325 - Age, Generations, and Relationships
Generations versus age
Although age and generation aren’t interchangeable terms, they do correspond with each other to an extent.
Gen Z generation is classified as those born between 1997 and 2012/2015.
Millenials are those born between 1981 and 1995 and are:
More inclined to use technology to find romantic or sexual partners.
More likely to report being comfortable with pre-marital sex than earlier generations, but also having less sex than previous generations did at their age.
More likely to live with a partner outside of marriage, often for longer terms with no plans of marriage, which is uncommon in older generations.
More likely to engage in safer sexual behaviors.
Perhaps a part of a larger trend away from risky behaviors.
More accepting of CNM and more likely to have participated in CNM at some point.
Gen X are those born between 1965 and 1980 and are:
Twice as likely to primarily communicate with romantic interests via text message.
Still reading newspapers and magazines but are also technologically savvy.
Boomers are born between 1946 and 1964 and are:
Least likely to use technology to meet someone.
Less focused on marriage than Gen X.
Prone to lower rates of masturbation than other generations but have similar rates of other types of sex.
Less likely to practice safer sex.
Age gaps in relationships
Strangely enough, the list of potential challenges in a relationship with an age gap versus the list of potential benefits is almost the same. It simply depends on whether that is a pro or a con for you in the relationship. The lists typically look like:
Having very different cultural touch points.
Liking totally different movies and music.
Being in different phases of life.
Power imbalances/privilege imbalances.
Differences in levels of self-confidence because of life experience.
Differences in energy levels and sex drive.
Peers not liking the age gap or excluding your partner.
Transcript
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Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory Podcast, we're taking a look at age and how it affects relationships, sex, and dating. We're going to start off by talking about some generalized findings about how our age and the generation that we're a part of tend to affect how we approach relationships. Then we're going to move into looking at age gaps and relationships, some challenges to look out for, and some ideas on how to approach those types of relationships in the healthiest possible way.
Dedeker: We, your hosts, we are the ages that we are and we are the generation that we are. Unfortunately, I don't have any experience being any other. I guess I have experienced being ages younger than my current age. I don't have any experience being older than my current age. I don't have any experience being a different generation of what I am.
All that to say, of course, we're limited in our experience as to what we can speak to, so we're going to be turning to some research in combination with our personal experiences as well as the experience of our listeners, things that we've heard from people when we do workshops, working with clients, things like that.
I would love to get this whole age boat rolling out of the harbor by asking-
Jase: A rolling boat.
Emily: You might have mixed a couple of metaphors out of order.
Dedeker: No, I imagine like a riverboat, its got that big rolling paddle.
Emily: Like in Disneyland. Yes
Dedeker: All on board the riverboat of age everybody--
Emily: Aren't we all though?
Dedeker: Due to- We are. We can't escape. Can we?
Emily: No. We never get off until we die. That's it.
Dedeker: Okay. In what ways do you all identify with your generation? Are there ways that you don't?
Jase: Yes. Being millennials? All three of us?.
Dedeker: Yes.
Jase: This one, I always find interesting because I'm right near the cusp. I'm like within a year of the beginning-
Emily: You're an elder millennial?
Jase: - I guess of millennials to Gen X. I have found that, for me, I do see some similarities with Gen Xers that I think other younger millennials don't, even though I probably still identify more in the millennial category, I guess.
Dedeker: What are the Gen X things that you think that you manifest being a cusper?
Jase: You know what? That's the thing. It's honestly really hard to put my finger on what it is but it's like one of the things that really defines Gen X I think is that I think of them as the generation who created computers. That's not truly accurate but that's the generation that pioneered bringing computers into our homes and making those a part of our lives, and that millennials, I feel like it's more like we all got computers as kids versus Gen Z, which is like you had a smartphone since you were one. In terms of how we relate to technology.
I think just being on the older side of millennials when I encountered computers was maybe more similar to the way that Gen Xers did compared to millennials just by virtue of being a little older. I don't know, I guess that's what comes to mind.
Emily: I think I relate to when people often talk about the promise of getting older and having things and benchmarks in life and I relate to the notion that millennials blew that out of the water and it doesn't exist for us exactly. It's not necessarily our fault but the product of the situation that we were born into in a lot of ways, and 9/11 and the crash of 2008, and all of those things. It's just we've had to forge the river. I'm going back on that.
Dedeker: Okay. We're not even on the steamboat. We're like in a little paddle canoe.
Emily: Right, or like liquor in Oregon Trail, which I find very much is a millennial game.
Jase: That makes sense.
Dedeker: Oh, yes. All the millennials were in a little canoe wearing our vintage camp t-shirts because it's fun and ironic.
Emily: Oh, I miss going to camp. Yes, I know. I'm like in a gig economy so much. Look at the two of you, you don't even have an established place that you are at any given time. You can go and do anything you want and that's so different from the generation before us and our parent's generation. It's just we've very much created our own thing.
