Relationships are better off when the man is older. With a certain few exceptions — notably, every Real Housewives star ever — he is usually the less intelligent and mature one at the same age. He is probably better able to provide at an older age, too, if that's important to her. (Luckily for me, it's not very important to my wife!)
The reason it happens anyway is because we will always find our biggest dating successes with younger women. In our early 30s, they're like mail-order brides just grateful to have escaped Eastern Europe. There's no talk about children or how we intend to provide. All we need to do to impress them is not live with our parents.
When we settle down with one, the age gap is occasionally irksome. While I was in college contemplating law school, my wife was playing with dolls. (I'm glad we waited until later to hook up.) I mean, we aren't Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones (25 years); just Christopher Guest and Jamie Lee Curtis (10). Still, when she doesn't know a single Abbott & Costello routine but wants to discuss Full House, it's like I absorbed my first 10 years of earthly knowledge for no reason.
Then I attend one of my high school reunions. That's where I see what my age looks like on most of the female faces who actually instigated my preference for younger women by refusing to ever consider me as a sexual candidate. And suddenly, yapping once in a while about John Stamos doesn't seem so bad.
OMG. Did he just write that? Did he just write that?! Yes, he did, and allow him to explain …
I'M A GUY! Did you seriously expect anything less insensitive and assholic? (P.S.: If you happen to be one of my female classmates, I wrote "most" faces but didn't mean yours. Yours looks fantastic!)
Wait, here's something that may not piss you off … while I do think the older husband dynamic is better for relationships, I also believe — to bring this all back somehow to Abbott & Costello — that the "who"s lining up matter more to a good relationship than the "what"s*.* And age seems like more of a what to me than a who.
How was that for a save?
What part do you think age plays in a relationship?
Images via epSos.de/Flickr; Corey Levitan
