19 Oct Mind The (age) Gap
This article was first published in Pink Magazine – November 2010.
SOME YEARS AGO, A MINISTER OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND REFUSED TO WED A 54 YEAR OLD WOMAN BECAUSE HER FIANCÉ WAS ONLY 27 YEARS OLD. NOTHING OF THE SORT HAS EVER HAPPENED WHEN THE YOUNGER SPOUSE TO BE IS FEMALE. DO AGE GAP MARRIAGES WORK, OR ARE THEY RIGHTFULLY ILL ADVISED? ALISON BEZZINA SPEAKS TO THREE SO CALLED COUGARS, AND THEIR REVERSE, WHO HAVE CHALLENGED THE STEREOTYPE AND FILLED THE GAP WITH MANY YEARS OF HAPPINESS.
Karen Borg married a man 16 years older, and despite common prejudices, they have been happily married for the past 12 years.
I met my husband, Ian, in April 1995, while we were both travelling through the Canadian Rockies on a coach tour. He was about to turn 44, and I had just turned 28. We were two of the three solo travellers on the coach. The third was my roommate Joan, who at the time was 64.
As a result of being on our own, the three of us automatically hung around together, but even before we introduced ourselves, Ian had already managed to make me laugh. I was immediately drawn to this man’s sense of humour and we got on really well right from the start.
On the first evening of our tour, I saw Ian in the hotel’s gift store. I jokingly told the owner not to believe a word that came out of his mouth. I said this loud enough for Ian to hear me, and then casually walked to the back of the store. Ian must have liked this humorous jab and invited me to join him for a drink at the hotel bar. I declined his offer as I wasn’t feeling too well and wanted to have a light dinner and go to bed early. But Ian does not give up easily, and the next morning, he sat next to Joan and I at breakfast. At the time, I thought he was a bit too forward because he had not asked to join us…
Later on, when we boarded the coach, Ian sat next to me and we talked. The conversation flowed effortlessly with no awkwardness whatsoever; it felt like I was talking to someone I had known for years. There seemed to be an instant connection between us. Although he didn’t attempt to hide his real age, Ian was young at heart and certainly seemed younger than he was.
I have always been an old soul. While I was growing up, my friends were always older and I think Ian and I were emotionally of a similar age. We found we had the same views and opinions on some important things, and that we both had the same idea of fun. We both enjoyed travelling, movies and music.
There must have been some kind of strong chemistry between us, as it was obvious to others that something was going on. I later found out that the rest of the coach had been talking about our romance long before we ever became romantically involved.
On the fourth day of our tour, Ian made the first move by kissing me when we were alone. It was only a 12day tour so I suppose he thought he had better act quickly, or I might get away. I hadn’t been expecting it, but gladly joined in. At first, I worried about what others might think and then I thought nothing mattered if I was happy. When we reached Vancouver, we went on our first official date and had a wonderful evening. I think we both knew, there and then, that this would be more than just a holiday romance.
While still away from home, I kept it hidden from my parents, but only because I wanted to tell them about it in person. Since Ian is only seven years younger than my parents, I was concerned they would not approve of the age gap. I ended up telling my sister first and she told me not to worry. My dad said that as long as he made me happy, it didn’t matter how old he was.
When my friends met Ian, they welcomed him with open arms. They didn’t seem to worry about the age gap either. He met my parents a few months later and they accepted him without hesitation too. One of my friends joked that it was because they are closer in age than we are. Perhaps it was so. In March 1998, we got married. The best quote of the evening was by Ian’s father, who told the guests it’s amazing what you can pick up in a gift shop nowadays.
Twelve years later, we are still happy. We don’t have children as Ian didn’t want any, which is the main reason why he had never got married. I wasn’t particularly maternal and didn’t necessarily want to have kids either. So when I met someone who didn’t want any, it wasn’t a difficult decision for me. Now, at this stage of our lives, I can’t imagine us having children. We are too set in our ways and I think Ian is too old to be a father. I don’t think it is fair on the parent, or the child, to be over 50. Having children is a young person’s game – when you still have the energy and the patience to cope.
Ian and I still have the same outlook on life and we still enjoy the same things. We really are similar, despite the age gap, and are yet to have our first fight. The only things we’ve noticed as far as the age difference is concerned is that I have a much broader range of likes when it comes to music and I enjoy watching TV more that Ian does. It is probably because I was brought up in the time when the TV replaced the babysitter, while it was a relatively new concept in Ian’s youth.
We still enjoy travelling, and for our 10th wedding anniversary, we went back to the Canadian Rockies and even dined in that restaurant in Vancouver.
Margaret Pulis was born in Australia soon after her Maltese parents emigrated down under back in the 1950s. She is now 51 years old and is married to Mark – an Australian man of British descent, who is 6 years younger than her.
“I first met Mark through his cousin Karen. Karen and I were work colleagues and often went out together. In 1988, a year after Karen and I had met, she was celebrating her 21st birthday and at the same time had some friends visiting from Sweden.
She organised a birthday bash and invited Mark to join us for a night at the local club. I was thirty at the time and Mark was only twenty four, but we got on really well straight away. Although I always knew that he was younger than me, we never made an issue of it. Perhaps it was my Mediterranean complexion that made me “look” younger.
At the time Mark worked in the RAAF (Royal Australian Air Force) and lived an hour drive away, so we would only spend our weekends together. We shared a love of motorcycles, strong work ethics and most importantly, he got on well with my cat, Webster. A man who loves animals gets my vote of approval, and I knew after just a couple of weeks that I wanted to spend more time with this him.
