genuine feelings there. Another reason includes greater financial and physical independence, which for a young teenage girl looking for independence, an escape from her family or surroundings, is very appealing. Also, older men are considered more mature and experienced in all aspects of life which is attractive to a young girl, especially one looking to escape her life.
The thing is, teenager girls often don’t realize just how unequal the relationship with an older man usually is. Usually the older man has more power simply from the fact that he is older, and they usually have more money and resources than the teenager or her friends. This takes her out of being equal, especially when it comes to making decisions, and because he is older, she will often get dictated to and assume that he is right or knows best. Also, because he will typically have more money than her and her peers, it will be easy for him to impress her by doing simple things such as taking her to the movies, a fastfood restaurant, picking her up from school or buying her a t-shirt or shoes.
Having an older boyfriend also becomes a status symbol, a way for the teenage girl to say that she is already grown-up and part of the adult world. She is no longer a child like her peers. Because of this, it may make it easier for her to start neglecting things like her peers and school work. After all, why should she worry about passing a chemistry test when her boyfriend is worried about paying his rent or losing his job. School and friends may start seeming childish in comparison to her boyfriend’s problems.
Teenage girls also often date older men to rebel against their parents, and the more the parents fight against it, the more likely the boyfriend is seen as an allie and will help begin to alienate her from her parents, under-minding their decisions and further breaking apart her support system, while strengthening his hold and isolating her.
Consequences of Dating Older Men
There are not only psychological risks involved with dating an older man and trying to fit into an adult world precociously, there are also dangers of being exposed to drugs, alcohol, abuse, and an increase rate of sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy. Young teenage girls who contract sexually transmitted diseases often get them from older boyfriends. Older men usually have had more sexual experience that often include risky sexual behaviors. The young teenage girl is not likely to question his sexual behavior or health status, and even if she did, she is likely to take his word for it instead of asking him to go get tested with her.
Teenage girls who date older men are more likely to get pregnant than teenage girls who date same age males for several reasons:
- Older men seem to expect the teenage girl to take responsibility for contraceptive and often will use none if not asked.
- Teenage girls today are less likely to use birth control compared to women in the past.
- Teenage girls may actually want to get pregnant for several reasons. See my post Young, Poor and Pregnant.
- An older man may actually not care if he gets the younger girl pregnant or may do so on purpose for control.
One study done by the California Center for Health reports that the average age of the fathers who got a 12 year old pregnant was 19.7, and a 13 year old pregnant was 17.2.
What To Do If Your Teenage Daughter Is Dating An Older Man
First of all, don’t freak out. Doing so may just push your daughter further into his arms. Try to talk to your daughter, express your concerns. Let her know that you only have her best interests at heart. She may still rebel and insist on seeing him, so don’t be afraid to lay down and enforce rules while she is still under 18, living in your house and going to school. Most of these relationships usually fizzle out if the teenager is allowed to come into her own in a healthy way, but often not before she is scarred in someway. A lucky few end up in marriage, which is often proceeded by a child and continues with multiple children, poverty, physical and substance abuse.
Try talking to the boyfriend. Let him know that if he really cares about her, he will abide by your wishes since you only have her best interest in mind and he should too if he cares about her. Depending on the age of your daughter and the age of the man, it may be appropriate to get law enforcement involved. Most of the teenage girls I work with who are dating older men are seeking something they feel like they aren’t getting from home, and while it may seem impossible to please your ever changing and complex teenager, try to talk with her, listen to and understand her. Otherwise, she will search for and find someone or something else to attach herself too.
Licensed Mental Health Counselor 
I agree that all the answers above are reasons a teenage girl dates an older man, but another to consider is teenage girls are more mature than teenage boys. An older man challenges them intellectually. Perhaps the girl is not interested in high school events like football games, dances and such.
I do know instances where the relationship has worked out well for both; I think it depends on both parties and the age difference.
The main thing is to make sure the teenage girl can talk, reserve judgement and find out the reasons she has chosen to date someone older than her; keep the lines of communication open and make an effort to meet the ‘boyfriend.’ Acceptance and inclusion is sometimes more of a deterent than ‘in your face’ rejection and non-inclusion by family which may make her stay with him out of spite.
You always put things better than I could have! I think a lot of times parents still see 16 and 17 year olds as children and 20 somethings as adults, so they don’t want to lose their child to another adult. I think if the age difference isn’t major and if the other person is positive (i.e., in college, caring, supportive) compared to negative like a lot of my students go for (high school drop out, alcoholic, abusive), then the parents would be more likely to at least entertain the idea. I currently have a high school senior who just turned 18 and her boyfriend is 26 so everything is legal, but he is extremely controlling and doesn’t even like her coming to the counseling group she’s in because there are boys there and I am a male therapist so she has to lie to him about going to counseling so that he doesn’t get mad. I know that factor doesn’t have anything to do with age, but it still bothers me.
I’d like to ask some one for some advice I took in a young girl last year who told me a lot off things but I’m now not sure what to belive she told me that at 3 different ages her dad had abused her and 2 sisters but one went in to care not sure why but the girl that I had at my house and her sister lived with him for years after wards and only when she was 15and a half she decided to go live with her MUM but then she moved down to my home she told me she has been raped but her MUM did not want to go to the police because she might loose her job . she told cahms the doctors and other authorities different stories she is now apparently in some sort off relationship with a 47 year old I don’t understand how she can see a man off 47 her father is 40 she has harmed herself so much but from what I have learned a lot off people have been involved but she does go to a few meetings saying nothing the guy who apparently raped her got a text message saying sorry I said you raped me my head was in a bad place from her its like what is real with her cahms say she is 18 on paper but not in her head she is much younger HELP ! Me to try and understand how she came into my life and wrecked it by now seeing my ex partner
I wonder (and I look at this from the perspective of long life experience) if dating older men, which I did (my 19 to his 31), is not also an indication of unresolved daughter-father issues. I had absentee father issues, as do many women in our culture, and looked to an older man as protector and wise influence. This tends to idolize the older male, who is likely to prove just as fallible as the men of comparable age. What I tell my middle-aged male friends who chase younger women is that they are likely looking for either a dominant Daddy or a Sugar Daddy. The men don’t like to hear it, but it comes out true again and again.
The main thing with your daughter dating an older man is the LEGAL boundaries, as they are there for a reason and apply to everyone, no exceptions. I know in the UK the legal age of consent is 16, so you really can’t do much about it if your daughter is over 16. What you can do? Talk to her. Tell her about contraception etc… and be there for her if she needs it.
I will admit, I am not a mother, but a 17 year old girl.
So this is all first hand experience, at the risk of seeming a little big headed, I am very mature for my age. I don’t get on with people my age because their lives are over taken by pointless and irritating drama, I don’t want to get involved in, I have been with my fair share of older men and my partners range from my age to 26.
I meet a man, get to know him, hang out with him a bit, and the age issue sort of fades away, we get on very well and we may start something romantic. But, only one of these men has ever dried to ‘dive in’ without a condom and my reaction was “Woah, no. Condom, Now.” Because I understand the importance of contraception, I am also going to go on the birth control pill as a back up just incase of condom failure.
If your daughter is legally allowed to have sex, you cannot do anything about it.
If she isn’t then you need to share with her how much shit she can get her bloke into if they have any kind of sexual contact, teach her about contraception, trust her judgement, if the relationship goes badly, it’s just a life lesson learnt and she will have to carry on with her life having some experience in the world of men. (But that is why contraception is so important as that kind of going badly will last atleast 18 years).
Thanks for taking the time to read and share your experiences. You seem to be one of the exceptions, a young lady who is mature enough to handle dating an older guy without getting used or mistreated. There are no doubt many cases where genuine chemistry begins between teenage girls and an older men, but generally young girls aren’t as mature as you are and are seeking the attention of older men for various reasons that may seem harmless initially. That doesn’t seem to be your case. You gave some great advice and it is difficult once a young girl is of legal age of consent for her parents to do anything except try to be there for her and guide her if things start to go bad, even if it breaks their hearts. I prefer for young people to not date anyone more than two years older than they are, at least until they turn 18, but that’s just because most men who date teenage girls have ulterior motives or don’t have the social, financial and/or mental skills to date women their age. I wish you luck in life and love. It sounds like you know what you are doing.
I find this comment quiet bizarre.
“most men who date teenage girls have ulterior motives or don’t have the social, financial and/or mental skills to date women their age.”
I assume you mean older men based on the context, but most teen boys who are dating teen girls share the same “ulterior motives”. I assume by this you mean they just want sex. I assure you as a former teen boy, the only thing teen boys want from teen girls and women is SEX. In fact the only teen girls they talk to who aren’t related to them are ones they want to have sex with, or ones who are close to the ones they want sex with.
I am interested on what planet do teen boys not want teen sex from teen females? Every teen boy I knew had 3 focuses in life. One was sex with teen girls. two was school and education or work. three was sports.
You mention They also do not have the social, financial and or mental skills to date older women. Further if a man is say 30, and doesn’t have the social, financial or mental skills to date older women, then who else is he suppose to date but a younger one? Or should he just kill himself?
I find this comment quiet bizarre.
“most men who date teenage girls have ulterior motives or don’t have the social, financial and/or mental skills to date women their age.”
I assume you mean older men based on the context, but most teen boys who are dating teen girls share the same “ulterior motives”. I assume by this you mean they just want sex. I assure you as a former teen boy, the only thing teen boys want from teen girls and women is SEX. In fact the only teen girls they talk to who aren’t related to them are ones they want to have sex with, or ones who are close to the ones they want sex with.
I am interested on what planet do teen boys not want teen sex from teen females? Every teen boy I knew had 3 focuses in life. One was sex with teen girls. two was school and education or work. three was sports.
You mention They also do not have the social, financial and or mental skills to date older women. Further if a man is say 30, and doesn’t have the social, financial or mental skills to date older women, then who else is he suppose to date but a younger one? Or should he just kill himself?
Thanks for reading and responding. There is never an excuse for a 30 year old man to be dating an underage girl. Men who target underage girls usually do so because they can’t attract women their ages due to financial, social-emotional or other deficits. I currently work in a jail where I counsel many men in their twenties, thirties and older who are here for having sexual relationships with girls who were 16, 14, 12 and all thought it was appropriate, yet they sit across from me waiting to be transferred to prison and are labeled as sexual offenders. So to answer your question they can date someone who is younger as long as that person is an adult or they can find someone or their level if they don’t have the ability to elevate their current situation. My current girlfriend is 9 years younger than I am, but she is 27 and not only an adult, but she is intelligent, independent and capable of having a mature relationship.
I bring multiple perspectives to this. I am, currently, the middle aged mother of a teenage boy, and while he is sweet and considerate and thoughtful, he has all the social grace of a baby elephant. He is very bright, but his intellectual development is way ahead of his social development, and he simply isn’t ready to date. His father didn’t have a girlfriend until college, and I expect my son to follow the same pattern. When he does start to date, he’ll probably want to start dating girls younger than he because the maturity level will be a better match.
I have also mentored a number of teenaged girls over the past 25 years, as a foster mother and as a Big Sister. One in particular got involved with a recently divorced man who was 12 years older than she, and in fact ultimately married him. It went reasonably well until she grew up. While he was not abusive, he could not deal with a mature woman and had an affair with – you guessed it – another teenaged girl. ,The young woman I had mentored ended up divorced with 2 children. She is now in her late 30s, and has struggled her whole adult life. Another of my girls fell in love with a 24 year old man when she was 14. I was horrified, but set down rules for him as well as her. They were never to be alone together, not even (or perhaps especially) in a car. Any dates had to be double dates or chaperoned. They could talk as long as they liked in my living room, but anyone else’s home was off limits. More than once I drove and sat in the back row of a theater while they sat 10 rows ahead of me, or drove them to a restaurant and sat out in the car and read until they were done. I have to say that the man in question never broke those rules and never encouraged her to do so. Ultimately he put her through college, they bought a house, and married several of years ago, when she was 22. For all my fears at the start, he has proven to be an honorable man who has encouraged her to become the awesome woman that she now is.
