Christians and age-gap relationships

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stardustx

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I recently posted in the "Story Research" forum asking how to properly portray a married couple who have a significant age difference. People have given me several helpful answers about age-gap relationships. My next question is this: I'm wondering how Christians perceive or think of married couples with an age difference? I know opinions and views vary from person to person, depending on each person's situation in life.

But I'm wondering if any Christians here have any personal thoughts or views on age-gap relationships? Specifically, if someone in their twenties is romantically interested/engaged/married to someone in their thirties or even forties, what do you think about this? I'm asking because I am a Christian. I'm very curious as to how other believers think about age-gap relationships in terms of a healthy, happy marriage in which the wife and husband not only have an age difference but are perhaps Christians themselves. Is this something seen as a controversial issue in terms of morals and faith, or does it depend on each individual?

I know that several years ago it wasn't uncommon for a man and woman with a big age gap to marry, for whatever reason. But what about in today's world? Any thoughts? I'm thinking of writing a story about a married couple with a significant age gap, but I'm still considering how to go about it.
 
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cmhbob

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I can't think of any Biblical reason against it. And I think the biggest concern anyone ever has is whether the older person is somehow being taken advantage of, especially if they are in their 50s and older, and taking on someone substantially younger.
 

krinaphobia

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I think my position as a twenty-something woman plays more into my view of age-gap relationships than my faith does. Like Bob said, there's no Biblical reason against it, and no common rules about it at least in the Protestant church as I know it. I could see a big age-gap being a huge problem for the couple in modern society, since we seem to not be okay with that. I think there's an assumption that an older man but be taking advantage of a younger woman. Even extremely conservative Christians will be supportive of a healthy marriage between two heterosexual believers, regardless of age.
 

Robin Bayne

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My hubby is 12 years older than I am, which provides interesting story potential for contemporary novels. As the others said, as long as the characters are both believers, the Bible considers them equally yoked.
 

Chris P

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I don't think it's a religious issue at all. I was in a relationship with a woman 14 years younger than I, and it didn't work out more from stage of life and long term goals reasons than for reasons related to faith.
 

stardustx

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Even extremely conservative Christians will be supportive of a healthy marriage between two heterosexual believers, regardless of age.

I wasn't sure about that, so thank you.

My hubby is 12 years older than I am, which provides interesting story potential for contemporary novels. As the others said, as long as the characters are both believers, the Bible considers them equally yoked.

Thank you for pointing that out. It's something I was considering about while I was reading what the Bible says to husbands and wives regarding how to treat and respect each other. That they be equal partners. That's such an important point I want to convey in my short story.


And, thanks to everyone who responded. :)
 
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heyjude

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Late, but hubby is 18 years older than me. We don't consider it a religious issue at all. Or even an issue, really. As was pointed out, we're both Christians, so... It's all good. :)
 

Lavern08

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My Hubby is 10 years younger than me.

All that mattered to us (and our Pastor, families and friends) was that we both were 100% committed to Christ first, and then to each other.

It's been 28 years now, and our marriage is better than ever. :)
 

stardustx

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Late, but hubby is 18 years older than me. We don't consider it a religious issue at all. Or even an issue, really. As was pointed out, we're both Christians, so... It's all good. :)

Thank you for saying that.

My Hubby is 10 years younger than me.

All that mattered to us (and our Pastor, families and friends) was that we both were 100% committed to Christ first, and then to each other.

It's been 28 years now, and our marriage is better than ever. :)

Thank you for sharing all of that. A very important point and definitely something to keep in mind.
 

atthebeach

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My hubby is almost 10 years older than me. When we met and later married I was in my early twenties and he in his early thirties. Same as the others said, all that mattered is that we were both putting Christ first, and 100% committed to the marriage. And Lavern you definitely have us beat, so congrats! But we did celebrate 18 years of marriage this year.

I think the only caution would be if someone older were trying to date a minor (thinking of the Dateline news episodes where an adult male thinks he has a date with a 13 year old girl- yuck! He is then arrested in the show, of course) but this would not just be about faith but our society in general and the eew pervert factor.

But if you are looking at adults and age gaps, as I presume you are, then I agree with above posters.
 
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Zaris

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Religion does not have anything to do with age gap, as far as i know. I belong to Eastern Orthodox Faith, and there is no such issue.


