I love this! My partner is nine years younger than me, but I usually round it up to 10 because it annoys him, haha. I’m an old soul with a very curious and alive personality who’s an entrepreneur, traveled the world, and turning 40 this year. My life is far from “normal” so dating guys my age or older made me feel like a kid.

As a young girl, I had always dated much older men, but in my twenties they started getting boring and I began meeting younger guys without trying. It was honestly a weird switch.

My experience was that once men latch onto their careers, many stop growing, trying new things and having fun — outside the typical “beer and BBQ” or sports nights. They wanted to settle down and have babies and I wasn’t ready. I always wanted a man who’s equally hungry for life and growth. Someone who can keep up with me, which is funny because my partner often falls asleep by 9pm on the weekends. I tell him that I’m going to leave him for a younger man, haha.

But even though I love adventure (and joking around), I wasn’t ever one for casual relationships, which often aligns with younger men, so my partner had to beat down my front door to get me to date him. After outlining all the reasons why he shouldn’t try to date an older woman (especially like me) he had a very well-composed list of why so I decided to give it a try.

He’s more responsible, more level-headed, and laidback. In worldly ways, he’s more mature, but he’s also an old soul like me. He’s very much his own person which gives me the space I need to be myself.

Like you said, I agree it works well when the older person has a younger spirit and the younger’s is older. I keep my partner alive and young while he keeps me grounded.

And the cool part for us is that even though we’ve got a wide age gap, we’re always navigating similar growth paths in life because my life is so unconventional. I don’t care what social norms say about a woman being older but it’s definitely not the same as men. Personally, I like that it keeps me on my toes to take care of myself and do fun things. He used to longboard in college so we’ve just started doing that together, and I love it. Almost 40 and learning how to skateboard is exactly how I want to live life!

Either way, we’re almost five years together and when we actually remember our age gap, we laugh about it because it seems so irrelevant.

Yes, I think age can be a factor, mainly because of reproduction. But I believe outside of having values and life plans aligned, if a couple works to have healthy communication and accepts each other for who they are then everything works out.

The lack of forgiveness, expectations and trying to change someone else are the real relationship-killers, not age.

Thanks for a fun morning read 😊🙏🏽