And then there is the girl I was myself. I started college a few months before my 17th birthday. I was, at that point, dating a 24 year old graduate student. He was intelligent and interesting, and unlike my age mates was interesting in things other than sports and sex. We discussed books. He introduced me to authors who were new to me. He took me to the symphony, to plays, to folk music concerts and poetry open mic nights. He was respectful of me, of my study time and my opinions, but he was also very aware that I was not mature and was careful not to put me in situations I wasn’t ready for. I tried, at his urging, dating a few men my own age and found myself bored out of my mind – when I wasn’t pushing away grabby hands! What ended the relationship was a combination of his going to Oxford (England) for a post-doc while I was still in Indiana, and that he was ready for marriage and a family, and I wasn’t yet 20. He is still my friend. I dated a couple of other men considerably older than I after that, a medical student and later a history professor 14 years my senior. None of those experiences were bad. When I ultimately married myself, it was to a man my own age who was a graduate school classmate of mine.
All of which is a very long way of saying that one has to consider the individuals in question when faced with something that looks, at first glance, like a mismatch in age. A 17 year old girl can be more mature than a 25 year old man, or can be looking for security that she does not have, or for the excitement of the adult world. But given my experience and observations, I don’t automatically assume the worst. I will talk to the young woman, and be available, and watch.
Although I kind of disagree with you, I see your point and agree that there are combinations where age doesn’t matter much. As for my opinion, I wouldn’t allow a 14 year old to date a 24 year old because in my opinion a 14 year old is still a child who should be focusing on age appropriate things while a 24 year old is a man who should be dating grown women, but in your situation it worked out so what do I really know other than based on statistics, it’s generally not a good idea. My current girlfriend is a little more than 9 years younger than I am and most of the time that is not an issue at all. Thanks for sharing your insight and maybe because I am in the field where the worst happens more often than the best, I have to assume the worst and hope for the best 🙂
But you know something? The way Gwenylis described how the relationship between the 14-year-old girl and the 24-year-old man was handled is exactly how the Cuban culture handles such relationships. That is, if a 14-year-old girl wishes to court a 24-year-old man, she must have a chaperon present with her and the young man at all times whenever they are out on a date. As a matter of fact, most Cubans even apply this same custom when the teenage girl and her boyfriend are both the same age. As a result, they have lower unwanted pregnancies and STD’s than young people here in the American culture. I say that if this customer works in the Cuban culture, why can’t it work in the American culture rather than parents always throwing a fit whenever their 13, 14, 15, or 16-year-old daughter introduces them to a boyfriend who looks even slightly older than high school age? Somehow prohibitive austerity just doesn’t seem to work anymore in these situations. Adolescent girls and young adult men are just so much different now than they were years ago back when talk show host Steve Wilkos was 16 years old. Perhaps that fact could explain why his lectures to his guests on how he only dated girls 16 years old and younger when he was 16 years old seem to go in one ear and out the other with them. They just can’t relate to his archaic logic.
But you know something? The way Gwenylis described how the relationship between the 14-year-old girl and the 24-year-old man was handled is exactly how the Cuban culture handles such relationships. That is, if a 14-year-old girl wishes to court a 24-year-old man, she must have a chaperon present with her and the young man at all times whenever they are out on a date. As a matter of fact, most Cubans even apply this same custom when the teenage girl and her boyfriend are both the same age. As a result, they have lower unwanted pregnancies and STD’s than young people here in the American culture. I say that if this custom works in the Cuban culture, why can’t it work in the American culture rather than parents always throwing a fit whenever their 13, 14, 15, or 16-year-old daughter introduces them to a boyfriend who looks even slightly older than high school age? Somehow prohibitive austerity just doesn’t seem to work anymore in these situations. Adolescent girls and young adult men are just so much different now than they were years ago back when talk show host Steve Wilkos was 16 years old. Perhaps that fact could explain why his lectures to his guests on how he only dated girls 16 years old and younger when he was 16 years old seem to go in one ear and out the other with them. They just can’t relate to his archaic logic.
I get what is being said here, but it does noy always appy especially in the township. Even the sollutions do not apply.
I hear you. These situations, opinions, options and solutions will not apply to every situation or culture, but for the most part, when it comes to mainstream western cultures, it’s not usually healthy for young girls to date grown men, but they are always exceptions to pretty much every rule and circumstance.
Oh, and thanks for reading and taking the time to reply. All opinions and views are welcome. Thanks again.
About teens who date older men or women: genuine mutual love and respect must be the prime prerequisite; if that is absent, the relationship is unhealthy and not okay.
You said it beautifully.
Please help. I am the mother of a 14 year old daughter. I just discovered that she is “dating” a 20 year old felon who is currently IN prison. She met him on FB. I called the prison, they are putting him on a strict “no contact” order but my daughter is freaking out and begging me to let her carry on this relationship with this person. I am at my wit’s end. All she did was cry all night long and she blames me for ruining her life. Although, I KNOW that all teenage girls get their hearts broken and she will eventually get over this, her pain is real and it is tearing me apart. I know I am the cause of her pain but I also know I am doing what is right!
My heart goes out to you, Sara J. Then again, you still wouldn’t like your daughter’s boyfriend if he were a 15-year-old juvenile delinquent doing time in a juvenile detention center. Therefore, your concerns go way beyond simply the age difference between your daughter and her boyfriend.
when I was 16 I met a professional baseball player of 24. He was talented, charismatic, and my parents adored him. In fact, I probably wouldn’t have talked to him in the first place if my pushy mother hadn’t insisted. We started “dating” which quickly evolved into all kinds of sexual acts. I was a naive virgin at the time. I kept the secret of what we did behind closed doors from everyone. I was so ashamed. Still my parents persisted to encourage me to be with him because of who he was. When baseball season ended, he went back home and –it turns out–married another girl who was pregnant. He came back the next season, married, and I was determined to stay away. But my mom initiated contact, listened to his sob story about how he loved me, and pushed me to start seeing him again. I suppose I was willing. I didn’t refuse. But I don’t know that I had the experience to reject this man who was the first man to ever touch me. We spent the summer making up and breaking up as I tried my best to resist him. He left again and I never heard from him again.
I still have a lot of hurt 30 years later. It has driven a wedge between my parents and me that I don’t think can be forgiven. I feel like the victim of child abuse and I feel they allowed it to happen. I hate them and him and I’ve never had a “normal” relationship since. I married a man who is cold and refuses to have sex with me or even touch me whatsoever.
Hi, sorry it took me so long to respond. Thank you for your comment. I feel like you really were abused. At 16, no matter how adult you may have looked or thought you were, you still needed guidance in certain areas and your parents let you down. It sounds like your mother in some ways wanted to live vicariously through you so she pushed you to date this guy. Maybe she even thought that if you ended up with him it would be for your own good as you would have wealth (and so would she). In the end, she wasn’t really looking out for your best interest. She didn’t know or didn’t care about the mental, sexual and emotional issues dating someone who was not only older, but really wasn’t available would do to you. Now that you are older and “damaged” you have chosen a relationship that serves some sort of purpose, even if it’s negatively. Maybe you chose to marry a man who is cold so that you wouldn’t have to worry about sex and being touched in that way again. You have a lot of hate and anger in you and I understand why, but now that you are older and able to process all of this information, I would strongly encourage you to go to therapy with a good therapist so that you can get “unstuck”. You don’t want to spend the rest of your life this way or you will never be as happy as you can be and you won’t be living your best life possible. It’s terrible that your parents weren’t being protective of you when you were 16, but now is the time to take back some of that and reclaim your life by doing the work necessary to truly move on. In the end you will be happier and will learn to love and be loved the way you deserve to be.
Just to be clear I think we all agree no one should break laws and date underage girls/boys. But age of consent varies by state and country. I assume the age of consent in your state is 18, whereas it is 16 in mine. Also there are plenty of people, expecially on the lower end of society, prison people included, who never really grew up but grew older. Prison is a good example, because if you went to jail at 19 and come out at 27, you are not going to be where most 27 year olds are, you are going to be in a 19 year old mind frame. But in a state/country where age of consent is 16, I don’t see why it would be wrong so long as the man/woman is following all the laws.
I understand your point and from a legal standpoint there would be nothing wrong if the legal age of consent is 16 or whatever. However, there is usually something wrong when grown adults are looking at high school age kids as possible romantic partners. You gave a great example; sometimes tragedies, drugs, alcohol, abuse, etc., can stunt someone’s social-emotional growth to where they may be 27 chronologically but are still 14 emotionally and mentally. They will find it easier to date and get along with much younger people and are more likely to be ostracized by their same age peers. As long as it is legally acceptable, then I guess it is okay, however we have to be careful because this is how man people intentionally or unintentionally break the law. One guy I was talking to who was near forty told me that he wished he could date people close to his age, but he’s here for having sex with someone under 12.
We live in a country that values youth, particularly in women. Historically speaking, a woman over the age of 25-26 was viewed as old or at the very least less than ideal in terms of beauty and attractiveness. I mean there are some exception in hollywood too of women who age and still look great, like halle berry, but it is not the norm and involves alot of surgery. For the 100,000 or so years of human existence, 16 would be a fairly normal age to get married and have kids.
Not until the last few decades have all this concern about pedophiles really come to the forefront and there has been almost a crusade to enforce strict age limits on sexual relations. I think there is something mentally wrong with people who want to have sex with children (like 13 or 12 or under). In my province the age of consent was recently raised from 14 to 16. That being said once I became an adult (18) I had no real desire nor attraction to underaged girls.
Generally speaking I don’t find 16 year old’s attractive, but there are exceptions who look older than they are. For instance, when I was 16, I looked 21. I hardly got Id’ed going into a liquor store or buying cigarettes from friends (I never smoked).
So you are a mental health counselor. So are people like that man you described, are they viewed as simply people with a mental sickness or illness that needs treatment. Or are they just bad people/evil.
I also wanted to ask you, because it is implied alot in society and it seems to be a position where you at least seem sympathetic to. What precisely about it to the relations (where legal) do a large group of people hold objection to 16/17/18 year old etc dating men in their 20s or 30s?
I understand why women object here (jealousy) but am I missing a good rational objection from a man?
I recently found out that a “man” I have been dating for 9 months has been having sex with a 19 year old girl (in her parents house). I think it’s disgusting. I can’t figure out how a grown “man” can even get aroused in another person’s home (much closer to his age than the girl) and why a girl that age would want to be with him. He doesn’t have a great job or a ton of money…consequently, he recently lost his license even, due to DUI. As soon as I found this out, I ended our relationship; still trying to figure out tho WTF?!
Hi, you may never understand all the reasons this happened. A lot of men will sleep with any woman of age he is sexually attracted to, even if she is barely legal. Many 19 year old girls are still trying to find themselves and who knows what her mental dynamics are… maybe she has daddy issues and that’s why she was attracted to him, or she was pleased to be receiving the attention of an older man and that made her feel special regardless of what we as true adults see as his downfalls (DUI, no money, etc.). Someone who is 19 isn’t necessarily going to take that into as much consideration as we will because we are much more reality and future oriented as adults. You did the best thing you could do for you which is to end the relationship. Now you just need to continue to move on and stop trying to figure out WTF because that’s only going to lead to your carrying around unnecessary emotional baggage.
Thank you for responding. I’m happy to hear the thoughts of a professional.
It’s been over a month now, since I ended things and even though I ended it with him (after I learned of him and the 19 year old), I’m seeing a therapist. The things I’ve “discovered” are so disturbing and I’m having a difficult time coping and trying to understand. It seems that my therapist believes he’s a narcissist, and after reading about narcissism, I do too. It’s scary. I believe the 19 yr old is his latest “supply”. I have waffled back and forth about telling her (warning), but this far I have decided to leave it be. From what I understand, the narcissist is always ten steps ahead and probably already has his story lined up, in case I were to tell her. I am also afraid he might seek revenge on me…he obviously has no boundaries with anything else. Idk…now I know she’s one of a few he’s been seeing and I found out he is using words I said to hi on this young girl, which makes me ill. Just when I thought he couldn’t sink lower. I also found out he had a fake job…I’m sure it was a cover for another “relationship”.
I think the counselor has a point. As a man, who has been rejected and stood up and shut down by many women (never cheated on as far as I know though), I can say it is useless to try to figure out why someone doesn’t like you or cheats on you. The answer usually boils down to they like someone else MORE. And its usually because they think the other person is more attractive than you.
Studies show that men view the ideal age of beauty of a woman to be around 22-19 depending on the study. Historically a woman who was 30 would be considered older and past child bearing years. Women also tend to be most fertile at that 16-22 range so it is likely just biology at work her. Men are probably subconsciously attracted to younger women due to them having more signs of fertility and therefore being better potential mates.
I appreciate your response to my situation, however…it turns out that this so called “man” is a serial cheater. Seems that this 19 yr old isn’t the only one he was involved with during our relationship. She just happened to be the first one I discovered.
