Love has no age, they say! Yet is this really true? After all, in the majority of couples, the partners are not separated by more than a few years, and there is undoubtedly still a certain taboo around these intergenerational couples who are separated by decades. However, at a time when remarriage following widowhood or divorce are no longer taboo, many older people find themselves once again on the "market" of seduction - and are often more dashing than retired from previous generations, and therefore more likely to attract younger partners... which is not without prejudices and challenges.
So, is love stronger than anything, as the most romantic among us would of course like to believe? Because if love is blind, the more the adversities multiply, the more it risks being harmed. And in this respect, intergenerational couples are unfortunately not the best off!
One of the first obstacles to this intergenerational love is the gaze of others . Not only from society in general, but also from relatives, such as children from a previous union, who may have a little trouble digesting that their parent's new partner is closer to them in terms of age.
What needs to be retained and highlighted is that beyond these prejudices, this relationship probably brings something to each of the partners - and not just the potential legacy of the older of the two. , as some gossips might mock (without affirming that this is never the case, let's not be stupidly naive). Where the younger partner can breathe a second life into the older of the two, the latter in return will share some wisdom and experience accumulated over the years. As is often the case in love and as a couple, the union is based on a harmonious balance between the two, where each complements the other.
Nevertheless, we should not be complacent and idealistic in slipping under the rug the real problems that must be faced by any couple in which a significant age difference separates the two spouses.
If you generally have to share a certain number of common points and affinities to fall in love with someone, it is undeniable that a certain generational conflict can form within these couples separated by a large age difference. The partners then grew up at different times, and it is certain that if age is not always the most determining social marker (there are undoubtedly more antagonisms between two people of the same age belonging to two classes different social groups than the other way around), this nevertheless shapes what could be designated as a certain generational habitus, to use a term dear to Bourdieu:a boomer will probably not have the same culture, the same references, the same values or even the same centers of interest as a person twenty years his junior. However, it is often the sharing that defines a couple:therefore, how to agree on the choice of activities and the common way of life? There are then two solutions, either one or both partners make an effort to adapt, or both choose to have more distinct intimate lives. Either way, it can cause friction.
In the same vein, one of the most important challenges facing these couples is that of their respective aspirations. At different ages, desires and goals are no longer the same . Where a retiree would more likely aspire to a rather tidy life, or to finally enjoy the fruits of his years of labor by traveling and having fun, the younger partner still has a career ahead of him, which may involve to remain fixed in a specific geographical area, and to generate frustration with regard to the more idle life of the other. These different projects can antagonize each other and lead one (or both) of the partners to feel limited in their aspirations.
The other problem, which moreover corresponds to this question of different aspirations, is that of descendants. Not all couples want to have children , but it remains a goal for many people. In this case, there is an additional addition for heterosexual couples who do not wish to adopt a biological distinction:an elderly woman is no longer biologically able to become pregnant and give birth to a child, which means that her partner will have to give up to fatherhood. If this is not possible, it necessarily seriously compromises the durability of the couple. Conversely, if it is true that men can still have very old children, we must still ask ourselves the question of the relevance of this choice:are we ready to have a child that we will potentially leave orphaned early? Is it desirable for the latter? As well as for his partner who would find herself a single mother? And even if this were not to be the case, will we be able to share a lot of activities or even complicity with a child we had so late? All of this must be taken into account before embarking (or relaunching) on this unique and oh so rich in responsibility adventure that is parenthood...
Finally, there are real physical differences between two partners separated by years. If this is not necessarily the case at the beginning of the relationship, these are only likely to increase over time. The older of the two will increasingly need regular rest, may also be faced with more recurring health problems, while the younger will undoubtedly need more stimulation and dynamism. And this is true both in the city and at home, and especially sexually, the libido and sexual performance not being the same after a certain age...
If there are therefore many challenges imposed by the age difference, the best way to remedy them is still, as always, within a couple to… communicate! We can never repeat it enough, and this is basically valid regardless of the age difference between the two partners. Discuss with your spouse your desires, your aspirations, your fears as well. It is better to prepare the ground than to find yourself dealing with problems once you are immersed in them.
If clichés die hard as soon as the subject of intergenerational couples is broached, and the gaze of others is not always the most tender, we also observe that there is a sexist dynamic at work within heterosexual couples, where a couple in which the woman is the oldest will be much more exposed to vindictiveness than a couple in which it is the man who is the oldest.
This can be seen, for example, in the treatment of these age differences in celebrity magazines. As soon as a few years separate a famous woman from her younger partner, she is immediately described as a cougar , a man-eater… while it takes decades of difference for you to start seeing the same criticisms of a man whose partner is younger. It is true that men in the general population are generally older than their partners, even if these differences are in most cases insignificant. And in cases where it is the oldest man, this difference is more than ten years for 8.6% of couples, while it is only 1.4% of cases when c is the woman who is the oldest! It is also that there is a taboo around female sexual desire, or the aging body of women – two factors from which men are exempt. We must also mention child custody, which most generally fails women following a divorce, which "liberates" men in the search for a new partner, while women must be more pragmatic... and in this respect, wage inequalities that again and again make women less "powerful" than men.
In short, once again, this is "only" bad gossip - and the fact that we are much more complacent with men than with women in this regard proves precisely that age in itself is not so much the problem... — but still it is necessary to be sure to be able to support them before embarking on this adventure, and above all, they reveal gendered inequalities which remind us that one does not fall in love in such an idealistic way as the romance novels and other romantic comedies would have us believe…
