Good for you! My wife is 42 and I am 67. We have been together for over 20 years now and are still happy.
this post was submitted on 24 May 2025
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Do you have plans for how to deal with his body aging and becoming infirm quite a long time before yours?
I’ll take care of him the same way he has taken - and continues to take - care of me. I love him. But I also believe that prevention is better than treatment, and he works hard to maintain both his body and mind.
I'll start with the obvious: how old are you? The dynamic of 18 and 43 is much different than 35 and 60.
18 since February.
I was afraid you'd say that.
I left home at 17 and shacked up with a 38 year old man. I also did it for the security. Home life wasn't stable and how was I supposed to make it on my own? Worst decision of my life. He was a very subtle manipulator. It took years of therapy to undo what that relationship did.
Now that I'm 35, I'm not interested in close friendship or romantic/sexual relationships with men or women in their late teens to even mid twenties. That's not meant as an insult to that demographic, there's nothing wrong with them. A person's brain isn't finished developing until well into their twenties, and someone with only a handful of years of adult life experience has very little in common with an older adult. It's like if you were to bed down with a 14 year old. There's nothing wrong with being 14, they're just in a profoundly different stage of their life.
I fully expect you to ignore this. 18 year old me would have as she thought she had it all figured out, so 22+ year old me paid the price. I'm just hoping it plants that seed of doubt so, when you wonder what a 43 year old man actually sees in an 18 year old, and if you start to notice how he might be manipulating you to stay dependent on him (hopefully not the case for you too), you decide to run sooner than I did.
Edit: I saw he's fully "taking care of you". If you stay in this relationship, make sure you can take care of yourself if you get out. Learn a trade, go to college, anything so you're not trapped if you find you need to leave
I actually appreciate this reply - it’s critical, but not insensitive or dismissive of my autonomy. Thank you! I recently got my driver’s license, and he bought me a car and an apartment, which I’m currently renting out for passive income. I’ve been saving that income each month. I’ll also be starting dentistry at university this autumn, which I’m really looking forward to. I absolutely want to be independent - I’m definitely not the “trad wife” type. I’m well aware of the risks that come with that lifestyle.
I don't know if you're faking this for attention, but if it is real. Stay safe.
Have a backup plan incase shit hits the fan. Financial dependence on someone can lead to a ton of manipulation when you have the 'no choice but to put up with it or be homeless' mentality.
If you aren't trolling please get out of that situation
I’m very happy, content, and comfortable with my “situation”, but thank you for your concern nonetheless.
I mean this as gently as possible but if you are 18 you don't even know what happy, content, and comfortable even feels like
I'm 30 and I still don't even understand these concepts fully
I’m 30 and I still don’t even understand these concepts fully
Your personal experience is not representative of everyone else. Not what they experience. Not how they develop. Not who or what they are, or will be.
Please stop.
This is a bit insensitive to say to someone who has experienced firsthand what it feels like to be the opposite of happy, content, and comfortable.
I went into your post history and saw you ran from home at 16. You likely carry a lot of trauma and have a very disjointed view of what these concepts actually look like and that makes me really worried about you. At 18 you are literally still just a child - your brain will still be developing for 7 years or so and combined with childhood trauma you are very ripe for being manipulated by a 43 year old man.
I know that when I was 18 I felt invincible but looking back I wish I listened to advice from older people.
I mean just the fact that you shared your situation in an AMA tells me that you have your own doubts here.
Please don’t try to play therapist with me - I already have a professional I speak with weekly. Thank you. You’ve also been invalidating my feelings, which isn’t okay. I’m ending this conversation here, because this back-and-forth is pointless.
If you don't want to be asked anything then you shouldn't tell people to ask you anything. What are you here for then?
Nothing I said was insensitive or unkind. Maybe if you read it again slower you will see it is exactly the opposite. Why would I waste my time typing anything if I didn't care about you?
I hope this is fake and a "joke"
Get away as fast as you can. ???
A look through OPs comment history lends credence to the fake theory imo.
Now I see why you requested no negative comments. It's about all you would get without that stipulation.