I disagree with you saying that it has to do with looks. I think it has to do with his ego, and him being a narcissist. I believe this 19 yr old will be easier to control. Not onto his game.
She recently posted a screen shot of a text conversation between the two of them and he made a unique comment to her that I used to say to HIM. Clearly, it’s about “hooking” her…
Oh, my god! The fact that the guy you’d been dating had not only had sex with a 19 year old girl–in her parents’ house-yet, but got his license pulled due to DUI is not only disgusting, but it’s a really dangerous situation. You did the wise thing by ending this relationship, because this is clearly a dangerous situation for everybody–he’s a dangerous guy!
I’m interested in your thoughts of a 45 year old male in a relationship with an 18 year old ( 17 when started). Truth is they seem to be deeply in love and are both incredible people in their individual way. However, I can’t accept it at all. It makes me feel ill and sad. Sad because I see she seems not to really fit in with her own age group and its hard for my age group to embrace her on our level because clearly she’s a teenager. And we all have teenage children. Plus, I can see the power imbalance which is subtle. Everyone in the group have found their way to deal with it. However, I’ve made it clear I’m not okay with it. Problem is his become apart of the group as due to business and friendship. I’ve been told to “let it go”, “she’s legal” and “just don’t think about it too much”. Obviously, that is how others have dealt with it and it seems to be working for them. It seems the men just get on with it. And the only comment is ” it’s not my daughter”. I have had my partner say “it’s not toxic”so he just doesn’t think about it. Which infuriated me because I can’t help seeing a middle age man fucking a teenager. I think it is toxic clearly because of the age difference. I have upset the couple by letting them know how I feel so that’s help me because now I don’t have to conform to their desired behaviour of treating it as normal and she won’t think we are close so I won’t have to deal with sharing or giving advise. I’m trying to find a solid solution so I can let it go and be in a room with them and not feel physically ill. At the moment my mantra is she has a mother.
I agree with you that the age difference is huge and I hate to see that the relationship formed before she was even 18. To me, personally, that means that there is not only something wrong with him, but also with her. A 44 year old man should not have anything in common with a 17 year old girl, and that doesn’t change much at 45 and 18, but it just becomes legal. Honestly this is not your problem. You don’t necessarily have to accept it, but I feel like you are investing more personal energy in it than necessary. Obviously the guy has some issues, maybe going through a mid-life crisis, but that is his problem and not yours so don’t worry about it. The same goes with the girl. Maybe she has some daddy issues, or she is looking for an older man to take care of her, or she is just one of those people who is willing to be with anyone who gives her the time of day. Again, that is her problem not yours. Chances are, in time this relationship will fall apart but only time will tell when/if that ever happens. In the meantime just remember that it’s them and not you.
Thanks for responding. You were right about me investing to much energy. I tortured myself trying to understand it all. However, you will be pleased to know that I have let it go. I’m also pleased I did say something to them as it has help with setting up some clear boundaries. Mostly, I have found my role in this group and I can be true and authentic without the conflict going on inside me. I feel relieved and lighter. Thank you
Licensedmentalhealthcounselor? Sorry if I keep posting a reply twice. What happens is I make a typo and then I have to post the same thing a second time with the correction of the typo on it. I’ll try to be more careful.
Just want to say that a girl who just turned 17 is with a 65 year old married man and the parents r concerned for her safety cause the 65 year old man threatened her parents with a bomb and also shuck his pistol at her dad in town in mo so seems very odd like something is not right with the 65 year old married man that his wife made several comments that she don’t like the 17 year old at her house but the parents n grandparents even her aunt and uncle have tried to tell her that something not right with a man of his age to do thangs that seems so odd and strange but the parents have done all they no to do to help the 17 year old but I’m just from the outside looking in and seems the 17 year old is immature and the married 65 year old man had no business disrupting a perfectly happy family That’s my opion I’ve even tryd talk to the 17 year old myself that she need be careful at my neighbors house cause seem odd they don’t have kids they allways got a boy with them to the boy had lipstick on in town aswell just very odd I pray for the 17 year old and her family im really worried about the 17 year old and scared to no who my neighbor is across the rd cause it is plain to see that is not right well none my business I’m only a neighbor
I am interested in learning what motivates this type of psychological behaviour. Why does it make you so angry what kind of relationship other people have? Especially in this age where the modern media is pushing all kinds of weird relationships like homosexuality and single mothers and all that new age stuff.
I understand you feel sad because she doesn’t fit in with her group or yours, but most people feel as if they don’t fit in at that age. Very few teens feel they really fit in and many adults feel this way too.
Why does ” seeing a middle age man fucking a teenager.” make you mad or ill. I really want to understand your point of view clearly, I am not trying to be hostile, just to understand your thinking.
” Plus, I can see the power imbalance which is subtle.”
What is wrong with a power imbalance in a couple. I know plenty of adult couples and almost none of them are 50-50. There is usually an imbalance. One is rich, other is poor, one man has his wife on lockdown and at home all the time and tells her how to dress, the other woman has her husband on lockdown and tells him how to dress and where he can go and how he cannot hang out with his friends and leave her home alone. In fact come to think of it, the balanced relationships I’ve known of are marked by two people constantly fighting for control of the relationship for who will be in charge and the boss.
Why do you feel ill by it.
I agree 100% with you! Just because this girl (and I mean girl) is “legal”, doesn’t make this situation right. It truly is disgusting, and although she obviously has issues, I think the blame goes primarily on the man in this scenario. It’s takibf advantage and it’s disgustingly opportunistic. Just because others choose to accept it, doesn’t mean you have to.
The “man” I was with us taking advantage too…37 and 19…? Seriously? Going to her parents house and fucking her? I almost threw up when I found out…seriously made me physically ill to discover this. Then, when confronted, his response was, “I can see and fuck whoever I want”. Gross…
Sorry but you are the one with the problem. Just listen to yourself. If the young person in question was someone very unattractive to you would you have the same reaction? I seriously doubt it. You are jealous because it was someone you would have liked to be with. Same goes for interracial dating. People only care when it is a good looking girl or guy and they get jealous…unless they are just really racist bigots. No help for them.
But you know something? That was how the relationship between Bo Derek and John Derek began in the 1970s. Bo Derek was 16 years old, and John Derek was in his forties. Ultimately they got married. By then, Bo Derek was 19 years old. The public had their fair share of skepticism over whether the marriage would last. However, their marriage was successful and lasted right up until John Derek. On the other hand, Macauley Culkin and Rachel Miner were both 17 years old when they got married in 1998. Their marriage only lasted for 2 years and ended in disaster. Macauley Culkin eventually became a train wreck. He would have been a nobody if his aunt, actress Bonnie Bedelia, had gotten him into show business. I say that the Puritanical Establishment is not always right about these things, but feel free to disagree with me.
But you know something? That was how the relationship between Bo Derek and John Derek began in the 1970s. Bo Derek was 16 years old, and John Derek was in his forties. Ultimately they got married. By then, Bo Derek was 19 years old. The public had their fair share of skepticism over whether the marriage would last. However, their marriage was successful and lasted right up until John Derek died in the 1990s. On the other hand, Macauley Culkin and Rachel Miner were both 17 years old when they got married in 1998. Their marriage only lasted for 2 years and ended in disaster. Macauley Culkin eventually became a train wreck. He would have been a nobody if his aunt, actress Bonnie Bedelia, had gotten him into show business. I say that the Puritanical Establishment is not always right about these things, but feel free to disagree with me.
Have gone through your message, but I think sometimes you might be wrong on your view, I dated this 14yrs girl, I was 24. She was very intelligent and smart. Not because I could not date girl my age. I had several girl friend my age then, I was financially ok I live a lavishly life style. When I meet I became focus and help her through her high school. She’s 19 and am 29 now, I sponsor her in college. Could any boy her age do that for her. Some times in life things that work for one will not work for another, do not judge best another mistakes. Even adults are abuse in relationships. Do you know how I treated girls my age then compare to how I cherish her because of her innocent. If its in my power I will buy the whole world for her. No woman my age swept me off feet the way she did.
There’s always different situations, but from my point of view it is never okay for a 24 year old to date a 14 year old. Let a 14 year old be a child, have her teenage years, be with her teenage friends and go through what teenagers go through without an adult boyfriends influence. You say you helped her through high school, that was not your job. You didn’t allow her to do what she needed to do as a 14 year old girl to figure out here way through school The things you provide for her that’s great, but at the same time you have prevented her from growing at the rate in the areas she needed to grow as a teenager. Now that she is 19 and you are 29 there’s not much I can or will say, but wish the best for your relationship, however when she was 14 you should have allowed her to grow into a woman. Your statement “Do you know how I treated girls my age then compare to how I cherish her because of her innocent” has been echoed by many pedophiles I have treated. I am almost 10 years older than my girlfriend, but when we met she was 27 years old, a grown woman, not a teenager. Good luck.
Well, I will say this, Stanley. You remind me of my cousin. He was 30 years old when he met his second and current wife, who was then 15 years old. They both fell instantly in love with each other. There was nothing wrong with my cousin, because his first wife was close to him in age difference. He was already divorced by the time he met his second wife. A year after he met her, he married her; and they’ve been together for 30 years. I respect that Licensedmentalhealthcounselor has a certain protocol to meet in his specific profession in terms that he discourages these kinds of relationships, and I would not expect him to do otherwise if it is going to get him into trouble with any licensing board in his state. However, I am of the opinion that one cannot argue with success. If you loved your girlfriend when she was 14 years old and you love her now, you’ll likely still be in love with her 50 years from now. The heart does what it wants, and everyone can’t be the Duggars of “19 Kids And Counting.” Also, given the recent scandal about their family, who would even want to be them as this point? Don’t let anybody shame you out of continuing your relationship with your girlfriend. When the day comes that you and this girl are standing before the altar saying “I do,” you’ll be glad that you stayed with her.
I have a daughter who lived with her mother (we are divorced). She was 17 and dated a 45 year old man. When she turned 18, she left home, moved across the county, and they married. Not something that I, or our families agree with… but she is my daughter, I love her and I support her as I can with her decision. Admittedly, it has placed a strain on our relationship.
Fast forward – I am 45, and have found a 18 year old young lady. She has yet to finish high school, and she voices her own struggles. She expresses her dissatisfaction with boys her age as they are terribly immature, and has had more at least two relationships with men roughly older than her, 23 and 30. Both that did not end well and she became somewhat self destructive. She does enjoy “giving up control” to an older man, wanting to follow their lead. She has expressed her romantic interest in me… and honestly, I am flattered. But I know it is wrong… I know what my daughter’s experience has done to family and friends. I know there are things my daughter has missed out on, and will continue to miss out on as she moves through life, and I would never want to do this to a young woman.
My relationship with this 18-year-old… I have agreed to be her friend. She can talk to me and let me know what is on her mind. I have told her that I will give her my opinion. I encourage her to keep up her grades, and also as she prepares for college. She shares some drama from school, along with her frustrations and fears about the future. I know that being with “immature boys” is part of growing up. She will learn lessons that are important, things that she may never experience with an older man. Some of those experiences may be painful. As much as we want to protect our children, sometimes they have to learn through these kind of experiences so they can grow and mature.
I admit that the relationship I have with this young woman is far more candid than the relationship I had with my own daughter at that age. I know I am not a counselor, but I do hope to provide her with an advantage of learning from my own experience and helping her in a way that I could not help my own daughter. Let her experience life, but provide some pointers along the way.
Bravo for you sir. It is very easy for most men to be flattered and give in to the temptation of being with a woman that is far younger than he is, especially when that woman is looking for the security and guidance of an older man. It is far harder to restrain from engaging in a relationship that will most likely be detrimental to the development of that young person. She will be a better person for your guidance without the confusion of being romantically and sexually involved. You are right, there are many experiences she has to go through and many times she will have to learn that she is capable, smart enough and strong enough to save her self and accomplish her goals. You can help her with that without hindering her growth. It’s a delicate balance, but it seems like you are doing a good job with it. I had a similar experience with a 18 year old high school senior who was involved with an older, married man. Once that relationship dissolved she wanted to have a romantic relationship with myself. At that time she was 19 and a freshman in college. I too was flattered, but knew in my heart that the best thing I could be for her was a role model and help guide her. Any romantic relationship would have most likely just interferred with her development and got in the way of the life she was meant to live. Again, I thank you for being a bigger man than most.
Thank you for the article, it has reenforced how I have been handling the situation.
