Age differences in relationships

Remove all ads!

My husband is 9 years older than me. I'm not sure if it is the age gap or the cultural gap that give us the problems we have.

I don't see a problem with age differences as long as it isn't an excuse for the older one to assume a role of power because of the age. My niece, who is physically 16 years younger than her husband, is at least 20 years more mature than him mentally. Unfortunatly he is abusive and alcoholic so she just lets him boss her around or suffer the concequences.

 

Regardless of the state, it entirely depends on how much over/under 18 you're talking about. And it's never the parents that decide - if something is considered criminal the state will press charges, regardless of the parents' thoughts on the matter.

There isn't a state where if one person is 18, and the other person is 17 that you're going to be charged. That's because every state that I'm aware of have what are called "Romeo and Juliet" laws on the books, that basically acknowledge that there is a gray area when dealing with teens, and placing a strict age on these things can be difficult.

I'll use my home state of Maryland as an example. When you're a minor (but at least 14) it is legal to have sex with anyone who is within 3 years of your age (and also at least 14). Therefore, it's legal for an 18 year old to have sex with a 15 year old (typical age difference between a freshman and senior in high school), but illegal for a 19 year old to have sex with a 15 year old.

Your statement is true in that it's always legal if both people are over 18, but having one person over 18 and another under is rarely the only criteria. In the example I gave above, the 18/15 difference is not considered a crime, so regardless of the parents' wishes, it would not be charged as such. OTOH, in the 19/15 case, it WOULD be charged, even if the parents didn't have a problem with it

 

My first sexual relationship occurred when I was 14 about to turn 15 (4 years under legal for hetro- relationship), it lasted for 2 years and was with my next door neighbour's wife who was 27 when it started. It was a relationship that was purely sexual in nature there were no decalrations of love, no protestations of "how we couldn't live without one another" or any other such blither.

If anyone had asked me at the time what I was doing my reply would have been learning sex, which I did very well. If we had been in a more normal relationship I don't think it would have lasted as long as it did, it's hard to see what we would have had in common or how trust could have built up.

That is the only relationship I have had with a significant age difference and can comment on.

 

@DS - given the arguement that such relationships are usually emotionally scarring for the teen involved, regardless if the teen is male or female, how do you feel you have been able to cope with this after the fact? Do you have any regrets? (Actually, the regret part is really a two-part question, as there are two things you can potentially regret: 1.) Having sex at the age that you did, and 2.) having sex with another man's wife. It's entirely possible to regret one and not the other.)

 

@Aldeth the simple answer to your questions is no. It's difficult to be emotionally scarred when you don't involve the emotions, it was a purely physical one. I have no regrets about having sex at that age I wasn't used or abused by the woman, my body was ready for it and I had a good teacher. It was only later in life I learnt the difference between sex and making love.

As to part 2 no I don't regret it, I should by normal standards and if I was a christian or jewish as my parents were with all the attendant built-in guilt factors I'm sure I would have. And besides her husband knew from the onset, though he was never there when it did happen.

The emotional scars I received growing up were of a different nature and not for discussion in this forum if ever.

 

@Abomination: Yeah, under 14 one shouldn't have a relationship. However, kids kiss already in kindergarten and it's strange for a 12 year old not to call someone girlfriend or boyfriend even if they can't really go out with each other officially.

Surprising as it may seem, I don't think it's bad. It's just when you're 12, it's such a big deal for you to take your, gasp, girlfriend to the cinema or a dance, while when you're 20, you go with friends, even if neither of you is single. Where I live, it's much like this. I remember getting more physical with friends around 18-20 than with girlfriends before and by this I don't mean doing anything wrong with friends.

However, I have a huge problem with the whole concept of dating. For example, the way it seems to be done in the States, a stranger (or classmate, friend's friend, whatever) asks another stranger out and there seems to be a certain tie between them. After two or three such dates, it's considered a dating relationship. Informal, granted, but still a relationship.

What does this mean in practice? Let me define it by division: you can either have it exclusive or non-exclusive. Exclusive means that just because someone potentially attractive asked you out, you can't go with anyone else. Blah. But when you have it non-exclusive, it pretty much means that you have several relationships developing at the same time, which is abhorrent to me. You will likely be surprised because most American Catholics have no problem with it and even think it's the right way, but I find it wrong on more levels than I can count.