We were “dating” for only 3 weeks when I left for a 9 week holiday which also included my first visit to Malta. I thought that the long time that I was going to be away for would be a bit much to test our very new relationship, but when after 9 weeks, I found Mark waiting at the airport to greet me, I knew that he was keen.
My family accepted Mark for who he was and when I told my mum about the age difference, she said, “Oh well, if it’s good enough for Joan Collins, it’s good enough for you”. We got engaged a couple of years later and drove the 1200 kms to visit Mark’s parents and his two brothers. We never made a big issue about our age difference, but if anybody asked we wouldn’t hide it.
We got married in 1991, when I was 32 and Mark was 26. We moved into an RAAF house near Mark’s work and 19 years later we’re still happily married. Since then we’ve built two houses, had five cats, sometimes up to three at one time, and cared for my elderly mother for 12 years.
We never had any children, but not because we were ever particularly against the idea, on the contrary, we waited until we were financially ready to have them but when we finally were, we decided that having kids was not something that really needed to do.
Over the years we have both grown to love all things “Maltese”, and were lucky to visit Malta together this year. Mark fell in love with the Maltese way of life and my Maltese cousins tell him that he is even starting to look Maltese. We now plan to revisit Malta every couple of years and maybe we will retire there.
Before Mark, I was in a relationship with a man a couple of years younger than me, but dating younger men wasn’t something that I intentionally set out to do. I simply never made an issue about my age in any aspect of my life so I never gave the age difference a second thought. Who dictates what is “normal” anyway? So long as you live a good decent life & strive to do your best in everything you do, one’s age has nothing to do with it. I like to think that I can get on well with people of all ages. Some of my friends are in their mid 20’s and others in their mid 60’s, and besides, men date younger women all the time, so really and truly age is just a state of mind.”
Josienne Ellul is 64 years old. She first got pregnant at the age of 15, and went on to have another five children by the age of 22. Her first marriage was to a man 10 years her elder, but she is now married to Peter, a man 15 years younger than her.
“I met my second husband Pete 26 years ago. At the time he was only 21 years old and I was 35. I was still married to my first husband and had 6 children aged between the ages of 20 and 14.
I had met my first husband when I was only 14 years old. He was 24, and a year later I was pregnant with my first child. At the time I didn’t even know that I was pregnant, let alone that sex was the precursor to having children.
When I first got my period, back when I was 10 years of age, all I was told was “you’re a big girl now, keep away from boys”. That was it. I wasn’t even told that I’d get it every month, let alone what it actually meant. The whole family went on about me having ‘fallen down some steps’ and everyone seemed to have been told about it. The only great thing about falling down the proverbial steps was that my great uncle, who had been sexually abusing me from the age of five, suddenly stopped bothering me.
The years of abuse however, had already strangled my insides. Besides the physical side of things, I had a very hard time coming to terms with the fact that my abuser looked old and frail, and he also attended mass every single day. To make matters worse, I’m pretty sure that my sister suffered the same abuse from him, but we don’t talk about it. If there is a God, I hope that he is justly punished in hell along with all other abusers.
Of course that shadow of a memory still lingers deep within my soul, and that’s probably why I loathe old men. Whenever I see one I shudder, but with therapy and a positive outlook on life, I feel that I have been able to overcome even this part of my life.
As a child, and also a young adult, I felt that my thoughts and feelings had never been taken seriously. I was a female and was supposed to be pregnant, barefooted and tied to the kitchen sink. My sole purpose in life was to keep my house and kids clean, cook, sew, and make everyone else happy and comfortable. Surely I was not supposed to have an opinion or anything else that was my own. Contraception was out of the question, we were Catholics after all, and I never even knew what condoms were. Eventually I travelled overseas and had to forge my ex-husband’s signature to get my tubes tied. This was when my youngest was two years old, and just a couple of years later, at the age of 26, I developed complications and had to have a full hysterectomy. After that, my ex husband seemed to have lost all interest in the relationship. It seems that he had no use for me anymore.
Pete and I met at a football game in 1985. We soon started having an affair and within a very short period of time Pete and I had entwined into one person. It felt so natural and meant to be that soon enough I left my husband and went on to marry Pete. In the past 26 years Pete has given me more than anyone or anything in my life before. He has given me the opportunity to travel, to do things that I could never have done before, in short, he gave me a life.
Just two years after I left the house, my ex went on to marry a younger woman, who I must say is smarter than I ever was. I do enjoy sitting back and watch him pay back a little for what he put me through, and although I would never say this to my children, they inherently know it. It must have been hard for my children to accept the situation in the beginning, but they love me, they love their dad and at the end of the day all they ever wanted was our happiness.
Fortunately Pete never wanted children of his own, but had he wanted one I would have somehow found a way. In fact despite the 15 years that stand between us, there doesn’t seem to be a significant physical age gap. Let’s put it this way, I’ve yet to be taken for his mother, in fact unless I actually mention it, no one realises the age difference.
Pete and I have been married for 23 years now. Of course we do have many differences, but we accept them. We tend to do lots of things separately. He is at work a lot of the time, and I am at home. I do all the things that need doing, whilst he pays the bills. Mostly I go on holidays on my own, because he doesn’t like to travel nor mix with new people. We don’t even like the same movies or food, but I love him and he loves me. I like his solitude, and he’s taught me to like mine. What really matters is that we are still together, very happy, and always completely honest and faithful to each other in every sense of the word.
Surely I know that he looks at other women, and yes I do look at other men, there’s nothing wrong with that – just because we are on a diet, doesn’t mean that we can’t look at the menu!”
First published in Pink Magazine – November 2010.