So I have a adopted daughter who is 17 and is dating a 26 year old man (with a 2 year old daughter to add to the mix). 2 months after dating he moves over 2000 miles away to be with said daughter, they continued the relationship long distance (for the most part been lots of fighting and 1 day breakups). We have explained to her that our disapproval isn’t about sex, but stages of life and the danger of control in this type of relationship. Her thought is but we love each other, which we explained this isn’t the movies and just loving each other isn’t enough, but I don’t think it set in. She asked her mom to sign emancipation paperwork (which she said no), but plans to pick up and move days after turning 18. I have 2 questions.
1. Since she plans on leaving ASAP how to do ensure she doesn’t stop schooling and make other bad choices that will last with her forever (like not finishing school or doing any sort of secondary education)
2. I believe we are making the right steps, but still how to sleep at night. I can’t make peace with it.
This is a difficulty situation, but I think at this point all you can do is realize that you’ve done the best you can for your daughter and she is going to have to live her life and discover some things the hard way. Of course you want to protect her from every heartache and major mistake, but you can’t. You have to let her go knowing that you’ve instilled in her all that you can and she will take with her what she wants. Try to make peace with that, with the fact that you’ve done absolutely all that you can.
I always dated men much olden me, beginning with my first 45 y.o. BF when I was 16. My husband is 25 years older. I enjoyed older guys as a teen because they are experienced in all aspects, caring, mature, and protective. I would never let a nasty teenage boy to even touch me. Now I’m 40 y.o., and I think that my private life had always been better than that of all women I know.
You know something, Jane? My parents were both in their twenties and only five years apart when they got married, and I was able to see a much greater power imbalance in their relationship when I was growing than I did in relationships similar to the ones you had. American society puts way too much emphasis on the mathematical aspects of age difference and too little emphasis on other factors. My father was probably the most abusive man my mother ever knew. She was lucky to get out of that marriage in one piece. I think same-age relationships and marriages are so overrated in the American culture, to be quite honest. Even TV shows are always shoving the puppy love sweetheart garbage down everyone’s throat and has done so for some time in the form of the Danny Tanner character on “Full House,” the 30-something-year-old parents on the original episodes of “Charles in Charge,” and the married couple on “Still Standing.” Fact has it that most of us do not marry our same-age puppy love or high school sweetheart. And when women do end up marrying the same person they fell in love with as teenagers, that person is usually significantly older than them. Therefore, I say that all this rhetoric about adolescents needing to grow sexually within their own age circles rather than grazing outside their so-called pasture is just a lot of Puritanical nonsense that mainstream reactionaries force upon all of us to further their own special interests.
I disagree with some of the points you made in this. I had a boyfriend who was over 18 when I was 15. I was much more mature already and felt equal when talking with him. He was never ever abusive and was always kind. I made my own decisions and he never told me what to do. Now we are married. And to answer the question “why would he want to date someone under 18?” Well maybe not all men intentionally search for a young girl like all of you say they do. There will always be creeps who have fantasies about young girls. But I have always looked a bit older. And when I was 15, I found it strange dating someone 15, they were all immature and I had nothing in common with them. Stop making these types of relationships sound like your child is in danger of getting abused or into drugs and alcohol. My husband never did drugs and never encouraged me to drink at all. Its about who the person is, not how old. The points you made are insulting and strike fear into parents, not all teens are ummature and nieve like you make them out to be. Did I cut myself when we had problems or go suicidal? No. I handled it in a mature way. So, thanks for nothing -_-
Statistically your relationship is more of the exception than the rule. That is good for you. Most men who date teenage girls have multiple problems going on and can’t date women there age because women their age wouldn’t give them the time of day. Many men who date teenage girls only are attracted to women who are/look a certain age range. Many men who date younger girls only date them for sex and to control them. Not all, but many. I currently have in therapy a 45 year old corrections officer who is in jail for dating and having sex with a 13 year old girl. He didn’t in his mind abuse or harm her, but took care of her. He doesn’t realize the psychological and emotional damage he has caused this girl, but he will have many years in prison to consider it. You can disagree with me based on your experience, like I said, that is good for you, but I’ve worked with hundreds of young girls who have been put in bad places emotionally and mentally by older man and I have worked with dozens of older men who are in prison do to inappropriate relationships with young girls. So your one experience does not trump my many experiences so you are welcome 🙂
I agree with you 100%. We all know there is the occasional exception to “the rule”, but I find it very disturbing that anyone thinks it’s “normal” for a grown man to have a sexual relationship with a teen-age girl. The brain of a teen girl is not even fully developed until the age of 25. I believe it to be true that these types of men feel inferior to women their own age and seek a much younger woman for control. It’s awful that these girls often will become depressed, etc.
I suppose the person you responded to sees nothing wrong with a 37 year old married man screwing a 19 year old in her parents home either…vile!
I have thought about anonymously writing her parents to warn them, but I’m not sure if I should. Any thought on that?
I am curious where these stats are coming from. I am also wodnering if there is a bias as well. When a relation is looked down upon you might only see the bad. @LMHC, you aren’t typically seeing the non-violent relations I assume, you are only seeing the people arrested if I am correct?
Many men aren’t interested in girls who aren’t virgins or who slept with multiple men or who have wrinkles. This is the reason they avoid old women and women don’t usually age all that well compared to men in terms of looks. There are exceptions but this tends to be the case. Some men find milfs hot, but many do not. I am not sure why it would be seen as normal to be attracted to a woman in her 30s or 40s when historically these are the ages women died at and were usually infertile by. Also older women become jaded, cynical, only talk about their exs and have very high expectations. It often seems they love what the man has more than the man himself.
And women become dissatisfied with 95% of the men they’ll ever date in general, so what if some get depressed.
You sound ridiculous! Women in their 30 and 40’s look incredible these days! Seriously!? You’re comments are ignorant and uneducated…yeah maybe women died in this age range centuries ago, but it’s 2015, honey…give me a break. Weakest argument I’ve ever heard! Lol
I typically see men who have been arrested because they were caught with a minor or the parents called the police or the girl, once the relationship was over, decided to call the police and say she was molested in order to get back at the man. The young girls I have worked with, usually with the ending of the relationship by the man, are often left feeling used, depressed, manipulated etc. Many end up with unhealthy self esteem, develop weird complexes or become super promiscuous. Others turn to drugs and alcohol which most often they had been introduced to by the older guy. Very few of the relationships have actually been violent or abusive physically, but inappropriate and unhealthy altogether.
I agree with the licensed health counselor…100000%. Let’s hope these people who condone this type of relationship never have a child who gets into a situation like this and suffers because of it. Why would anyone think this could be healthy? These young girls may have a physical attraction to these “men”, but once again, their brains are not full developed until the age of 25…this type of relationship, once it ends…can f with their mind and have terrible consequences…
Ill be turning 18 this year and my boyfriend is 39 . I plan to moving with him the day I turn 18 and what if my parent try to look at my background on my phone and see what we was talking about when I was under age by her having proof what will the police do once I have turned 18 ?
It’s possible your parents can have some legal recourse depending on the jurisdiction you guys live in and the law in your area.
Well, Smile. One thing that a lot of people on this blog sheet seem to be overlooking is the fact that American society has lost a lot of its moral high ground to adversely judge the kind of relationship you first had with your boyfriend, because our country currently has an epidemic of deadbeat teen dads and continues to ignore it. Several people have claimed that teenage girls who become involved with older partners end up emotionally damaged. However, I ask these people . . . What about all these young girls 12 to 16 years of age who fall victim to philandering middle school and high school age boys who get them pregnant and then bail on them? These girls get needlessly laughed at and teased at school. Then the jerks who got them pregnant may go as far as spreading malicious rumors about them and falsely accuse them of being sexually promiscuous. The law does nothing about it, and society does nothing about it. And if relationships between adolescent girls and older men are running into problems, I think society needs to take a great deal of blame for it in terms that these “forbidden” couples get needlessly subjected to social pressures that they would not be otherwise subjected to in more liberal cultures over in Europe. There is a whole other side to this issue that individuals like you and me only seem to be able to see, whereas all the righteous know-it-alls refuse to acknowledge any of it. When I have read posts throughout the Internet regarding men’s issues through the years, I’ve noticed that more and more men seem to be going later into life without ever having had sexual relations with anyone or even as so much had a girlfriend. I think perhaps this reality could explain what causes these men to gravitate away from women their own age in terms that they feel unable to relate to them along the lines of experience. And it’s not necessarily because there is anything wrong with these men but rather because there may have been circumstances beyond their control that obstructed them from ever finding love in their younger years. Then they hook up with teenage girls to share that first-love experience that they missed out on earlier in life. However, all the prom kings and male prima donnas who married their same-aged sweethearts right out of high school just don’t want to stand by and see anyone else other than themselves happy, so they treat these “forbidden” couples like social outcasts in the form of harsh age of consent laws and Puritanical social conventions. It’s a caste system, and nobody in the mental health profession or the criminal justice system are willing to admit so.
Why do people always assume the girl is being exploited by older man? Often it is the other way around. Also just because a much older man has a young girl does not make him a sexual predator or child abuser. If the girl is of legal age I’m sorry people…you can think what ever you want it is legal under the law and nothing you can do about it. Leave people alone. Just because you don’t like it does not make it right to bother them. Girls know what and who they want for whatever reason. It is none of your business. You are the ones who can get in trouble. Remember that before you get involved in something that will hurt you. Jane Smith makes a good comment and point. Mostly I think it is jealousy that motivates this.
Unfortunately, girls who date older men are more susceptible to sweet-talking and other forms of coercion, and, in general, being taken advantage of.. Many, if not most teenaged pregnancies, for instance occur among girls who are dating guys who are older than they are.
That’s nonsense. There is no evidence for such statements, and intuitively the truth is the opposite.
Sex where both parties are young and inexperienced with contraception is more likely to inadvertently lead to pregnancy than where at least one party has much more experience. And age of partner has nothing to do with susceptibility to being taken advantage of.
Legal age in my state is 16. That is the law. If they really believed it is a bad thing and have proof the legal age would be 21 or older. That would be just stupid. A young person can go off to war at 17 and 18. Can vote at 18. The legal drinking age should be 18 also. Hypocrites!!!
And “so what” if they get depressed? Depression amongst anyone, let alone a teenager can lead to suicide for Christ’s sake…”so what”?!! I hope you don’t have children!
Tbh alot of young teens at my school end up dating older guys and they are just 15,16 or 17 the guy would be 19 years or older and to me it really looks stupid and a waste of time when they can become someone important in life but they only care about being love,money and popularity. Some end up pregnant and with diseases. And they really think they are mature but really lack maturity and cant even pass a simple class because they often skip school just to be with that guy. And im saying because it’s true and not because im jealous it’s the fact that it’s what i see in school and often they cry to me that they were cheated and that the guy got her pregnant and i see the guy with other female’s at school. I simply just don’t get the point why they go out with older guys. But now that i read this i finally get it.
Thank you, Billy…I agree. I’m not writing the things I write, because I’m jealous either. I just think it’s wrong. I think there does come a time where a large age difference is not a problem…like maybe a 30 year old and a 50 year old, but NOT a 19 year old and a 37 year old! These young girls are mentally too immature to know how damaging this type of experience can be…mentally and physically. Very sad.
As I said earlier, Fdup, I’ve seen same-age or close-in-age relationships that have led to much greater damage than the “forbidden” ones you describe. My mother once told me that she dated a 37-year-old man when she was just 19 years old. She told me that he had treated her with more respect than any guy her own age that she had gone out with. This man had money. I wish my mother would have married him instead of my father, who is only 5 years older than my mother. She would have been a happier person, and I would have had a better childhood. In a nutshell, I absolutely hate my father, and I’m looking forward to the day that he dies so that I won’t ever have to think about him again.
I’m interested in your views on a slightly different scenario but one that’s is also very concerning. I know a 14 yr old girl who has formed a friendship with a 70 yr old man. I say friendship because I honestly do believe that is what it is. This is happening at a horse livery yard where I keep my horse. During the last 10 months this 14 yr old girl started off following the livery yard manager around like a lapdog, the livery yard manager is a female by the way. The livery yard manager, an older women who is very professional with all of her clients (us) has been in a relationship with the livery yard owner who is now 70 yrs old. The 14 yr old has now become very dismissive of the livery manager (who she used to follow everywhere) and has taken to following the livery owner everywhere, texting him constantly, going out for the day with him etc. To us all this is very weird behaviour for a 14 yr old girl, not to mention a 70 yr old man. Her parents never seem to be around, they have several children and most times it would seem as though her parents are more than happy to have her off their hands for days at a time. I’m confident that there is nothing sexual going on but it’s just inappropriate. From what I have witnessed, the 14 yr old plays her age when with the older man and keeps saying the livery manager is horrible to her and when turns on the ‘water works’. I and all the other horse owners know that the livery manager is not being horrible to her, in fact it’s quite the opposite as we have witnessed the way the 14 yr old has spoken to the livery manage (with complete disrespect). The friendship between the 14 yr old and 70 yr old is now threatening to split up the 11 yr ‘physical’ relationship between the livery yard owner and manager.