So, in practice, I think parents shouldn't regulate too much in children's "romantic" lives, especially if it's something innocent and not so heavily sexually loaded. Especially parents shouldn't forbid their children to go out with the same person twice in a row if they allow kissing other than cheek, extensive hugging etc. I don't think it's overly harmful if a kid does that with another kid but it's extremely harmful if the kid is shown that such things are I don't know... a friendly kind of fun, something light to be enjoyed with boys and girls you find attractive etc etc.

As for the 20 and 26 years thing, well... Yeah, it would be more acceptable if you were 26 and had a 20 year old girlfriend. However, I have mixed feelings on that. I have a problem with the popular model of secondary school girls dating university graduates. You know, when the girl is 18 and the guy is 25 or when she's 16 and he's 22, that kind of thing. I'm not saying it should be banned (at least the 18+ variant) or that people shouldn't have a relationship just because their age happens to differ, but you get the idea.

@DotW:

Theoretically, yeah, but in practice I would probably have a problem with most girls our age. Wouldn't you? Slightly older wouldn't be bad in the beginning but it would hurt later on (most guys aged 40 have wives aged 30 rather than 45...), so I wouldn't cast my net there.

@Aldeth:

What about 14 and 12, then? It's hard to apply criminal punishment to someone this young and kids at that age sometimes have sex. Heck, 14 is the average first time age in some countries (Brazil for one), so 12 is certainly not out of question there.

And here's the problem because no matter where you place the border, there will always be an inch before and behind. You will always have someone who is 19 and one day and someone who is 19 minus one day. With smartasses, the solution is simple: if they think they know the law, morality and whatnot and can argue, they should have first of all known the law and obeyed it. However, I can easily imagine a couple aged 19 and 15 and having sex without any kind of special exploitation on the part of the 19 year old. Heck, in some cases they could actually be married (for example under the Canon Law of the Catholic Church ). When I was 19, girls around 15 felt a tad bit too immature for my taste but it's not like girls my own age didn't. And while they where immature, they could still be attractive and I don't think it takes a perv to be attracted to a 15 year old when he's barely 19 himself.

 

DS, I know it's none of my business, so if this is probing too far, just tell me to shut the hell up, but he KNEW? WTF? He knew and (presumably) didn't care that a 14 year old was poking his 27 year old wife? Ethical ramifications aside, it was still illegal, no?

You may want to have another look at what I wrote. Actually, I'll save you the time - here it is:

(Emphasis added by me.) So no, 14 and 12 won't work because the 12 part fails on the "at least 14" rule. I'm not saying it's not biologically possible to have sex before the age of 14, but in Maryland you cannot consent to sex in any circumstances unless you are at least 14 years old.

Yes, that is a problem. But some sort of balancing is required in these situations. For example, it wouldn't make sense to say you must both be over 18 or both under 18, because unless the two people happened to be born on the same day, there is going to be a point where one is 18 and the other not yet 18. And it wouldn't make sense for it to be legal when they were aged 17/16, but illegal the following year at 18/17. Besides, I don't think there's anything abnormal about a typical 18 year old being into 17 year olds, or vice versa.

To take it to other extreme, we certainly don't want 30-something year olds picking up teen aged girls. I definitely think there's something maladjusted about a 30-something year old guy being into 14 year old girls. Actually, there's probably something wrong if he's into 18 year olds, but it's not quite as repulsive. Heck, by the time I was in my mid 20s I would gross myself out if I thought a girl was attractive and then found out she was still a teenager.

Anyway, the point is while the law certainly has an obligation to protect teenagers from sex crazed 30-somethings, it also has to make allowances for teenagers to be involved in sexual relationships with other similarly aged people, where there doesn't seem to be anything maladjusted about it. So they rather arbitrarily chose a three year period. Could it be 4 or 5 years and still be OK? Maybe. But I would be hesitant to go much beyond three years before I started to think that the younger one had a much greater potential of being taken advantage of. And really, if it was meant to be, you can wait a year or two until you're both legal.

