There is racial discrimination, gender discrimination, and there is age difference discrimination. The experience of a woman married to a man 21 years her senior shows that people treat her nicely when she is out alone, but give her dirty looks when she is with her husband. She is happy in her marriage and deeply in love with her husband. The only issue is social unacceptance. She learned to live to be content with the age difference bias and accept that the society’s attitude won’t change, but it still bothers her.

(The original post appeared as a comment to the article “Age difference in couples—seeking an ideal?“)

Married 11 years and still in love! I’m 36, he’s 57

By Jessica

I am 21 years younger than my husband. We just celebrated our 11 year anniversary.

I look even younger than my age but love took over and I followed my heart.

We are best friends and we have so much to say to each other that there’s not enough time in the day to say it all!

He has more energy than me. I’m 36, he’s 57. He’s the most fun person I’ve ever met, I’m completely attracted and satisfied with our happy relationship.

The only difficulty that seems to be, the only issue is social unacceptance. Passerby’s and judgmental people out in public who give us dirty looks probably assuming that he’s my sugar daddy and that is NOT the case. We live in an 1100 square foot modest home in a modest town.

It bothers me that people just can’t be happy for us when we are so happy, we can’t contain ourselves!

It’s just preconceived notions and the negativity that the world has put in people’s heads about age difference.

It still bothers me. When I’m out alone, people smile and even say hello and they treat me so nice. It’s just sad.

We have a lot of friends who love us and know who we really are but most of them are older than me.

I have been lucky enough to have two friends my age with the same age difference as me with their husbands.

I just want people to be more accepting in the public world, but one thing I am learning to accept myself is that is not going to happen.

I have to be content with dirty looks from judgmental people.

The love I have for my husband will not go away, so dealing with the world’s point of view is my biggest issue.

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