But hey the reality is this: if you are happy and no one is being manipulated, then I'm fine with it. Too few people enjoy the moment, when it is all we have, and no one can say what makes another person's life feel right.
It's easy to judge, but far harder to understand.
As another caring human though, I would also expect everyone who cares for you to be worrying for you quite strongly each time they think of your relationship, and that will be hard on their psyche, and one way or another, that will be expressed by them.
The time for open communication is now if you want it expressed in a healthy manner later.
Just things to be aware of, it's easy to get stuck in our comfortable bubble.
Run.
Why is garlic bread so fucking good?
Garlic is good, and bread is good too - so naturally, good + good = very good. Simple math.
I could literally eat it for every meal.
How did this come to be?
We met in June 2023 through my best friend - he’s her boyfriend’s widowed uncle. I liked him, and he liked me. At the time, my biggest goal was to leave home, and after spending about two months together, I decided to move in with him in August.
How's he taking care of you now?
What's the best date you two have been on?
In every way a person can be taken care of - physically, emotionally, financially, etc. - I am. We went to the Seychelles last month for Easter break. It was amazing.
Interesting how people just downvoted you without saying anything.
So he literally groomed you?
I’m not going to engage in the online “grooming” debate - it’s pointless, and I don’t feel the need to defend or justify my relationship.
You were underage. I don’t see a debate just a fact.
June 2023 makes her 16, which is over the age of consent in many countries. It might not be the case in yours - it's not in mine - but that doesn't mean it's illegal where they are. Context is important.
Glad the law is the only moral guideline 🙏
"Underage" is a legal colloquialism, so yes, I answered in the context of the comment I was responding to. After all, who sets the age benchmark to determine what is under and what is over age? Please do me the courtesy of taking context into account, if you don't mind; this is a discussion, not an outrage contest.
All the hate you're getting is weird. You're an adult, you can make your own decisions about your life. As long as you are happy and he is happy, I see no reason why there would be a problem. Just people clutching their pearls, I guess.
People are concerned about a vastly unbalanced power dynamic. Even if their 43yo partner managed to have no more knowledge and life experience then them (very unlikely), they have fully developed frontal lobes, the part of the brain responsible for things like rational decision making, emotional regulation, and critical thought, whereas op does not. That alone is a huge power imbalance as this makes op much easier to manipulate and less likely to notice issues. Humans basically have brain damage (when compared to an adult) until their mid twenties.
Add to this that there's also a socioeconomic imbalance. 43yo likely has much more money (not many teens can afford vacations to the Seychelles without family wealth), and they'll also have some degree of a network of other adults with similar capabilities. This all can be used against op to keep her compliant, typically in the guise of "helping" or "taking care of her". If op becomes a problem, like sick, pregnant, or increasingly self sufficient, this can be used to sweep the "problem" under the rug. I'd know, that's exactly what happened to me at her age.
What I find interesting is that two days ago, when I did my first AMA and talked about how my quality of life has improved tremendously thanks to this relationship, people were all saying things like “happy for you.” I had already mentioned that my boyfriend is much older - just hadn’t explicitly stated his age. But now that I’ve actually said how old he is, people are suddenly like, “Run!” Like… what even?
I think it’s something you should think critically about since you moved in with him 2 years ago (16?) you aren’t a fully cooked human yet at that age.
Before you started the relationship, would you have judged another person in the same position/relationship?
No, I’ve always been a curious person - never a judgmental one.
That's nice. Would you describe your relationship as traditional (whatever that means for you)?
No. In my mind, “traditional” means toxic, oppressive, controlling - in other words, not good or healthy things.
Why would you say traditional is toxic? There are many relationships that have existed throughout history that are not toxic and based on love and connection. Unless we’re interpreting traditional differently.
I think more relationships have been based on power imbalances than "love and connection", if we're talking about all of humanity across the whole of human history. That's the problem with talking about tradition though - you gotta get pretty specific. Whose tradition, starting (and maybe ending) when?
Agreed
Because that’s the version of “traditional” I’ve witnessed on a sociocultural level.
Agreed. How does that express itself in your relationship? And have you been in a traditional relationship before?