 

@Aldeth I will answer he wasn't as interested in sex as she was and to keep their relationship going he allowed her to have a lover. The proviso was that it had to be somebody he knew and younger so as not to compete on an emotional level. I was advised of all this before it started.

 

Aren't you tired of being right, chev? Because you are once again. But not all 18 years are immature, dude. I can think of a perticular gal (hint: it's not the one in my classes) who is surprisingly mature for her near-18 years, and she keeps on surprising me, although in a good way. Every woman out there is unique.

 

@Aldeth:

I know. I noticed the "at least" part. But my question is what happens when one of them is under 14 and the other older than 14 but not yet adult. I am asking because how exactly could you prosecute a 14 year old?

Come to think of it, I think there is still the vibe that people under the age of consent shouldn't have sex at all. It's just you can't prosecute kids, for one, and you can't really punish someone one or two years older the same as a 30 year old chasing schoolgirls. I don't think policemen would ignore two 14 year olds trying to have sex, and I don't mean because of it being a public place.

Believe me I am. And yes, some 18 year olds are more mature than some 30 year olds will be. However, some people are more mature before puberty than after. Or at least more responsible. Compare the school and studying habits of a 12 year old girl with a 15 year old one. Hormones come in the way of reason and we're talking about such an age where they run rampant or at least are still at a high. However, it's not like hormones are dormant in fathers of adult children, of whom some still fondle the cute au pair or something.

 

Ah, I see, you weren't questioning the legality, just the enforcability. The simple answer to your question is: As a juvenile.

The U.S. have prisons for people who are under 18 - they're called by the much more politically correct term of "juvenile detention center", but it's basically prison for those under 18, with the exception that you also have the requirement to go to school (at the center - you don't go to public school). If you're convicted, they don't send you to a regular prison, but one of these juvenile detention centers.

The tricky part comes in as to how you were tried. Whenever a minor goes on trial for a felony, the judge has to decide whether he will be tried as a juvenile (usually happens) or as an adult. For particularly heinous crimes, a judge may decide that the compentency of the offender is such that he/she should receive an adult punishment. (As an example, one of the Beltway snipers of a few years ago was 17 - but he was tried as adult.)

Now, if you're tried as an adult, you can receive the same sentence as a adult, and when you reach 18 years of age, you'll be transferred from a juvenile detention center to a federal prison. If you're tried as a juvenile, you are released from the detention center when you hit 18. So, in the example you sited, the 14 year old would most likely be charged as a juvenile. If the 12-year old said yes, chances are the 14 year old would only be sentenced to some type of psychiatric counseling. (Note that under law the 12-year old cannot consent - you're allowed to say "no", but a "yes" isn't a "yes". So it's not a question of consent, but it's still considered worse if it was forcible rather than if the victim complied.) If the 12 year old said no, then that's rape, and he'd likely be sent to a juvenile detention center, where he'd stay until he was 18. It would have to be an extreme circumstance to say the least to try him as an adult. It would have to be something like sexual torture or repeated rapings or something like that.

I would modify that statement slightly. I think the vibe is that you shouldn't be having sex with someone under the age of consent. The fault is on the offender, not the offendee.

And in this we only have to trust our judges that they will be fair in sentencing. Remember that in the U.S. juries usually only decide guilt or innocence. It is usually the judge (except in the case of capital punishment) that decides the sentence. One would hope that the judge would show more leniency for a case of a 19 year old and a 15 year old (where there might not be anything deviant about the guy, especially if she looked older than 15), as opposed to a 35 year old and a 15 year old (where there is definitely something wrong).

 

If we're getting into the having an affair with married people at this point, I should tell you that the 47 yr old was married with three children. (one was two years younger than me)
And no, they never knew.

 

That's correct, but the person who is younger is supposed not to have sex rather than simply not with adults. For example, in Poland, it's framed like "who engages into sexual intercourse with a minor under the age of 15" or close and I don't think it's much different in other countries in the continental tradition (i.e. not common law). From age 17 you already answer like an adult, but until age 24, your sentence is most often reduced and you can't receive life if you aren't 18. We've actually had a case of two 14 year old boys and one 12 year old girl recently and it doesn't clearly fall under molestation as it would among adult people, so I think they're ultimately going be answer before the family court from the paedophilia paragraph. At any rate, I do think the law rules minors out as potential givers of valid consent, so it sends the word that they aren't meant to have sex. The case I mentioned is older and younger kids, not two kids, but I think they could always try the one who initiated the contact or something.