The fact that I'm 33 and I don't have kids, I live in an apartment with my boyfriend and that's it. We have cats. It's very different. I have multiple jobs to keep my head afloat.
Dedeker: It's interesting that you bring up the gig economy and gig work thing because it brings to mind conversations that I've had with my aunt over the years. My aunt being a baby boomer and I've gone through many phases in my life. Pretty much never in my life have I had a salaried job, a desk job, something where my paycheck was actually super regular. It's always been pretty much gig to gig to gig to gig, or hourly work where it's very much dependent on what your hours are.
My aunt so many times over the years always expressing, I would say, maybe a little bit of admiration where she's saying like, "It's amazing that you can be so flexible. I just don't think I ever have or ever could adjust to not being sure when the next paycheck would be or exactly how much it was going to be," and I get that. Basically, my whole life, as I've had all those many conversations with my aunt, I've always been I can't even imagine anything other than this, which at times has really sucked.
Gig work can really suck very hard because you can be very much feast or famine depending on what it is that you're doing. Where I'm at right now, where it's like my more flexible self-employment is a little bit more consistent than it feels great it feels freeing, but that is so interesting that I do think that a lot of my formative years it was very much the sense of I can't even imagine a different job economy because I've never experienced anything other than this.
Jase: Yes. What about how you feel your age? Not just your generation, but do you feel like you are the age you are, or do you feel older, younger? Which is it?
Dedeker: Man, I swear to God, I feel like from the moment I popped out of the womb, I've been going on 65, honestly in my soul. Again, I can't speak to that. I don't actually have the experience of being 65 unless you believe in past lives which I don't necessarily but if you believe in past lives, then maybe that makes sense. No, I just feel like I've always been an old soul. I just felt I have been always too tired for this shit.
Even when I was seven. Even when I was seven, I was always just like, "I just I'm too old for this. I just I can't keep up with all these people." Yes, I think for a long time, I have felt just old on the inside.
Emily: I have had many people tell me in my life like, "Oh, you're," not naive, necessarily, but that there's a youngness to me in a lot of ways. Although, I have found myself more recently being at work, where I work at a restaurant my day job being like, "Yes, I'm too old for this shit." I'm too old to do a double for instance. Just my mental and physical capacity cannot take it anymore. I could do it all day long when I was in my 20s but now that I'm in my 30s, I just don't want to anymore. I'm over it. I appreciate that part of aging very much and that I'm more sure of myself now than I ever have been. Do I feel my age? Sadly, yes sometimes.
Jase: It sounds like that is a positive thing for the most part?
Emily: I think it's a net positive. Yes, it's positive more than negative for sure. Would I like to be 25 and not have wrinkles or gray hair? Yes, but here we are.
Dedeker: I'm really mixed on that. I don't want to go back to 25. I know who I was at 25 and-
Emily: I hear you.
Dedeker: - I'm much happier to be the me now than the me I was at 25.
Emily: That's true.
Jase: Yes, exactly. I feel like, for me, it's also I felt older and I feel like maybe I've caught up to the age that I always felt that I was but then, at the same time, I look around at my peers and I think, "Oh, you're all so much older and more mature than I am." Maybe because I hang out with you two young kids. I don't know what it is.
Emily: No, it's really interesting Jase because I've known you from 29 to almost 39 now, and just seeing the difference between where you were then and where you are now, in many ways--
Dedeker: What do you see Emily? Spill the tea, let's hear it.
Emily: Well, no, I mean, I think Jase is more sure of himself, but he's also taken on a lot of responsibility and I do see that weighing on you in a way that is different than it once was. Not in a bad way, not in a bad way to see you have priorities that are more set in stone. Whereas once upon a time, you were like, "I'm interested in doing this, I'm interested in doing that." You still are in a lot of ways, but you have narrowed your scope a little bit, which I think is fine. That's good.
Jase: Interesting. I feel like maybe I traded certain stresses for other stresses or something like that.
Emily: Sure. I would say that.
Jase: The point of having this discussion, the point of all of this is to point out that your age, and the generation you're part of do indicate some trends that you and your peers may fall into, but it doesn't mean that that's who you are, and that like, "Oh, Millennials are this, therefore, you are exactly this, or boomers are this or you are exactly this, or Gen X or Gen Z," or whatever it is. I just want us to all keep that in mind, as we're moving forward. This is really, I think, true of any psychological or sociological research done on large groups is that it's all averages.
It's important to identify where that gives us useful information and where it doesn't. It's that thing of it gives us useful information in terms of looking at trends, maybe identifying some influences, just from our peer groups and from society on us based on our generation and our age, but it doesn't mean that you are exactly this way and it doesn't mean that someone else is always going to be that way. They may be completely not any of the things their generation is supposed to be in terms of whatever their priority or the way they live their life or anything like that.
