DESIGN A UNIQUE RELATIONSHIP

A significant (10 or more years) age difference raises issues  about the degree to which a couple chooses to merge their lives.  When a forty- year- old man becomes involved with a twenty-eight-year-old woman, he is  almost forced to marry her because of the social censure he would face if he didn't.    Even in these more liberated times, he, being seen as the 'adult', the one with more power, experience and money, would be perceived as taking advantage of her innocence and vulnerability if he didn't marry and take care of her. He would likely have to provide her with a home and a sense that her security was in his hands. This becomes even more pronounced if they have children.

The same standard doesn't, however, apply when an older woman and a younger man couple. Men, even at twenty-eight, are not regarded as innocent or vulnerable, and nobody expects that their wives or girlfriends take care of them. Men are perceived as quite capable of fending for themselves, and this fact liberates women in a number of ways. First of all, marriage may or may not be the option of choice and it certainly isn't regarded as a necessity.  Some couples choose to marry while others choose to live together.  Some choose to live apart but get together as often as they can. Some choose to keep separate homes but stay together in one or the other.  The point is that there are more choices available so nobody feels like they're locked into an old archetype that works for some but not for everyone.

So the tables are turned but both the older woman and the younger man get to exercise choices made in accordance with both their needs and desires. Let's face it, if she's fifty-one and he's thirty-four it's likely that she's got more money, more status and more experience than he does. It's also likely that they have significantly different interests. So does their being a couple automatically mean that they have to do everything together? Of course not.  Unlike what more traditional couples expect from one another, age gap couples can choose to savor their time together doing only those things that they both enjoy. Isn't that also true when the age gap is reversed, when he's the older partner? Sometimes it is, but more often than not, as he's the one in control he wants his wife to share his interest and activities (unless there's trouble in the marriage and he wants to escape.)  Still, he's the one usually calling the shots.  

Older women/younger men couples are freer to design their relationship - and every aspect of it - to suit their own needs; they can do what feels right to them.  Not that all couples can't do that, especially today, but old models of what loving, committed relationships look like tend to favor the patriarchal ideal and are hard for many traditional couples to break from. The power of choice is a heady one and the opportunity to design a partnership that empowers both people is definitely one of the perks of living a cougarlicious life!