 

So the other two children were OLDER than you? I don't know Shell, that guy sounds pretty twisted. You were literally young enough to be his daughter.

I would prefer if we had a system more like that in the U.S. Basically the chances of being charged as an adult increase the closer you get to 18. While it would take extraordinary circumstances to charge someone who was say, 12, as an adult, you most likely would get charged as an adult by the time you were 17. And once you are charged as an adult, the punishment you get is the same as if you were an adult. Although I don't think you could get life for some one the stuff we are talking about. Forcible rape can get you life in some states, or if you rape someone under threat of a deadly weapon, but having sex with someone below the legal limit isn't a life term.

There isn't a gray area where from the ages of 18-24 you get a lighter sentence. Take the example of two recent threads here. In one instance a 35 year old woman had sex with a 15 year old boy - she got 9 months in prison. Then, there was the thread with that guy who was 20 got 2.5 years in prison for having sex with a 13 year old girl he married. (They are now 22 and 15, but that was the age when the incident took place.) So in that case, the person in the 18-24 range actually got a stiffer penalty than the one who was considerbly older. I still say that's f'd up. We shouldn't be sending people to prison for having sex with someone who turned out to be their wife. OTOH, when you have a 20 year old and a 13 year old, most likely to the 20 year old is taking advantage of the 13 year old, so I can see why they charged it. I don't know - I'm of two minds of the entire affair.

 

Here you're always charged like an adult if you're at least 17, but until a certain age when you committed the act and when you are judged, in case of some crimes and some puinshments, you get some leeway thanks to your inexperience. In case of some most heinous or dangerous crimes, it's 15 when you already answer as an adult.

Yeah but don't people get more than 10 years for that sometimes? In Poland, you can't get more than 6 or 8 years when it's not forcible and 12 if it is. Perhaps 15 after the recent changes in the most extreme case. I find it most ridiculous (in the pitiable way) when I hear that sometimes people get more for non-forcible sex with teens than they do for rape of an adult. That shouldn't happen, I believe.

I was more inclined to agree at first glance and less when I thought more about it, but there's a problem with that, of course. I tend to think the boy was in for less harm than the girl, at least would be in most situations.

Yeah. It's more of a "Eeek! What a freak, he slept with a kid!" reaction than kicking him in the ass for hurting someone. In his particular case, it meant shooting the whole family in the leg and preventing them from settling down, finding a job and a house and establishing themselves in life. I would still give him a heavy lecture and some pain-in-the-ass social service to do (for an organisation tending to children with sexual abuse traumas) and/or suspended prison sentence in case he sleeps with another kid.

There's one more thing: While the victim may have forgiven or even be OK with it, there's the problem of the criminal being a danger to the society. What if someone raped a woman who later married him? Maybe they settled the account and he's neutralised now. Or maybe he has a rapist mindset and is going to rape a woman or two more in his life if you don't crack down on him. It can be the same with those who have sex with minors.

Consequently, I think it would be a nice idea to give them suspended prison sentences or even suspend the whole procedure, putting him on probation. If he molests some other kid, we've nailed him. If he lives as a good citizen, caring husband and good father, then he had the misfortune of finding himself in prohibited love.

In the Polish system, there is the construct of a "similar crime", so with enough creativity, a judge could probably rule that domestic violence is similar to taking advantage of a kid and leading to sexual intercourse.

Besides, age is often hard to tell and knowing when a person was born doesn't always help perception. I remember being estimated 35 when I was 18 and I remember some charity approaching me with account numbers, invoices or whatnot when I was going to a secondary school celebration in a nice suit, or being taken for a teacher. I remember being addressed as Mr and Mrs with some friends before I was even legal to marry here. On the other hand, when wearing something completely relaxed, having hair cut differently and smiling a lot, I remember being given a couple of years less than I really had. My best buddy who's 23 looks ten years more and my mum who will be 50 next year looks like she's in her thirties, has been taken for my sister and my grannie for my mother (she was 46 when I was born) and I've had my sister taken for my daughter, as well, even though I'm really just 8 years older than she is. And I told my former classmate "When I was your age, I didn't carry that much stuff" once before I realised. Well, she was a tiny, tiny girl with a young face despite being legally adult. And when I last saw her, she actually looked older than she was.