I would love your thought on this. My father was emotionally absent from me from age 7 due to working shifts and my mother being such a dominant character, he probably felt he had little control over my upbringing. Anyway from age 12 I had a crush on a 32 year old neighbour and he cared for my family when my mum was rushed in to hospital. Everyone told him after that I had a crush on him and my mum was very grateful when she came out of hospital. She and other members of my family said things like oh when you are sixteen you two can be together etc etc and I have always been told how incredibly mature I was at that age. Anyway he and I spent loads of time together and he told me we would have to wait until I was 16, and a few months later he kissed me. My mother walked in on us. She spoke to my father and said they were going to let that happen provided we didn’t have sex. I had to wait until I was 16 and they would need to accompany us when we were out and about because of what people would say and that he could get in trouble. I believe her intentions were mostly good on that one, however it did enable my mum as dad to go to a lot of places they wouldn’t have otherwise as they don’t drive). Anyway in the evenings and I did have alone time together, but every time he would go to work my mum would intensely grill me on just how far things were going. I never told her that we were regularly doing everything but full sex. I was scared of her having a go at me. He would routinely treat my like an adult in every way as then for a weekend or a week he would totally retreat, saying we couldn’t do anything sexually any more because it was all wrong and I wasn’t old enough. I would then literally beg for him to treat me like a grown up ; I felt validated by the sexual experience and his affection) as the cycle would continue when he eventually gave in. I lived in a state of hyper vigilance. I wondered each day if this would be the day he would take his affection away again. This went on for 18 months, all the secrets and guilt and incredible insecurity over losing him. He disappeared for 6 months after that, and left my world in totally darkness. I felt like part of me had died. When he returned, with loads of apologies about not being able to cope with the guilt etc, my mother, under duress, agreed me to stay with him for a weekend, to see if we could work things out. She still didn’t want us having sex, but that was exactly what we intended to do. I wanted to be treated like a “real adult” without the mind games, however when it came down to it he physically couldn’t do it. I had so much rage inside me (I was 14 at this point) I felt totally cold and numb. I went home, refused to talk to anyone and never took his calls again (although my mother did, and even sent him my next school pic). I have spent the next 17 years trying to make sense of what happened. I’ve spent more time and money on therapy than I care to even register, the first time being when I walked in to a counsellor a office age 16 after getting involved with any other unsuitable character, and crying that I needed help.
This situation was clearly not your standard paedophile story, the man is now married and did carry enormous guilt throughout our encounter. However it has left me with all sorts of deep rooted vulnerabilities. I am a well educated woman with a high profile job (however I am happily married to a man almost double my age).
I would love to know your thoughts on this bizarre situation.
Ps – it is very hard typing on my phone so please excuse the errors, I hope it makes sense
I’m glad I’ve stumbled across this. I’ve read many things about how innapropriate these types of relationships are, and for the most part I do agree. Except my case is a bit more peculiar in my eyes. I’m currently 16 and have been dating my boyfriend for 7 months now. He is 21. We started dating when I was 15 and him 20. Yes, I am well aware of his age, and he knows I’m still in high school. From time to time, I do feel ashamed for him and insecure because of the age difference. I know people will automatically disapprove and judge and even more so if they knew we met online. So yes, I’m in a relationship with an “adult” in another state. But he is different; I’m sure that’s a cliche line. It still baffles me on how he could be interested in me, but I digress. Anyway, he is a very good person. Actually, after reading Smile’s comment, I can relate to her. Our relationship is a bit similar to whats she’s described. He’s a good student and heavily encourages me to focus on school. Often, he’ll help me with my homework if I need it. (He nags me to do my homework and to studt all the time much to my dismay. c’:) He wants the best for me, and advises to make the right choices. I’m not much of a rebel anyway. I am a very good student and know from right and wrong. I know that I have fallen in love with my boyfriend despite our age difference, and I know he loves me. I know what I have gotten into. The most pain I’ve gotten from this relationship is the distance which kills. He has no intentions to hurt, abuse, or use me though. He is kind and honest. He’s very anti-drugs and threatens me to not do them lol xD. My parents are well aware of him, and oddly to my surprise, they don’t seem mind him too much. They both seem to like him better than my ex who was my age when we dated. I just wanted to say not all of these types of relationships are bad or damaging. I just wanted to share my little story. 🙂 It feels good to be able to share what I’ve experienced.
Recently I signed up for a penpal website and got a massive amount of inappropriate interest from immature male users. There’s only one person I have enjoyed talking to; a 32 year old man sent me a message about one of the interests stated in my profile, and since then we have been talking all the time about art, culture, music and nature. It is very nice to talk to someone as intelligent or even more so than me, as usually I am bored by people my own age. I am 17 years old (turning 18 in two weeks). Where I live, 16 is the legal age of consent. Talking to this man is enjoyable; he knows a lot and has a lot to say, and I enjoy the conversation. He has hinted in some of his messages at having a romantic/sexual interest in me (commenting ‘hot’ on one of my photos, joking that he was ‘lusting after my ass’, etc), and I do find him very attractive, but I don’t know if I should engage with him or not. He has offered to take me to an art gallery after I expressed interest, and has made it clear that there is ‘no pressure’. I am not sure how to feel.
I realise that in my life I have spent a lot of time with older men and not a lot with boys my own age. The boys at school were always horrible to me, seeing as I was chubby and not conventionally attractive. It might be worth mentioning that I experienced sexual and mental abuse at the hands of a boy my age when I was 13 years old.
I spent a lot of time with a family friend in his late 40s who took me to concerts and museums and road trips. I met a man in his 50s on a trip to Brighton who shared similar interests to me, and immediately became very fond of him, in a ‘mentor’ sort of way. The same goes for one of my bosses at my previous job, who was an older man with a lot of knowledge and experience, and spending time with him was very rewarding because it made me feel like I was learning and growing as a person. However, none of my relationships with these men has been sexual.
I wonder if my interest in older men comes in any way from ‘daddy issues’. For my whole life my dad was worked every day from 6am to 8pm. He was barely ever home, sometimes going away for business trips that lasted weeks. When he was home, he was busy with his hobbies, which were far more important to him than me or my brother.
Last year, he quit his job and suddenly he was home all the time. He was on meds for anxiety, which left him a shell of a man. When this effect wore off, the anger fits came. He lost his temper at anything. Around this time, my depression came back with a vengeance and I started to self-harm. A few months ago, my parents told me they were splitting up. Two days later my dad tried to kill himself. It has been a very rough year.
I have never had a proper boyfriend, girlfriend or romantic partner of any kind, and I have felt so alone. I just want to feel safe and loved and wanted by someone.
i am confused my teenage daughter {15} is acting out and i just found out she has had intercourse with two 18 year olds whilst under the influence of alcohol and we reported it to the police and was told nothing they can do if she did not wish to prosecute them what happened to consential rape
I’m currently struggling with my 16yr old daughter seeking older guys to have sex with. I discovered she was having sex when she had to admit she had unprotected sex with a 22yr and afraid she was pregnant, etc. She’s been actively pursuing older guys since 14. She’s extremely smart and has always been ahead academically 3yrs or so but her maturity is lacking. She begged me to let her make her own decisions, which I did and I allowed a relationship with a 16 old, but she quickly ignored rules, etc. Then she lied and schemed to meet older guys and using her friends too. When I put a end to it, she had a mental breakdown and landed on 5150 it continued for weeks. She contracted an STD and was sick for weeks…discovered she had sex with another older male 20 so I went to police and had both arrested….she flipped out said I embarrassed her….there was still another guy, 18 in between the others and I was going to have him arrested and she begged me not to said he ended it because he found out about her std and the other guys…so I sent him a message warning he could still be arrested. Last night I caught my daughter Skyping with him….she threatened to kill herself if I interfered again in her life. She absolutely does not feel I have a right to tell her who to desire sexually….its none of my business according to her. I said according to the law a minor here is under 18 and a 16 isn’t capable of understanding an adult relationship at age 16 . This 18 has no job lives with sister, does drugs, drinks and no goal to change and she doesn’t care she says he’s cute and funny. Her father is also out of the picture , he’s an alcoholic with warrants. ahe knows her father is like this and thinks its cool, basically doesn’t want to face the truth. I’ve tried counseling and they say she has bi polar…but she only freaks out when it comes to boys…she will not entertain anything under 18. How can i get her help? Thanks for support.
I always advocate therapy. I think a good therapist/support group can help her uncover whatever it is that is attracted her not only to older men, but men who appear to not be any good for her in the first place. You say her father is out of the picture so could this be a case of her looking to replace him in some ways? Her behavior is very destructive and your time to get her help is short.
It’s more than clear that you want to do right by your daughter. The only problem I’m having here is your high hopes that restricting your daughter to dating boys her own age is going to make all her problems go away. That’s a delusion that too many people have in our culture. I was living out in California when the scandal involving the spur posse hit the television airwaves back in the 1990s. The spur posse was a group of adolescent boys in middle school and high school who used and abused teenage girls for a point system they kept on how many young girls they could bed. Because the Romeo-and-Juliet clause in California’s age of consent laws did not exist then, the district attorney in Lakewood, California was able to charge all of these boys with statutory rape. However, ultimately the district attorney dropped the charges against all of them except for one, because the authorities decided that charging a teenage boy under 18 with such a crime for having sex with a girl the same age as him was the uncool thing to do. The one teenage boy against whom the statutory rape charge continued to stick was a 17-year-old boy who had mistaken a 10-year-old girl for 15 years old when he had sexual relations with her. His own friends in the spur posse ultimately turned against him, and he was convicted of the crime despite his ignorance of his victim’s age at the time of the crime.
I had another question. How do get your teen help when they 100% believe they’re doing nothing wrong in seeking older guys? I explained it to my daughter as you’re right you’re not doing anything wrong, you’re still growing and learning, exploring boundaries. I told her when you’re 18, you’re supposed to have learned the boundaries and if you cross them, the consequences are different, you go to jail, etc. Adults are suppose to say NO to minors when they see minors behaving incorrectly, especially breaking the law with them. I told her had they said NO to your advances and willingness to have sex they wouldn’t be breaking the law. She gets pissed when I tell her she did nothing wrong and she says I need therapy not her.