Just something to keep in mind and that brings us also to the topic of ageism. Just to keep that in mind also, as we're going through this, this episode is not specifically about ageism, but that's obviously part of it. That's always going to be there. Ageism can be discrimination against people who are younger, it can be against people who are older, it really varies based on the situation.
Just keep that in mind with all of this and avoid prejudging people based on their age or making assumptions about them based on their age or their generation as we're going through this. Think of these more as starting points for better understanding people, not a way of putting them into boxes and prejudging them beforehand.
Emily: We're going to talk about generations, different generations and age. I don't know too terribly much except for my own personal biases regarding baby boomers and stuff like that. We're going to get into the thick of it a bit here. We have a lot of stats coming at you. They are from several articles and studies, including a study, decline in sexual frequency among American adults from San Diego State, changes in American adult sexual behavior and attitudes from the archives of sexual behavior, and finally, a study from AARP, among many others.
Jase: All right, so we're going to go from youngest to oldest here, and we'll start out with Gen Z. Mostly just starting out with a disclaimer that we're not really going to be talking about Gen Z very much in this episode. Part of the reason for that, to be honest, is just that the age range of GenZers right now is from 6 to 24 years old.
The majority of that age group is under age, which just is not the demographic for this show and just not in the dating scene.
It's just, we are a relationship podcast so we are a little bit more focused on the adult groups. Just for you who are curious, Gen Z is from 1997 to either 2012 or 2015. Around that. Roughly, like I said, 6 to 24 years old is who falls into that age range.
Emily: Next are millennials which that's a lovely age range that the three of us are, which is 1981 to 1995. These people are currently 25 to 40 years old. Millennials are much more inclined to use technology to find romance or sexual partners. That makes sense. I mean, I found a lot of people online over the years and I know the two of you have as well.
Millennials are more likely to report and being okay with premarital sex than earlier generations, but they're also having less sex than previous generations did at their age.
That's really fascinating to me. I wonder why that is?
Emily: There are numerous theories.
Jase: There are lots of theories.
Emily: Yes. There are a lot of theories, but the one that was most consistently named was the increased emphasis on consent and pleasure for both or all parties involved, not just the dude. Love that.
Jase: It is interesting. I do wonder, though, if that's really it, and it's one of those things that people have proposed a lot of different things and some of them have been disproven, or, have been able to find some statistical way to show that that's not the causation. Like that's not related to it.
Some examples of that are theories like that increased number of women in the workforce is why we're having less sex or increased numbers of hours at work, or increased consumption of pornography. Basically, all of these have been proven as statistically insignificant, like those are not actually the contributing factors. That's interesting. We don't really know what it is.
Let's see. Another thing is that millennials are more likely to live with a partner outside of marriage and this is often maintained long term, not just a short term thing before getting married. That that sort of longtime cohabitation without getting married is very uncommon in older generations, but is actually fairly commonplace for millennials.
Dedeker: Millennials also show higher rates of safer sex behaviors. Using condoms, getting tested, using birth control, much more so than older generations. Definitely a big factor there is that I think most millennials have grown up with, basically all the kind of knock on effect of going through the AIDS crisis and the AIDS epidemic is that that was very much, I think, in the cultural Zeitgeist and in public health awareness at the time. As a result, a lot of us got scared out of sex. I certainly did.
Jase: Yes.
Dedeker: It has been interesting. I just finished watching The Halston Netflix series, which takes place mostly in the 70s and 80s. I also, a few months ago, read a really, really interesting article about specifically the swinger scene in New York in the 70s, and 80s and the recurring themes that I'm seeing is a lot of people are looking back on that time and mentioning, A, no one was afraid of coke, and B, no one was afraid of STIs, and because of that everyone just went freaking wild. I say everyone, that's painted with a broad brush, but it is really interesting to think about a time when this sense of risk that I think most of us millennials, had engendered in us very much between all of our anti-drug programs.
Emily: Yes, we're all scared of risk about everything millennials are.
Dedeker: You know, and to think about being a young person of a previous generation, when that wasn't as much the case is really, really fascinating to think about. Again, this may be a part of a larger just trend away that millennials have just away from risky behaviors in general. I'm going to give you a quote from Jeffrey Arnett, who is a research professor at Clark University and Jeffrey says, "It's not only that millennials have fewer sexual partners than the baby boomers did, but they also drink less, they smoke less, the crime rate is half now than it was 20 years ago, teenage pregnancy has plummeted.
It's part of this broader pattern of less risky behavior," which is fascinating because I think that part of the cultural narrative around any younger generation is always that the newest generation is more irresponsible, more risky, more crime, more teenage pregnancy, when the statistics show that that's not exactly the case.