 

Again, it depends a lot on their ages. If you're 19 and you sleep with a 15 year old, you aren't getting 10 years. If you're 35 and you sleep with a 15 year old, you very well may get 10 years, especially if it was forcible. If you're 35 and you sleep with someone under 14 who could not consent to sex under any circumstances, then you get a child molestation charge on top of statutory rape, and if the judge decides you can't serve the terms concurrently, and instead must serve them consecutively, you could be going away for a long, long, time indeed. It may be closer to 20 years in those instances. So it entirely depends. But I've never heard of an above legal age teen having sex with a below legal age teen being sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Agreed, and we have this in the U.S. as well, and I'm not sure why this wasn't used. He could have been sentenced to 10 years probation, so that if he did something again, not only could he be sentenced for the new crime, he would have to serve the 10 years from the previous crime as well.

 

It looks like more accent is put on the age than the distinction between forcible and not. I don't like that. I think consensual sex with a 15 year old is not as bad as raping a 16 year old. I don't like the indication that declaring consent invalid because of insufficient age makes it the same as rape and not much different from actually raping the same person.

Damn, your system is more flexible than ours. No ten year probations here unless someone's being pardoned or let out of prison after half his term or some such. I think in case of people who end up married, probation should be the norm. That way you can see if it's strange love or if you have another kiddie lover to deal with. Of course, I'm talking about non-forcible situations.

 

That's exactly how it works. Even if you consent, it can be declared invalid if you fail to meet the criteria above. Consent is declared invalid if A.) the victim is under 14 or B.) the victim is 14-16 and you are more than 3 years older. As a result, it becomes a rape charge.

Agreed, but according to U.S. law they are equally bad, as both of them are considered rape. If you go below 14, it's always a rape charge because according to law if you under 14 you cannot consent at all.

I'm surprised you don't have an equivalent of probation in Poland. In the U.S. that's pretty much standard practice for first offenders when you're talking about lesser crimes like burglary, drug possession, etc. Now you aren't going to get probation if you murder, assault, armed robbery, rape etc., but for lesser felonies, the most common practice is to get a sentence of X years probation where the X years is usually the length of a typical prison term. Then, during the length of the probation if you commit another crime - even if it's only a misdemeanor, you can be punished both for the new crime and get sentenced for the old one as well. Remember that in the U.S. misdemeanor is the second level of crime. The lowest level (starting with things like traffic violations) are summary offenses. Probation is like a slap on the wrist - basically you promise not to do anything else wrong, and you are forgiven for the first crime. If you break that promise, then they come down harder the second time around.

 

And I think that's political imagination defeating justice.

We have a lot of it but it's more strictly regulated. Normally it's up to five years of probation and more than that is very rare and in most unusual cases. You can normally get up to 2 years suspended for 5. More than five is when they release you from prison early or when you're pardoned by the president or similar.

I think it's a stupid capitalist view of the law, to make someone unable to consent validly and treat it like rape because consent, even if given, is invalid. Note that kids can consent with someone within 3 years of age, so the consent can be valid in some cases. Also, there's a huge difference between rape of a minor and consensual sex with a minor, and to make it the same (type of) offence is an insult to all victims of child rape. It's an insult to rape victims anyway.

Sex is not a contract that can be valid or not. With that kind of understanding, no wonder they make rape of it when it's word vs word and the woman says she didn't really like it and was drunk and all, so one can't hold her to her expressions of consent, so it's rape. Same way as if her sale-purchase contract for ten crates of persil were invalid. Rape is the act of suppressing or circumventing dissent in sexual matters. Not some contract lawyering.

 

I think the limit of 14 is the problem, because it is obvious that at a certain point, a child cannot validly consent to sex. Prior to reaching puberty, a child cannot actively engage in sex, so there has to be some point where we say, "Even if the victim said yes, that consent is invalid." However, most people reach sexual maturity prior to the age of 14. In fact, the reason they came up with 14 is that is probably the age where practically everyone has reached sexual maturity.