Off course, in most traditional societies older man with younger woman had been more accepted then older woman with younger man. But in recent years, people had become more tolerant. In fact, there are many young man who would like as a spouse a more mature woman.
 

christopherdschmitz

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I personally have no issue with it, but have a friend from school my age who was in a long term relationship with someone two years younger than my father (and we lived in a small town...like less than 1000 ppl)... she was in her mid/late 20s when they got together. This is mainly a cultural issue. Our current thoughts on marriage and dating are cultural ideas (which mainly rooted in the 50s and morphed dangerously in the 60s). Cultural norms and morays are weird things, but we always think that everything everywhere else is just like it is at home... sort of a cultural, psychological projection
 

Silva

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It's a cultural objection, not a faith-based one (if there is an objection) in every time I've seen it happen.

Edit: I was thinking of situations where the man is the one who's significantly older when I wrote the above. In situations where it's a young man marrying an older woman, I have always seen objections centered around the idea that the man will not be able to wear the pants in the family if his wife is so much older; and I would expect the woman would probably receive lots of counsel on making sure she is submissive. But the circles of Christianity that I grew up in were very complementarian.
 
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AJMarks

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As a Lutheran, never had a problem with it. My problems arise from society with such age gaps and such questions come from all groups equally. I think it also depends on how much of an age gap there is, 5, 10, 30? I can't recall any religious bible study or anything like that where this was ever brought up.
While I was in the hospital this year, my night nurse was married to a man 20 years older than she was, and had been married for 25 years, had two daughters, one about to graduate from high school. She said it was on purpose. She wanted to meet someone older than she was, and it worked very well for her. Religion was never brought up in the conversation. What shocked me the most was she went out of her way to meet someone so much older than she was (back when she was 20).
 
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scifi_boy2002

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I'm Christian and I see no problem with it. I think the Bible says that Abraham was 10 years older than his wife Sara, but I don't think it mentions any other age differences between couples. I've been exposed to many different religious views within the Christian faith and I've never heard anything forbidding large age gaps. My wife's parents belong to a very strict religious group and there is a 10 year gap in their ages.
 
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ziggysawdust

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I've never seen a problem with it. As long as they both follow Jesus and love and serve each other, then does age make a real difference?

My parents are 13 years apart and they've been married for 28 years
 

quixoticameron

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Thank you for pointing that out. It's something I was considering about while I was reading what the Bible says to husbands and wives regarding how to treat and respect each other. That they be equal partners. That's such an important point I want to convey in my short story.

Well, here's an interesting complication: Not everyone reads the Scriptures about marriage and comes to the conclusion you did that spouses should be "equal partners." In fact, the women and girls at the church I used to go to (a very evangelical Assemblies of God church) emphasized the Bible's teaching about women submitting to their husbands' leadership as a case-in-point argument for a hierarchical relationship between men and women. It's possible these women have more nuanced ideas of opposite-sex relationships than I give them credit for, but when I was a high schooler trying to date around and meet guys they would advise (read: order) me not to make the first move, not to share my feelings first, and to put his emotional needs before mine. I think in principle they believed this was the most Christlike way to date, and we did get sermons from the pulpit reminding men to love their wives sacrificially, but in practice the women's advice on dating meant either catering to men's desires regardless of your own or keeping silent about your own wants and needs to avoid conflict. It led to a lot of conflict between my friend, her family, and me, because they cared so much about seeing me live out what they thought the Bible was teaching that they gave me a hard time about it when I followed a style of dating more in line with my own readings of Scripture.

I share that because I think the difference between complementarian and egalitarian views for gender relations (and within that, differences in views on what those lifestyles mean in practice) are fertile grounds for fiction. A pair of people can be reading the same Scriptures and telling each other the same platitudes about marriage, but still have wildly different expectations for their marriage. Likewise, congregations often downplay the powerful influence their church culture has on the way they understand Scripture, and they start to confuse the subjective wisdom of the community with objective truth. Then you bring in a character from a different church culture, or a nonreligious background even, and you've got a great setup for a story.

EDIT: This thread came up in the activity stream and I didn't even realize how old it was. Oh well, maybe someone scrolling past will see this and be inspired to write a story about gender relations in the church.
 
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KaseetaKen

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I hate to add to an old thread but thought to remind you of the story of Ruth and Boaz.

Ruth 3:10 NKJV
Then he said, "Blessed are you of the Lord, my daughter! For you have shown more kindness at the end than at the beginning, in that you did not go after young men, whether poor or rich.

The implication is that he was a much older man and that she could have had her choice of men but came to him.
 

heyjude

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I hate to add to an old thread but thought to remind you of the story of Ruth and Boaz.

Ruth 3:10 NKJV
Then he said, "Blessed are you of the Lord, my daughter! For you have shown more kindness at the end than at the beginning, in that you did not go after young men, whether poor or rich.

The implication is that he was a much older man and that she could have had her choice of men but came to him.

This is one of my very favorite stories in the Bible. :)
 
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