Jase: An interesting example of that, that came up in the research, specifically about Gen Z. Again, we're not going to get into this a lot, but that so far, I mean, they're still pretty young, but that fiscally like, personal finance wise, they are much more, I guess, conservative and responsible than we are and previous generations were. It's like, maybe that's kind of their version of more risk-averse, more trying to be safer, because they're seeing--
Emily: They've all read, I Will Teach You To Be Rich.
Jase: Right, because they're seeing the financial struggles of their parents who are Gen X and so it's interesting how the generations also are staggered like that, right? There's this millennial to Boomer connection, and then there's this Gen Z to Gen X connection because that's the parents and the kids, just something I hadn't really considered before.
Dedeker: Also millennials, regardless of their personal status, are more accepting of consensual non-monogamy, and they're also more likely to have participated in some form of consensual non-monogamy at some point in their lives.
Emily: We're moving on to Gen X now which is 1965 to 1980. These people are around 41 to 56 years old right now. There's a lot less data about Gen X right now for whatever reason, but they are twice as likely to primarily communicate with romantic interests via texts compared to boomers. This is from AARP which I love because AARp, I always think of it as you get an AARP catalog or whatever when you're old.
Dedeker: Rite of passage, man.
Emily: Indeed.
Dedeker: It is an institution.
Jase: Yes.
Emily: It is, yes. Quite. I do wonder why there's less information about Gen X.
Dedeker: Was Gen X the smaller generation?
Jase: It is, so that's part of it. Let me actually hit you with some numbers here. I'll go back to Gen Z. There's estimated to be about 68 million Gen Zers. I think that this is just in the United States. I'm not sure about that, but more important it's kind of relative numbers than absolute numbers.
Emily: 68 million, that's not even that many.
Jase: 68 million versus 72 million. Then Gen X is 65, so they're even smaller than the Gen Z and then boomers are 71.6. There's actually just slightly more millennials than boomers alive today, but we're basically neck and neck. Right around 72 million versus 68 for Gen Z and then only 65 for Gen X. Gen X also the time period is I think a little bit shorter than some of the others.
Emily: 15 years. That's not very long.
Jase: Versus the boomers is like 18-year range and millennials I think is, that one's really only like a 15 year age range.
Emily: It's almost 15 also.
Jase: They vary. It's not like a uniform amount of time for each one.
Emily: Gen X still reads newspapers, magazines listens to the radio, and watches TV, about 165 hours worth of TV a month. Maybe I watch that much. No, I don't think so. I don’t think so at all. My goodness.
Jase: See if you can total it up.
Emily: Wow. I'm probably on my phone that much. That's for sure, but I don't know about TV. However, they're also digitally savvy and spend roughly seven hours a week on Facebook, which is the highest of any generational cohort. Wow. That's interesting.
Jase: It doesn't surprise me though. I think what's the takeaway though, with all of this in terms of how it relates to relationships and dating as well as is essentially just that much like what defines the identity of Generation X, which is being lost between two really big generations is that they are like the middle ground between the two. Where they're a lot more comfortable and a lot more technically savvy than boomers are, but not as much as millennials.
They're more likely to use something like Facebook and have one social media account versus millennials who are likely to have several different social media accounts on different platforms. Still reading newspapers and magazines and watching real TV. I think that's the part here. It's actual TV and not Netflix. That they're still consuming more actual TV. It is kind of this bridge between the two other generations, so that is something to keep in mind.
Dedeker: I didn't know actual TV still existed.
Jase: I know. My mom still watches actual TV.
Dedeker: Isn't that outlawed? Isn't that illegal?
Emily: Pretty amazing.
Jase: No. My parents have a set up for being able to stream actual TV with all the ads and all the actual TV stuff, but it's still through the Amazon Firestick.
Dedeker: Fascinating.
Jase: They need to have that live TV experience. Well, let's move on to our last generation for this section, which is boomers. Boomies as Emily likes to say. This goes from 1946 to 1964. Boomers today are between 57 and 75 years old. Of the generations, unsurprisingly, they're the least likely to use technology to meet someone for dating. They prefer to meet through friends or chance meetings, things like that. Maybe this is an area where I also identify with Gen X too, again being the middle ground when it comes to the online dating versus meeting in person and leaning toward that more.
I don't know. Anyway, also this I thought was interesting is one of the studies talked about boomers being less focused on marriage than Gen X. What I'm curious about is if that's more of a general trend for that whole generation, or if it's just, because now it's been there done that don't care anymore, or if it is more because boomers were also like the free love generation? Maybe that had an influence on the way they approached marriage that then the Gen X-ers swung back. I'm not sure. That's an interesting thing to look at.
Dedeker: I read a study and unfortunately I don't have it pulled up so I can't exactly cite it. Basically, the takeaway was that among boomers, men who are now, again, in this 57 to 75-year range and who most likely have already had a divorce or a couple divorces at this point, men were much more likely to want to get married again and cohabit again, and boomer women were much less likely to want to get married or cohabit again.
