An excerpt from an article by:
By Star Lawrence, WebMD

Susan Winter is co-author, with Felicia Brings, of Older Women, Younger Men : New Options for Love and Romance“. She is 48 and has been in a relationship with a man 20 years younger since 1992. Before that, she hooked up with two men 16 years younger and another 20 years younger.

She works out a lot by her own admission (and judging by her track record in this department) and often meets partners at the gym, not the bars.  Winter tells WebMD that she and her co-author interviewed more than 200 couples for their book. Though hardly a scientific study, the research surfaced three myths such couples hear every time:

Myth No. 1 – “He will leave you for a younger woman.” Winter says they did not find one younger man who did this, at least for a specific woman and because she was younger. “In some cases, the man wanted children,” she says, “and the relationship fell apart because of that.”

Myth No. 2 – “The woman was the seducer — Mrs. Robinson.” In all 200 cases, Winter says it was the man who initiated the contact.

Myth No. 3 -”It will never last.” Winter said some of the couples they met had been together 25 year or more. The average length of the relationships was 13 years.

Read entire article here.

Gayle’s Commentary

I came across this article from 2003 today.  What I really like about it is the discussion of the myths in this type of age gapped relationship.  We find that May December couples are often stereotyped in negative ways.  A cougar may be a beautiful graceful cat but it is still a dangerous predator.  Often, women who date younger men (“cougars”) are still characterized as predators.  The men who date older women are many times seen as having ulterior motives.   The older man with a younger woman may also get classified as predatory.  Understanding differences is one way we learn to remove stereotypes in this culture.  Like it or not May December relationships are still subject to a different type of scrutiny than similarly aged couples.  Mythbusting helps bring about new levels of awareness.

Personally, I am hoping that MSNBC and the other networks will give us May-Decembers more positive airtime to further understanding about how couples with significant age differences navigate the gap.  They might just discover that we are not that different after all!

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