I have a 17 year old daughter,which will be 18 on the 24th of Jan. 2016 had a baby in May after her 17th birthday, with her boyfriend at the time whom is a year older than her and they was together for almost 3 years, which my dauther at the time was almost 16. We had some rough patches with the baby’s daddy at times, only because he had family issues that he never dealt with. My daughter is in her senior year in high school and had dreams of getting into the field of child care or pediatrics and the baby’s daddy had been encouraging her to do so. The baby’s daddy has had the same job for over a year. One day i was at work and i had called the baby’s daddy and told him that i was on my way to pick him up from work because i just got off, we worked similar schedule, when i got on the phone with him, the baby’s daddy he was crying, i asked what was wrong, and he said she is telling me that i have to leave the house, and i replied, “what is going on?” He said, i don’t know, all i know is that we got into a little argument last night, and this morning she told me in text that we was good and she loved me, and then i get off work and i’m at the house and she’s telling me to get out. So i told him i’ll be there shortly. He said, ok. Then when i get home here is a 23 year old boy whom my daughter has thought of as a brother, and this young man has thought of her as his sister, because he’s my sons friend since maybe the 1st or 2nd grade, and was suppose to be a friend to the baby’s daddy. Prior to this, the 22 year old whom will be 23 in March 2016, was somewhat seeing a 15 year old girl that the Aunt had a problem with dating, and had been for sometime, and i believe the 15 year old broke it off with the 22 yr old , at a couple of days before my daughter breaks up with the baby’s daddy, the 22 year old is saying he’s gonna end his life, so the baby’s daddy mother invites him up to her house out of concern and says you don’t need to do that and was encouraging him not to take his own life, it was not worth it, Keep that in mind. Meanwhile a couple of days later, my daughter out of the blue breaks off with the baby’s daddy and the night the baby’s daddy moves out the 22 year old that evening is in my daughters room, me thinking he’s just talking to her like a brother, is kissing all over her and when i confronted him he said there was nothing going on between them they was just talking and have been and he couldn’t remember how long. My daughters attitude, and lack of respect that she had once for her father and i have went out the window. I explained to the 22 yr old that my daughter needed time and space before thinking about another relationship and had to focus on her daughter, that she came 1st, my granddaughter that is. Now this 22 year old is so into her head that i can’t have a conversation with my daughter privately or without him listening in on my daughters and i conversation by any means he has to be on the phone, or present when i feel the need to talk to my daughter, i can’t have any alone time with her what so ever. Now he is getting kicked out of a place he is staying, he got an application for an apartment, but he’s waiting for my daughter to turn 18 so he can put her name on the application and her daughters name on there and add him to the lease, my concern with that is he only wants to work 2-3 days per week, he’s always up her behind, and i just feel he is using her to get a free ride, and she’ll be stuck with the lease, and nothing else for her or her daughter, and that she’ll quit high school, and not pursue her career like she planned on….My daughter’s happiness and the well being of my granddaughter are so important to me that i don’t know what to do. His own parents kicked him out, he has no responsibilities or ever has, he always depends on everyone else taking care of him. That is my concern with him. Can someone please give me some advice on how to get him out of my daughters head..this 22 year old has a history of not keeping a job for long…he switches jobs every other month. Even my daughter has said this when she was with the baby’s daddy, and seen all this. I just feel like the 22 yr old sees an opportunity with my daughter to use my daughter and her daughter as an opportunity to get a free ride…it would be so much easier for him to get a place at my daughters expense with no job, still in high school, and a baby to get state assistance to pay for everything so he don’t have to pay for one thing. This 22 year old has made the comment to someone i know and said she’ll be 18 soon and i’m going to have her fill out the application and add me to it, But he’s had this application for almost 2 weeks now and it was suppose to be for him to get a place. My gut is telling me he is only around until he uses my daughter and granddaughter as escape goats or in other words a FREE ride. What can i do..when i talk to my daughter she gets mad at me. So what can i do to save my daughter and granddaughter from this opportunist.???? Can someone help me please!!!!
I have a friend that is 17 years old and has a boyfriend that is 28 years old…They have been together so far for 4 years…She turns 18 this year and they wanna have a baby…Her birthday is April and she was wondering if he conceived in her a month before and tells her parents she’s pregnant at 18, can they still involve police? Can he get in trouble or no?
I believe so. Better wait and be safe than to be sorry.
Sarah? If the cat comes out of the bag earlier than your friend’s 18th birthday, she and her boyfriend can always hop on the next one-way flight to Costa Rica. That nation does not honor the extradition treaty between the United States of America and them for “statutory rape,” unless the alleged victim was younger than 15 years of age at the time of the initial unlawful intercourse. On the other hand, if your friend was 13 years old and her boyfriend was 24 years old when they first hooked up as you said, then I can only hope that your friend’s impregnation at 17 years old was the very first time she had sexual relations with her boyfriend rather than at 13 years old. Otherwise, they may be having to take a one-way flight to France instead to circumvent the prospective “statutory rape” charges against your friend’s boyfriend. And everything I said in this reply is assuming that your friend and her boyfriend can get out of the country before their local authorities can zero in on them. I don’t like to encourage people to look for loopholes in the criminal laws, but reality has it that the criminal justice doesn’t always have the best interests of all involved at heart in situations like these.
I have been reading these posts and have a daughter who just turned 18 (6 months ago) and she has been “dating” a 34-year old man who had been engaged to be married during his college days but that relationship fell apart (she was his age) and he has not dated since that time. Unfortunately, my daughter is now living with this man. My daughter’s biological father relinquished his parental rights when she was born and has had no contact until recently. He actually told my daughter (who he just contacted after 18 years) that he thinks it is fine she is living with a man this age because he has always been attracted to younger girls too (he is 52 and is on wife number #4 who is 25 years old). First, I have a problem with a biological parent who has never had any contact with their child, telling them something like this. Never mind any explanations as to why he was absent from her life for 18 years. My daughter has not spoken to me since Thanksgiving when she moved out. I did reach out to her but she has decided not to respond. This man she is living with has refused to speak to me at all about the situation which I find extremely disrespectful. My daughter met him through the fire department. I too was a member of a fire department at her age too and the one cardinal rule I followed and stressed to her as well; you do not date anyone in the fire department (it is sort of an unspoken rule). Sort of like don’t crap where you eat. This man lurked around until she turned 18 and then he made his official move. Smart enough to know that if he has sex with her when she was 17, I could press charges. I find it very hard as a parent why a grown man (who is 12 years younger than me); why he would try to encourage my daughter to reach out to me and have a relationship with me. Personally, as a 46-year old woman would never, ever date a young man with the age difference between my daughter and her “boyfriend”. A guy dating a young girl like this, in my opinion makes me wonder if there is something wrong with him that he cannot have an adult relationship with a woman of his own age?
I agree with all your points, but let’s start where we are at. Your daughter is now 18 and legally able to make whatever decisions she wishes, regardless of how you feel about them. If you want to have a relationship with your daughter, you have to respect her decisions, even if you don’t like them. You have to learn to just keep your opinions to yourself if you want to reconnect with your daughter. Reach out to your daughter, invite her (and maybe even him) to lunch and at lunch, just act normal. Talk about normal things. Ask about how she’s been, whatever, but do not bring up their relationship or how you feel about it. Make your daughter and him feel like you are finally accepting their relationship. What you will gain is your relationship with your daughter which is more important than your disapproval of who she dates. Now, your daughter probably has “daddy” issues which is why she is with such an older man, but now that she is 18 she’s going to have to work that out herself. Just learn to be accepting and be there for her or you may find yourself shut out of her life and the life of your future grand kids (yeah I know that thought of that with him makes you cringe, sorry).
What about a 19 year old who’s dating a 57 year old but he started pursuing her when she was just 18 just turning 18 this happens to be my ex fiancé who cheated on me with this girl, whom he just said he met at the gym and was helping her because her parents weren’t supporting her with school and such. Yes I’m hurt perhaps jealous, but bottom line it’s disgusting is 37 years apart. She moved in with him. His daughter is 7 years older than her and my daughter is 5 years older than her. I just think it’s not good for anymore except him and his sick mind.
Sounds like your ex is going through a midlife crisis. Most men will always be attracted to younger women, but most will never actually get involved with someone that much younger than them unless they have “issues” themselves. This girl on the other hand most likely either has daddy issues, or sees your ex as a “sugar daddy”. Whatever THEIR issues are, it doesn’t reflect on you. Drop that baggage and move on.
Well, here’s the real deal, Janet. When I heard a while back that 80-something-year-old Hugh Hefner was marrying a 26-year-old woman so many years ago, I said “to his each his own.” The man is rich. He has to know that his marriage has a price tag on it. If that’s how that young woman wants to live her life, it’s her decision. However, when I heard that 80-something-year-old convicted serial killer, Charles Manson, was marrying a 26-year-old woman in a jailhouse wedding a year ago, even the thought of it creeped me out big time. Charles Manson’s son, Charles Manson, Jr., committed suicide at the age of 38 years old because of the stigma he had to live with of his father being a notorious serial killer. Therefore, I could not figure out what Charles Manson could possibly have had to offer a 26-year-old woman. Certainly not a stable future offspring. When I heard that Charles Manson was not allowed to have conjugal visits with his young wife in prison, I was happy about it inasmuch as nobody like him should be allowed to breed. In any event, I think it’s really just a question of individual circumstances, because, hey, let’s face it, our society will never be an age-appropriate Utopia of high school sweethearts getting married on their 20th birthday. Michelle Duggar and Jim Bob Duggar attempted to sell that load of baloney to the public at large; and people actually bought into it until the sex scandal with their son, Joshua Duggar, hit the press and the media. Nevertheless, I can see you being angry at your ex-fiance, because he wasted your time and he deceived you.
My daughter is 16 and a 22 year old sibling of one of her friends is interested in dating her. I mentioned all the usual concerns: why is he interested? Men his age have more expierence and may want to push your boundaries, ect. That got me the standard ho hum teenage response. Then, I reminded her that where we live, the age of consent is 18. I told her that if they dated, he would go to prison and have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life. That got her attention. She is now thinking “just friends” is the better way for the time being.
Sounds right to me. She has two more years to grow and mature and she should have to right to do that without the emotional/sexual pressure of a man. He’s not 18, he’s over 21. He definitely should be looking at young women who are at least 18. Four years is not a big difference, but there is a big difference between a 16 and a 22 year old.
Actually, Amy, there’s no law against a 16-year-old girl dating a 22-year-old man. It’s only if they have sexual intercourse that an actual confrontation with the law occurs. On the other hand, if you have a restraining order against this 22-year-old man, then, yes, he could go to prison for violating it. However, he would not have to register as a sex offender unless he actually had sexual relations with your daughter. Then again, if your daughter is a legally emancipated minor, then the decision would be completely up to her whether or not she would want to press statutory rape charges against this man if there was sexual contact. At least that’s how the law is in California. However, I gather that your daughter is not legally emancipated if she is still living at home with you. Therefore, the decision would be yours in that event.
I mean it all depends from background the guy comes from. If the guy comes from a broken family, abused environment, horrible friends (drug addicts) then expect nothing good from him no matter if he is 17 or 22 year old.
Also, it seems that in America parents are scared to see their daughter trying to be independent with an guy who is older. Let’s not forgot that girls by nature tend to look guys who are older than them. No i am not saying 40 year old men with 17 yr old girls. I’m talking about a 3 to 4 year gap between.
A 40-year-old man with a 17-year-old girl? It’s quite common in Central and South America and even in Western Europe and even leads to successful marriages. It worked out beautifully for Celine Dion and Rene Angelil. But I get your drift. We live in America. Therefore, we must remind ourselves that our country was colonized by the Puritans instead of the French. LOL. Interesting point of yours, nonetheless.
Muslims country is the worts place to be for a young girl
Guest? In addition to your point, Europe made a big mistake in taking in all of these Syrian refugees, most of which are men between 20 and 30 years old. I’ve been watching horror stories on YouTube about Islamic refugees traveling in packs throughout Western Europe and raping and attacking young girls. A webcam video of a 16-year-old German girl crying out for protection went viral not too long ago on YouTube. Great Britain is suffering the worst impact at all of any of the Western European nations, because like so many American parents, parents there don’t want even these Islamic male goons hanging around their adolescent daughters, period. Then you hear stories about these Islamic male goons gang-raping schoolgirls as young as 11 years old in London and talking as though prison is just a paid vacation once they get caught and convicted. Then they get into the prison system and gang up on the inmates and murder them. Great Britain is suffering a culture shock from all of this madness. Don’t get me wrong. There are a lot of good Muslims in the world, but these ones that have immigrated to Western Europe are not so friendly, to say the least. If you ever watch “The Steve Wilkos Show,” you’ll always find him yelling at men never to slap a woman for any reason. However, these Islamic male goons just grab women and their kids and beat up on them in the streets of Germany for no reason at all. I saw a YouTube video about this occurrence. If President Obama lets 200,000 of those people into our country, it will be the end of our country as we know it.
Reading all of these stories is making me feel sick. I have been with my boyfriend for three years, I am 22 and he is 27. Within the first few months of our relationship, he told me that he’d had a “relationship” with a 14 year old child that began when he was about 21-22. I literally almost puked and left immediately – I was certain that that would be the end of my relationship with this apparent hebephile. However, I decided, mainly due to my own teenage desires to be with MUCH older men (40+), that I’d attempt to understand why he thought that being with a 14 year old was okay. He was very honest, he told me that he now sees that it was inappropriate but that he doesn’t regret it, as he “learned a lot.” They were together for over two years. He was working at a liquor store at the time and her mother was his boss, that is how they met. Her mother would have parties and allow her children (13-16) to drink with the “adults.” He admitted that the night things began with him and this child, he was very drunk and kissed her. She apparently became relentless about pursuing a relationship with him after that. He claims that he told her they couldn’t be together, but he couldn’t have tried very hard to keep her away since they did date for over two years. Supposedly they told her mother after a year or so, to which she replied that she’d already known; apparently they weren’t too discreet about it. During this time of his life I know that he was heavily into drugs and alcohol, to make the matter even worse. I know that she got involved in drugs with him, as well. After a few very open discussions about this, during which he answered all of my questions, I decided to try and move forward due to his honesty.