Emily: I'm not going to take care of you.
Dedeker: Yes. That was the takeaway or the theory anyway. A lot of women are like, I've already been there done not with like taking care of a man child and I don't want to go there again.
Jase: Also a study about sexual activity amongst generations showed lower rates of masturbation compared to other generations, but similar rates of other types of sex. That's something that came up actually in a number of the studies was just that all of the generations are having sex and that really millennials are the ones doing less of it but just that, that doesn't really decline as much with age as I think people tend to think that it does or the stereotype is.
That was interesting that that came up a lot in these. However, the number of individuals who report actively dating does decrease with age within the boomers group, which makes sense if you think about from 57 to 75 years old, that's a pretty big age range and that coincides with retirement. They're bridging that gap right now and so that makes sense that that might be declining with that.
However, a study of gay men or men who have sex with men showed essentially no decline at all in the number of sexual partners and the types of sex across all of the generations. Really, again, they're still having sex, but maybe dating might be decreasing a little bit. Maybe it's all just hookups as you get older.
Emily: Yes. Speaking of hookups, boomers are less likely to practice safer sex and some studies have shown concerns about high rates of STIs in middle-aged and older adults, particularly in the swinger community. Also, this reminds me of this episode of the Daily that was talking about retirement communities in Florida and how they've just had massive amounts of STI resurgences-
Jase: Starting to come out now.
Emily: -there. Exactly. That is really fascinating. Everyone's just like getting down in those retirement communities. When asked if committed couples should be monogamous, 85% of boomers versus 63% of millennials stated that they should be. Even though everyone is having sex, they still think that people should be monogamous.
Dedeker: Or committed. Tied to the idea of commitment.
Emily: I see.
Jase: I think that that's a question of what is commitment? It is monogamy or is it not necessarily? I think that's the question. Again, just as a trend. I think this is relevant when we think about dating, if you are non-monogamous and you're a boomer or wanting to date boomers, that just realizing that societally and socially, there may be less acceptance of that and potentially more pressure to stay in the closet about that or to be less public about it, or to be more private in dating profiles or in approaching people or things like that.
I think that's why that's relevant and useful to be aware of that that can be an extra challenge.
Emily: With all of these numbers, the actual amounts of non-monogamous people are likely much higher than are reported. People aren't necessarily saying that they're non-monogamous or have been in non-monogamous relationships, even though they probably are or have been.
Jase: There was one statistic that was just a little hard to put a nice sound bite that, but they were talking about in retirement homes the number of people putting like other, for their type of relationship as this secret-
Emily: Exactly, that's what I'm saying.
Dedeker: I think this was an article on NPR that I read a long time ago. I'm sorry, I didn't come more prepared to this episode so I could cite my sources. You just have to trust me. You have to trust me. It was about this public health official who was going around doing workshops and giving presentations specifically about sex in retirement communities and in retirement homes.
She was talking about how, of course, there's a problem because there's this big denial that older people have sex or want to have sex. She shared this story of showing up to this convention, basically is a convention of different people who are managing retirement homes and nursing homes and things like that. She started out her talk asking, so how many of you out there know that there's sex happening in your retirement homes?
The only people who raised their hands and were honest were three nuns who ran a Catholic retirement home.
Emily: They had to tell the truth.
Dedeker: They had to tell the truth which I thought was funny.
Emily: I know. That's hysterical. Wow.
Jase: Yes.
Dedeker: We're going to be transitioning into talking about age gaps and age differences in relationships. First, we're going to take a quick break to talk about the sponsors for this week's episode. We're back. Let's talk about age gaps in relationships. What you got? What's the biggest age gap you've had?
Emily: 11 years.
Jase: 11 for me, too.
Dedeker: Oh, both of your are 11 years?
Emily: Yes. Not with each other. We're only six years apart.
Dedeker: No, no, I know. Okay. Was it with someone 11 years older than you, younger than you?
Emily: Older.
Jase: Older.
Dedeker: Well, I'm curious, because I think there's two different metrics here and so 11 years is your biggest gap with someone who's older than you. What about your biggest gap of someone younger than you?
Jase: Probably five or--
Emily: Five.
Jase: Maybe six or seven.
Dedeker: Okay, gosh, yes. Y'all have a much bigger range than I do.
Jase: Really? What's yours, what's your max and min?
Dedeker: I think. My Max and min.
Emily: Your min max.
Dedeker: With someone younger than me, probably a max of maybe three or four years, and older than me, yes, maybe eight or nine, I would say. I guess I date within a smaller window. Now, age ranges that I've been attracted to, and I'm not going to talk about being attracted to people significantly younger than me because that's a little gross. I'm going to talk about being attracted people significantly older than me, I've had a very wide range up there, surprising even to myself.
Jase: God, I'm assuming we're just talking about Sean Connery. Right?
Dedeker: Well, yes.
Jase: He's that kind of much older man.
Emily: I was thinking--
Dedeker: No, not just celebrities, though. Also in real life. Actually, a few years ago, I was taking a dance class, I was taking a five rhythms dance class that I frequented often. Yes, there was a man in that class, I'd probably put him in his late 60s, early 70s, actually, and we danced together a few times and I actually was really surprised, like, "Wow, this guy's surely attractive." I actually found it quite compelling. I didn't act on it necessarily but I did surprise myself. I was like, "That's cool. I'm into that. Why not? Humans are great."
Emily: Yes, they are.
Jase: What was funny in putting this section of the episode together, and trying to just come up with a quick list of what are some of the challenges that can come up with relationships where there's a bigger age gap, and then also, what are some of the potential benefits of that. They ended up being essentially the same list, which was really interesting. It's essentially that these differences that come up, can be a pro or a con, maybe both, I would actually argue probably a lot of times both. That some of the differences can also be the benefit, as well as something that can be a challenge.
We'll go into all of these in more depth, but just to give you a general sense of what we're talking about here. It's things like, potentially having very different cultural touchpoints and maybe not understanding each other's cultural references. Could be very different preferences in terms of things like movies and music, or Netflix versus real TV. Maybe being in different phases in your life in terms of there's different priorities, different focuses, potentially a power imbalance, or a privilege imbalance and that's not unique to age but that's just another area where that can show up.
Differences in levels of self confidence, just based on the amount of life experience, I know that came up both for Emily and myself, even just talking about ourselves aging and noticing how that changes. Differences in energy levels and sex drive. Then also potentially, peers having a hard time accepting this relationship. Those are a list of things that a lot of those can be good or bad. I guess the peers not accepting it's pretty much only a negative. Let's start getting into this.
Dedeker: Yes. Some things to bear in mind, if you are currently in or considering or looking at an age gap relationship. The first thing is that privilege or power imbalance. It's really important to take stock, be honest with yourself about the privilege that you have or the power that you have, have a conversation with your partners about it. Listen to your partner's experience about especially if you are the one who's holding more privilege, and this could look a variety of ways.
Like maybe you are older, and therefore you have more resources. Maybe you have a more established career, maybe you have more money, maybe you have more connections, potentially, and so that puts you in a position of having more power than maybe your younger partner who is in a different phase of life and doesn't have those things or isn't pursuing those things in the same way, or you could be in a position where you're younger and maybe because of ageism in the particular community that you move in your older partner is actually a little bit disadvantaged in certain situations.
There's probably not necessarily going to be a one-stop-shop across-the-board painting with a broad brush sense of like always one person has the power and one person doesn't, but it is really important to examine that and assess that and have some honest conversations about that. We really recommend if you just Google the wheel of power, or the wheel of privilege, there's an illustrator Sylvia Duckworth, who made this really, really fascinating wheel so that you can look at things like my citizenship, my gender, my sexuality, my age, my body size, my wealth, to have a sense of just where you fall.
Again, this isn't necessarily a hierarchical thing, it's a little bit more of a web and a little bit more of a spectrum. If you are in an age gap relationship, and you're finding a particular area where you're the one with less privilege, you can lovingly talk about that, you can lovingly talk to someone about them having more privilege than you do. It is possible to love someone, be compassionate for them, and also hold them accountable or also point things out to them at the same time that maybe they wouldn't be aware of because they have more privilege.
Jase: Yes, I think maybe it goes with the privilege that comes with being older, of maybe this assumption that like, "Well, you're just wiser." It's like, "Well, no, don't let yourself I guess, hide in the background," or think like, "Oh, I'm old and irrelevant. So I can't," whichever it is, speak up, right? Make sure that your partner hears that from you because if they care about you, they don't want to be hurting you that way.
Emily: Having two different generational idea structures, I think is really nice. I love when my mom tells me that I teach her a ton about so many things just because I'm coming from my personal perspective. Then of course, I get to hear her perspective and that teaches me a ton of stuff so yes. It's good to have both.
Jase: Yes, totally. Okay, the next one is about being in different phases in your life. With this one, basically, it's to sit down and consider your reasons for wanting to be in relationships in general, as well as this specific one, and your expectations for the relationship. We're talking things like kids, marriage, retirement, cohabitation. If you're less relationship escalatory, it may not quite be so much of a like this, this, this than this, but there's still things to consider of like, well, I would really like to find someone to live with versus someone else might be like, "I never want to live with someone again," and have those conversations up front. Be clear.