A few months ago, I confided in him about a disgusting experience with my uncle. This uncle tries to kiss every girl/woman on the lips, and he started trying with me when I was about 13; keyword: TRYING. I never allowed it, it made me feel sick. The experience that I was trying to tell my boyfriend about occurred when I was 21, the uncle was extremely drunk, and tried to kiss me in a “different,” very sexual and disgusting way. In the same breath I’d also told him about my uncle’s history of kissing everyone, which my boyfriend had been previously unaware of. Keep in mind, this was difficult for me to talk about, and my boyfriend was the only person I’d told at that point. Instead of offering any kind of comfort, he admitted to me that he had kissed yet ANOTHER girl who was VERY underage, probably about 14 while he was around 23. I was perplexed as to why he’d choose that conversation to admit something like that, as I was very clearly vulnerable and emotional about the situation with my uncle. He said something along the lines of, “I just thought while we’re admitting things, blahblahblah, I’ve wanted to tell you for a while.” I guess at first he thought that I was allowing my uncle to kiss me on the lips, and that therefore that I was “admitting” to something dirty, and that that gave him an opportunity to admit something dirty to me. This girl is younger than his ex. I knew her, through him. I’m not sure how they met but I know that they still speak to this day.
What upsets me the most is that he has a lot of OTHER young girls on social media. They’re all of legal age now, but they sure as fuck weren’t when we started dating. He says that he’s met them through friends, says he doesn’t talk to them. Why have them on social media? I’m certainly no Facebook stalker, in fact I don’t even have Facebook, and I respect his privacy and his right to talk to whoever he wants. But why? Just why? I was jealous of these younger girls for a while, now I feel bad for them. I feel bad for his ex that she was obviously taken advantage of, she can’t have possibly come out of that relationship unscathed. Especially with his hair-trigger temper which I can only imagine was much worse while he was almost constantly under the influence of alcohol and drugs.
I have also developed an unhealthy obsession with everything anti-aging since finding out about his shady past with underage girls. I am only 22, and I feel that I’ll always have this anti-aging complex. I feel old and I know that is ridiculous. I certainly feel too old for him, and not only for the fact that he seemingly has a thing for younger girls, or at least used to. Currently, he has no driver’s license (something he has never actually had), can’t hold down a job, is likely about to end up back living with his mother, seems to be regressing in almost every single way. I just finished college, am about to begin my career, have been driving with my own vehicle since I was 18, and I’m trying to move onward and upward. I am not in love with him anymore, but he’s just begun taking antidepressants and is quite fragile, so I don’t want to risk him hurting himself (which he also has a history of) if I break up with him. But I know for certain that I cannot stay with him and live a happy life. I am absolutely miserable with him.
Man, I don’t know if I’m looking for advice or what. All I know is that I have very mixed feelings about age differences in relationships. With my experience, the older one clearly has the upper hand and in the case of my boyfriend, CLEARLY has mental problems. I don’t think it’s uncommon for the older one in a relationship like that to be a complete control freak, which he is. On one hand, I’m disgusted that someone in their 20s would want to date a teenager, but on the other, if and when I break up with this guy, I can’t see myself dating anyone younger than 30-35 due to my experiences with boys in their 20s. And I do think that they are all still boys in that age group. They may have the rights and responsibilities of an adult, but they are just little boys. Perhaps I’ve just yet to meet a male of adequate maturity under the age of 35.
I wanted to share my experience and I realllllllly welcome any responses. I know my post was long and I apologize. I just had to be heard. This has been killing me for three years.
TayMaryLouise? The story about your boyfriend’s forbidden relationship at age 22 with a 14-year-old girl and how they met bears a resemblance to the story behind how actress, Melanie Griffith, and actor, Don Johnson, met back in 1972. That is, Melanie Griffith was in her early teens and Don Johnson was in his twenties when both of them met, and it was because Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith’s mother, Tippi Hedren, were working on a movie set together. The major difference is that Tippi Hedren disapproved of the relationship from the get-go. Nonetheless, Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson were together for a substantial period of time, although their relationship did have significant time gaps in it.
Hey Tay Mary Louise,
I know this reply is a bit late but I would like to contribute some insights though I am afraid it’s late. May be I am not very late. You are being with a person out of fear that he might take his own life. You have already decided to move on and rightly so because of his nature of not dating “younger” women but his readiness to date underage persons. So, after having made up your mind, you should not waste any time in beginning your life afresh! This is not about peoples’ opinions regarding relationships or about your boyfriend. It’s about being kind towards yourself. And your insecurities regarding age is harmful to yourself. Is it not possible to break up without any drama, amicably & peacefully? By doing so, you are not harming or raping him. But you will be helping yourself. Or are you saying relationships should be based on guilt? How can anyone benefit from it? Pls move away…far far away without any guilt. You are not destroying him. He is doing it to himself. Ask him to get therapy.
V.Thomas
WOW, your comment is over two years old but I’m just reading it now. Thank you SO much for replying. I am happy to report that I ended that relationshit soon after the comment I made on here. Anyways, thanks again! Very kind of you, take care
This article seems mostly the now standard anti-male sexism and wilful failure to understand inter-sexual dynamics, born of ‘identity politics’ and extreme non-, indeed anti-scientific feminism; not to mention the perennial refusal of women ever to face the reality that they lose their attractiveness rapidly with age!
It’s perfectly natural for young women of, say, 18 — who are the best part of a decade post-puberty — to be with men in their mid-twenties, or 30 and older. That most aren’t is the result of the narrowness of most peoples’ social circles dictating how the sexes assort rather than natural preferences.
As advice the article seems at least as bad and misguided as were the extremes of Victorian moralising, even if it is not all mistaken or malicious.
Thank you for your opinion. This article aimed to look at things from a more psychological stand point. If you think most teenage girls are psychological prepared for and ready to date men in their 30s and older than you are sadly mistaken.
How about a 19 year old girl with a 30 year old. My ex and i havent been together for almost two years i left to better myself and when i decided to come back he moved on was in that relationship the time i left. Then he started to talk to the 19 year old girl left hes ex. These ladies didnt now he was still married. The younger contact me and told me her self she had no clue that only knew about our kids. Hes in the military my thoughts are shes just looking for a man to take care of her needs. But he doesnt even take care of hes kids financially. I think he obsesses with her cause to him shes the perfect type he would always and a female looking like a model but hes a control freak and hates when people try to control him or tell him what to do.
How about a 19 year old girl with a 30 year old. My ex and i havent been together for almost two years i left to better myself and when i decided to come back he moved on was in that relationship the time i left. Then he started to talk to the 19 year old girl left hes ex not even two weeks together she thinks shes pregnant? . These ladies didnt now he was still married. The younger contact me and told me her self she had no clue that only knew about our kids. Hes in the military my thoughts are shes just looking for a man to take care of her needs. But he doesnt even take care of hes kids financially. I think he obsesses with her cause to him shes the perfect type he would always and a female looking like a model but hes a control freak and hates when people try to control him or tell him what to do.
Darn, Nene. The story you just told makes me think of that old movie titled “The War Between The Tates” in which actress Elizabeth Ashley played the role of a woman who fell into similar circumstances as you did. The only difference was that the husband (played by Richard Crenna) was actually old enough to be the young girl’s father.
Hi,
I realize this is an older post, but am curious if anyone has any advice as to what my family should do with our situation.
My 17 year old sister “C” is sleeping with a 34 year old married man “J”, and has been for almost a year. J has two children, 6 and 4 (I think?). He didn’t have a very good relationship with his wife, as they hadn’t been sleeping together for a year before this started. J has since moved out into his own apartment and papers have been worked on for divorce, although I don’t think they have been filed.
They started off as coworkers who share similar interests in music, plays, etc. C was in a school play and was having a hard time since she would go from play practice straight to work where she would vent to J about everything that was happening at school. I guess they started being interested in each other and looked up the laws in the area about what age is legal for consent.
Here is where the issues fall: My dad is furious. He has said that C isn’t allowed to see J, J is never allowed in the house, and thinks they need to just be banned from seeing each other. Mom sees where C is coming from and while she doesn’t necessarily approve, she doesn’t say C can’t see him either. However, because dad is so adamant that they don’t see each other, C will lie about where she is going so she can be with him. Dad has looked up the GPS location of her phone and found that she is at his apartment. When confronted, C says that she was actually wherever she said she was and the phone is lying.
I know J. I used to work with them too. He is a 34 year old bartender who is going to have to pay child support and alimony once the divorce is filed. C is convinced that she is going to be able to go to college and work to support the two of them. She thinks she is going to move in with him once she turns 18 in a month. We have tried talking to her about why this won’t work, about why she is doing this, about how she is driving away all of us who care about her… She only thinks that we don’t care about her about her happiness.
The homecoming dance is coming up. I feel like C should go so she doesn’t feel like she missed out in 10 years. Apparently, J won’t let her go. I told her that J wasn’t allowed to tell her whether or not she gets to go and her story changed to “Well, no, I just don’t want to go. J said I could, just not with any boys.”
We are at a complete loss and with how stubborn she is, there is a fear that she will end up moving in with him next month and we won’t hear from her at least for awhile…
March 1978 I was the 23 yr old who met the MONTH away from being 18 yr old girl. OF course it was great…she hated her home life…and I helped her to get away and we did everything your not supposed to do WE had FUN. Sex included. We married in 1981 have 2 grown kids both girls and are still married. BUT these days I am the BASTARD who caused the economy to CRASH in 2008 AND I am ALSO the BASTARD who took advantage of this 17 yr old..its all my fault..LOL yeah she was crazy then and still is…
Steve? You male Baby Boomers lucked out in so many ways with respect to relationships with teenage girls younger than 18 years old. First of all, the statutory ages of consent were lower throughout the United States of America back in 1978 than they are now. That is, back then there were states where the age of consent was actually as low as 13 or 14 years old. (e.g. Maine and Hawaii). Therefore, virtually nobody even gave it a second thought whenever they saw a 17-year-old girl with a 23-year-old boyfriend back in 1978. Second of all, in the states where the statutory ages of consent were 18 years old back in those days, the authorities were much more lax back then than they are now about charging someone with “statutory rape,” even in California. Yeah, there was the big Roman Polanski sex scandal that surfaced in 1977. However, that was a completely different situation than yours, which is not even to be compared to yours. Third of all, there wasn’t all the pedophile panic propaganda circulating in the press and in the media that there is now. The term “pedophile” had sat on the medical books for close to a century before a specific clinical definition was created for it in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1980. Nowadays there are all these dunces all over social media pointing the finger at anyone who is even slightly over 18 years old and accusing them of being a pedophile for having any kind of romantic feelings for someone who may be even one day shy of their eighteenth birthday. Consider yourself lucky, Steve, because you and other men in your generation jumped on the bandwagon of happiness, for a lack of a better term, before the storm of self-proclaimed child advocates and self-righteous do-gooders came rushing through our great nation and causing a major upheaval in the lives of so many.
I know a girl I work with she’s 16 years old has a boyfriend who isn’t the nicest guy in the world and by not the nicest I mean he calls her “ugly” every now and then. Her grandparents are extremely religious and controlling while her parents abused her when she was younger. So she fell in love with this guy who is now 23 they met when he was 21 and she told him she’s 20 so they started talking and hanging out. She told everyone else he was 16, so after a year she finally told him that she wasn’t as old as she said she was and that she had a boyfriend. She told me and everyone that he was actually 23 not 16. I talked to the guy and he truly loves her but is now conflicted with his emotions of fear for dating a 16 year old girl, and the fact that he is there for her and supports her. I notice his sincerity and kinda feel bad for him. He’s tried breaking things off constantly, but everytime her boyfriend treats her like crap she goes crying to him and he tries telling her things to make her feel better and she uses the same line: “I wish you were my boyfriend” I’ve read their messages since I’m trying to help him out of this situation given that the grandparents are determined to send the cops after him. He’s a good guy and is very caring towards her but their age is a BIG problem. They aren’t sexually active in fact he told her that he wanted to wait until they were married, so sex is not his priority. He doesn’t have much money working at a 30 hour job making barely $6,000 a year and her grandparents aren’t rich. I’ve tried everything, but he’s just too nice to tell the girl that they can’t be together, or else he’ll get in trouble. And she understands this, but it’s the fact her boyfriend is an asshole and he’s a nice guy, that she can’t let him go. She needs his caring, supportive nature. The Grandparents don’t know about everything going on they just know those two dated and that he’s 23 and she’s 16. And they automatically think he’s a creep. I’ve told her it’s not good and that he could get into major ass trouble, but she says she’s in love with him and won’t listen to me. So I need some more advice cus she read the Statutes and noticed it didn’t say them dating is illegal just them having sex is illegal. So Idk how to argue with her.