Maybe you don't need to rush to those on the first date. That can be a little bit overwhelming to just be like, "So what do you think we're eventually going to move in together or not?" But be aware of these and have those conversations as you go on. Some things to consider is just more general questions, not just of like, "Do you want to have kids together someday?" Just, "Do you ever want to have children?" Or, "Do you ever want to have more children?" If they already have children, "How soon?" "When do you imagine that happening in your life?"
I remember with my experience dating someone who was 11 years older than me, at the time, I was in my 20s and she was in her 30s. For her, there was this thing of, "I might like to have more kids, but that's going to be fairly soon." For me, it was like, "That's not something I'm ready to do yet." That was something that we did luckily talk about that earlier on and so that was a conversation that we could have, rather than it being something that just sits in the background or leads to frustration.
Another question is like, "Do you want to live with a partner? What are your life goals for the next 10 years?" I know that sounds like such a school guidance counselor kind of question, but if you think about it more generally, of like, "What is your goal in the next 10 years?" Because the goal of "Well, I want to finish school and go to grad school and get a PhD," is a very different set of priorities than "I want to be settling down and buy a house and have kids," or, "I want to be sure that my retirement's in place so that I can retire and not be stressed about money." Like there's very different life goals and so asking that might be helpful.
Dedeker: I think this is something that the three of us don't think about or talk about very often because this is not the season of life that we are in, but there is the season of life of "I need care," because of aging, injury, illness, chronic illness potentially or literally just getting old, that you can be heading into that particular season of life of needing a partner or multiple partners potentially that are willing to provide care as well.
Jase: Yes, absolutely. Another thing to keep in mind is non-monogamy and polyamory can also change this, specifically when it comes to life goals that if someone has a different life goal than you, you don't necessarily have to be the only person who could fulfill that with them. Say if it's about kids, one of you could have a partner where you are interested in having kids and the other one doesn't need to necessarily or things like cohabiting or whatever versus in a monogamous relationship that can be a little bit more of a challenge that life stage difference of that like, "Well, if we're going to be together but you want these and I want this other thing," that's more challenging to navigate.
That's just a consideration to keep in mind where non-monogamy can actually be really helpful with stuff like that.
Emily: Something to think about is that generational differences will come up so it's important to just come up with ways to deal with that. There's a quote from Zawn Villines in an article from goodtherapy.com and they said, "No matter how understanding you are, it’s likely that you’re going to bump up against some generational differences. You might have different political views, find each other’s music obnoxious, or have no understanding of historical events that profoundly influenced your partner’s life.
Bridge this difference by probing deeper and making a concerted effort to understand your partner’s viewpoints. A big age difference provides you with valuable opportunities to learn about alternative perspectives and experiences." I agree with that very much. I'm not dating anyone much older but again I'll use my mom as a reference like she always talks about when she marched on the Vietnam War and stuff but it's true, it's fun to hear about those things and she can also hear about what I'm going through currently in my life and that is lovely to get both of those perspectives.
Jase: Yes, I think that's such a good example of the way that all of these are the advantage and also the challenge at the same time. I was like, yes, having that very different perspective on something is great but can also be a challenge when it means you're butting heads on making a decision or what your values are something like that.
Dedeker: We encourage y’all to not make the age gap the central part of the relationship but also don't just try to ignore it entirely either. Unless you're specifically practicing a fetish or a kink relationship with an age aspect, age play in and of itself whether that's like using someone's real ages or fantasy ages, that’s a whole other arena that we are not experts in and so we're not going to dive into that.
Many of these same things will apply but it will probably be negotiated in a slightly different way that allows that dynamic to continue but in an enjoyable way for everybody involved hopefully. It's important to negotiate boundaries and your ways of navigating things so for instance, if you're in college and your partner is in a high-paying salary job, you may navigate different ways of splitting up finances. They may pay for dinner most of the time or you may split your finances based on income percentages.
You may decide not to use particular pet names with each other because depending on the age gap it may come across as infantilizing to somebody. There's definitely things that you can still consider, or you can still honor what the age gap means without making it the central facet of your relationship.
Emily: If the two of you disagree and it will happen or you're frustrated with one another, avoid the temptation of blaming each of your ages for it. We've seen some age gap relationships where age is frequently blamed for conflict or used in a way to prove why one person is right and the other is wrong because you're too young or you're too old and you don't understand what I'm going through or something along those lines.
Jase: Yes, and I see it come up a lot especially when someone's dating someone younger than them of just any sort of annoyance or difference in values or something it’s like, "They just so young," or "They just don’t get it. They haven't learned yet. Eventually, they'll come around in my way of thinking, they're just young." That's not helpful, that doesn't help you understand each other, doesn't make you feel any better, it definitely doesn't make them feel better and it's not going to pave the way to you building a better relationship.
Just really, really watch out for that. I've just really seen that poison some relationships.
Emily: This is a fun exercise, you can prepare to answer some questions from your peers and from their peers. No matter if your partner is older or younger than you, expect to receive some criticism from others at some point and you can do your best to prepare for that ahead of time so you can anticipate things like small jabs or inconsiderate remarks, or direct criticism or accusations.
That's nice like have some canned responses beforehand for that or just try to think up like, "Hey, maybe something is going to come up and a small job about how young I am or how old they are or something along those lines," and it's good to have a response for that just so that it doesn't catch you off guard in the moment.
Jase: Right, because it’s really easy to just get defensive or upset about those things in the moment. I don't know how to call it like a fun exercise Emily, that’s more--
Dedeker: It could be fun.
Jase: I suppose.
Emily: Well, yes.
Jase: We can make it fun.
Emily: Exactly.
Dedeker: We--all of us. Every single one of us has had that experience of looking back on a moment and being like, "Oh, I could have said-
Jase: I could have said.
Dedeker: It’s the super witty retort.
Emily: Exactly.
Dedeker: You get to have that fun upfront.
Emily: Because witty retorts are fun when you get to actually say them but so often we don't so can your responses and have them ready?
Jase: Yes. I would say maybe focus less though on the witty retort and more just on a simple but polite response that's going to shut it down.
Emily: That’s good. That's the good cop.
Dedeker: Yes, that’s the good cop take on it.
Emily: Exactly.
Jase: Another thing-
Dedeker: He speaks with the wisdom of his years clearly.
Jase: There you go, yes.
Emily: I know which is six years older than we are.
Jase: Another one is to have a really honest conversation with your partner to make sure that you're also not ending up isolated from your support network and your friends and your social group. This can happen when there's a large age gap where one partner or potentially both partners peer groups might not like say, "Don’t bring that old person around to hang out with us," or like-
Dedeker: She is.
Jase: "Why are you bringing-- Is it bring your kid to work day, what's the deal?" These are kinds of jabs-
Emily: Whose got the witty retorts now. Jeez.
Jase: Right. These are the types of jabs to prepare for but seriously though this can be really negative where both of you just end up totally isolated where it's like, "Well we can't hang out with any of our friends anymore," or where one person loses access to their peer group because the peer group doesn't want their partner around and so you end up just hanging out with one person's other friends and acquaintances and things and that's not a great situation to be in either.
It's just something to really be aware of and to make sure that you're not ending up in a situation where one or both of you is just being isolated from your other network and we talk about on this show in general but just don't always assume that if I'm going to be social it has to be with my partner, that you can also have some separate social lives as well. Just something to keep in mind and I think that should be an ongoing conversation, which brings us to our last hot tip and this is the hottest tip of all of them.
Just do a freaking radar, go listen to our radar episode and do a radar. H/aving that intentional space like once a month to do a check-in or however often you want to do it is really useful because it helps you do that thing of acknowledging these checking in on them adapting and changing as things go maybe if you didn't worry about being called baby before but then after a while, it starts to feel like, "I feel like you're calling me baby like it feels weird now."
It gives you a chance to talk about those things and evolve as they come up without having to just constantly be talking about them which helps to go back to what we said before about not making age the focal point of the relationship but also not ignoring it. Having that container of radar can be a really good way to do that. Wow, this has been quite a journey through the years.
Emily: The age journey.
Dedeker: Through the many ages and many generations.
Jase: Yes. We're going to go on and record a bonus episode for our patrons where we're going to be talking about the whole half your age plus seven years rule. Y’all are familiar with that one. Right?
Emily: No.
Jase: Oh, really? Supposedly the rule is to calculate the youngest below your age that you should, "Should date" is half your age plus seven and the idea is that as you get older the amount younger than you increases and similarly like the inverse of it which is to subtract seven from your age and multiply it by two to figure out the oldest range is that corollary of it. Anyway, we're going to look at this in a lot more detail in our bonus episode as well as some studies talking about it so that's going to be fun.
Dedeker sitting there thinking through the math, trying to calculate.
Emily: Yes, I know. I need to pull out my calculator here.
Jase: We'll do all that in the bonus episode, we hope that you will become a patron and join us for that. We would also love to hear from you what's the largest age gap that you've ever had in a relationship? Post that on our Instagram where we'll be posting that question and the best place to share your thoughts with other listeners is on this episode’s discussion thread in our private Facebook group or our discord chat.
You can get access to both of these groups and join our exclusive community by going to patreon.com/multiamory. In addition, you can share with us publicly. On Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. Multiamory is created and produced by Dedeker Winston, Emily Matlack, and me, Jase Lindgren. Our episodes are edited by Mauricio Balvanera.Our social media wizard is Will McMillan. Our production assistants are Rachel Schenewerk and Carson Collins, our research assistant for this episode is M. Maze. Our theme song is Forms I Know I Did by Josh and Anand from the Fractal Cave EP. The full transcript is available on this episode’s page on multiamory.com