Kresh? That’s the messed-up thing about our culture. This 16-year-old girl’s grandparents likely believe that her “asshole” same-age boyfriend can do no wrong simply by virtue of the fact that he is the same age as her; whereas the 23-year-old man has no way of proving his worthiness to this 16-year-old girl’s grandparents, because they have it engraved in their minds that there is no such thing as a non-exploitative relationship between a 16-year-old girl and a 23-year-old man, thanks to all the Puritanical propaganda that comes out in the media and in the press in this respect. The most interesting thing of it all is that so many teenage girls end up running into the arms of older men to escape the abuse they suffer at the hands of teenage boys. I guess there is no easy way to enlighten the grandparents, because they are likely at an age in their lives that they are set in their ways and cannot be easily convinced that perhaps they might be wrong about the 23-year-old man and his likes. What has me really concerned about this situation is the possibility that the 23-year-old man and the 16-year-old girl’s boyfriend will eventually have a violent confrontation with each other over the 16-year-old girl. I suppose that if the 23-year-old man wins the fight, the teenage boyfriend will scream “child abuse” simply by virtue of the fact that he is a minor and he’ll go running home to cry on his mommy’s shoulder. I’m not condemning all teenage boys, but I don’t think that teenage boys should go complaining about girls their age pursuing relationships with older men if these teenage boys don’t even know how to treat these girls. The fact alone that the United States of America has become the deadbeat teen dad capital of the world says it all.
well im with a 40 year old man and im only 17 about to be 18 and once i turn i will be getting married to him i let him meet my grandmother and my mother they are fine with it and every thing , now he has 3 kids and has been married before. i told my best friend and she is not supporting it all but she asked me if i am really am ready i said yes then she asked me are you sure. all i could do was cry because i do love him and and he wants the best for but i know im not ready but im scared that he will leave and i will never find another man like him that want some thing real
Katherin, you are soon to be 18. You have so much to experience in life. Your twenties is a wonderful time of your life and that’s the time to date, meet many different people and hopefully the love of your life. He’s already been through all that. Do not allow him to rob you of the experience of discovering yourself and experiencing life. I do understand your feeling of never finding anyone else, but I promise you nothing can be further from the truth. You deserve someone who is closer to your age, has never been married and hopefully has no kids. I’m not knocking your decision to date this man as you’ll be 18 soon, but you will most likely regret this decision if you do not allow yourself to be single and young at least during your late teens and early twenties.
Any man that dates a teenage girl is a paedophile and has no good intentions for that girl. The parents should be reporting these men to the police so the police may investigate these sick men. With what is happening with men in Europe; Australia and look at the Middle East! All these men should be castrated. They are sick in the head and should be listed on sexual offenders lists and with the sick crimes that are committed, prison. The men should be dating ladies their own age or wait for the girls to be in their 20’s which they won’t because they are paedophiles.
Matthew? According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V), they wouldn’t be pedophiles.>>>Click onto http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:fKFNhx1089EJ:canadiancrc.com/PDFs/pedfacts2.pdf+&cd=36&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
Pedophilia is an adult’s sexual attraction to prepubescent children rather than teenagers. The International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) states the same.
Matthew? Your British, aren’t you? You spelled the word “pedophile” as “paedophile,” so I know that you could not be Canadian or American.
I have a serious problem. My 17 yr old daughter is involved with a 53 yr old man. They started sleeping together a couple of months after her 16th birthday, he was married at the time. We are battling financially, he is owns a sucessful business, so money is no problem. I have known this man for the past 15 years, we were never friends, rather acquaintences. When my daughter was 15, we started bumping into him often, didn’t think anything of this. A month or so after her 16th birthday, my daughter became good friends with his daughter, & started spending time at his house, much nicer environment than my house, I didn’t mind. He then started visiting us, offering assistance, money, improved security gates etc. I accepted the money on occassion, accepted a few of the improved home security offers like gates, carport etc. Also turned down a lot of the offers as well. In the mean time he had started sleeping with my daughter, unknown to me. My partner started feeling uncomfortable as he was spending more time with my daughter, offering to pick her up from school etc, when I was unable to, my car started breaking down a lot, of which he offered to fix. When my partner confronted him & I confronted my daughter, they both denied that anything was going on, both said separately that he was like a dad (my daughters’ father is not of the best caliber. I felt better, my partner was appeased for a while. We needed to take our stuggling business to the next level, our only option was to approach this man for a loan, of which he granted. Once the money was spent, & we were working towards improving the business to obtain the returns needed to pay him back, his attentions with my daughter seemed to intensify. Heated arguments between me & my partner started, as well as us with him. He was asked not to come around as often. 3 weeks before our 1st major show, of which all the profit would have paid back our loan, I found out what was going on. They professed undying love for each other & begged me to allow it to continue. I didn’t know what to do, I then realised that I had been bought, I owed this man. My partner would have freaked, all our hard work toward these shows would not materialise, as my partner would not have continued under these circumstances & we would still owe this man an amount of money that we would not have been able to pay back. Knowing it was wrong, hating myself for not having a backbone, I kept quiet. I laid down the law, saying that I would allow the relationship to continue under my rules, 1st & foremost, he must choose between his wife & my child. He started the divorce proceedings, which made me feel even worse. This worked for a while, under extreme stress on my side, as my partner didn’t know. After the shows, which weren’t as successful as anticipated, we managed to by pay back 60% of the loan. Their demands on me to let them see each other became more extreme, threats started from my daughter, if I didn’t let them see each other she would spill the beans. I was so far into this deception, I was trapped, I started granting some demands, just enough to keep me in the clear. The situation at home with my partner over the months got worse, I found myself defending this monster. But all through this he always treated my daughter well, other than his jealousy, which always was a problem, of which I advised my daughter to think carefully about, even advising her to end it, saying that this was not a healthy sign from a man of his age. I had hoped that by this time they would have ended it themselves due to the extreme age difference. But it didn’t seem to. They insisted that they tell my partner about their relationship, I knew this was not going to come out well, I advised them that they keep quiet about the sex & say that the relationship was only a couple of months old & that I couldn’t let him know that I had known about this at all. They agreed. My partner freaked, as I knew would happen, the predator was banned from the house. The blackmail then picked up a notch. In the meantime I had consulted lawyer & was told that no law had been broken & that all I had was my parental rights to keep her at home & try stop it myself. They realised my fear of being caught & blackmailed me into dropping my daughter off at his house etc. The business was not going well, due to extreme financial situations in the country/world, which meant that the financial situation at home was even worse that at the beginning of all this. Now 3 days ago, My daughter was not abiding by house rules anymore, I forbid her to see him, she told me that he was coming to fetch her, I told him that he did not have permission to pick her up & told her the same. She jumped the fence & he rode off with her, to his house, I now have the legal rights to get her back home, as she is not yet 18, I will be able to legally keep her at home for the next 9 months. What type of psycological disorder does this man have? Not to mention me, as I aided & abetted for 6 months. By bring the law into this situation, all my past sins will be revealed as well. I must just bite the bullet as I was wrong to let it get to this, I feel as if he not only preyed on my daughter, but me as well.
Hi Lee. I am so sorry that you find yourself in this situation. It is something that would have been much easier to squash in the beginning than it is now, but it appears that you and your daughter fell victim to a predator. He manipulated his way deeper and deeper into both your life and your daughters until he managed to get his claws on both of you. Now it is a total mess and with your daughter turning 18 in less than a year I would say just let it go. It makes no sense for you to continue to stress yourself out and drive yourself crazy over something you now have very little control over and will have absolutely no real control over in less than a year. You and your daughter were both at vulnerable points in your lives when this man swept in and that’s what they do. You’re asking what type of disorder he may have and all I can think of is he may have a personality dysfunction of some type which hopefully (for your daughters sake) is not one of being mean, controlling or abusive. Chances are, this relationship between him and your daughter will not work out, but no one knows when it will end and you trying to control them or insisting that it ends will only make things more stressful for you. Let it go. You’ve done your best raising your daughter and now she’s nearly an adult and will have to make many tough decisions for herself. Focus on you. You seem like you could benefit from some theray yourself to stengthen your self esteem and perhaps go to couples counseling for you and your partner. But as far as your daughter and this man goes, let it go.
My situation was not as involved as yours. My 17-year-old daughter was involved with a man who was 45. We were able to keep them physically separated, but they were still able to keep in contact through secret email accounts and pay-by-month cell phones. Five months later, she turned 18 and ran away from home, and was married a day later. That was five years ago… they are still married. It has been difficult for them as well as me. The best advice I can offer is to love her and be there to support her as best as you can. Not as an ultimatum, but let her know that you will support her, but needs to respect certain rules in your home.
My cousin met his wife when he was 30 years old and she was 15 years old. He married her a year or so later, and she became pregnant with his baby shortly thereafter. They’ve been happily married to each other for over 30 years now. Not that I’m trying to play the devil’s advocate here; but if it’s any relief to anyone on this discussion thread, my cousin and his wife have had a much more solid marriage than a lot of these same-age couples you hear about who are in clown-car marriages in which a couple starts out as high school sweethearts who attended the prom together and later become unfaithful to each other.
My 16 year old daughter is dating a 31 year old infant. He claims to have been a virgin until 29 but all he wants now from her is sex. My daughter is extremely gifted in school and has been diagnosed with ADHD inattentive type and anxiety. She has been tested to find she is gifted and extremely intelligent but she does not seem to be when choosing a boyfriend. She has had a couple of bad relationships where the boys were very aggressive. This guy tries to buy her affection with gifts all the time and texts her insesintly, on the surface he appears kind but I see it as pure manipulation!!! My husband believe he is a masterful manipulator and a perv. He has been told that he can not come into our house because they were having sex in our house while we were there, including when my 14 year old son was there. To me this is so disrespectful. We have tried to talked to her many times to explain that we do not approve of this relationship but she does not care. We have tried to talked to both of them to ask that they slow down the relationship with no sexual activity but they say they can not do that. My husband and I can not stand this guy but they think they are soul mates and in love. The whole thing makes me sick and is driving a wedge between my very close relationship with my daughter. She has always had a very difficult time making decisions for herself because of her anxiety but the last thing we need is for this guy to be making decisions for her. We are trying to encourage her to stand on her own two feet and not depend on this guy to make her decisions. We have been trying to let her spread her wings and make more decisions for herself but this!!! I also found an inappropriate pic of her on her phone. I spoke to her about it and she said it was a stupid mistake and would not do it again. Really!! We had so many talks about never taking or sending nudes etc, but she still did it. It’s so heart breaking to have to stand by and watch your daughter choose such a loser. He has no money and lives in a shack and can’t really hold a job. It’s all just so depressing and disgusting to think of her with him. What the heck is she thinking. This guy claims to have similar mental problems like her which they claim bonds them together but man what a mess they will be together with similar problems. We have had much counselling over the years for our family for anxiety and her behavioural problems but nothing has helped. I’m up all night worrying that her life will be ruined by this guy and his selfish lust for a 16 year old girl. He knew her when she was 15 but he waited in the wings till she turned 16. He tried to buy his friendship into our family but I’m not falling for it. I talked to our lawyer and apparently it legal for them to be together but to my husband and I, it’s so incredibly disgusting and infuriating but we don’t seem to be able to reach her and get her to see he is manipulating her. What can we do as I can not accept it, I just cant. I cry uncontrollably until there are no more tears. I don’t want to lose my daughter to this guy, I worried my anger and resentment will push her away. Please help!!!
Ingrid? The fact you cited that your daughter’s boyfriend was a virgin until age 29 is interesting, but it is not surprising. It seems as though virginity is sticking with men at later and later ages than in years past. Some of these guys just hold out until what they view to be the love of their life comes along. In this particular situation of yours, that could be a very positive thing, although I know that you and your husband don’t like this guy.
How do I edit a post I’ve made on here?
Good question.
Uhhh… men like to fuck pretty girls. Girls are prettiest in their teens and early twenties. I want to fucking blow my brains out.
Eh, please don’t blow our brains out! I know sometimes people can be disgusting and I think what you’re staying about girls looking their prettiest in their teens and twenties may have an evolutionary basis, but real men, real adults, fine beauty beyond appearances and in such things as intellect, personality, ability to make someone feel special and that transcends age and becomes even more important/special when you get older!