Posted by Gayle

The Unequal Marriage

I’ve been known to praise the UK for it’s willingness to talk about age-gap relationships in their media.  This article has me absolutely fuming.  It represents the typical prejudice and stereotypes age gappers are know for.  This is the quote that sent my blood pressure soaring.

If you’re the older partner in an age gap relationship, the worst thing you can do is expect, or assume, that it will last – it’s highly unlikely.

My goodness!  You may as well just tell the older partner…. “don’t work at it, don’t even really bother to try because it’s doomed.”  This is one of the those times when I’d like to take all 25 years of my marriage (imperfect as it may be) and wave our marriage license in the author’s face.  Marriage is hard work…. period. full stop. end of sentence. And yes even people with significant age differences can and DO MAKE IT WORK!!!

I’d love to hear what you think about this one:

Read:  Are age gap relationships better women?

Posted by Gayle

This is the most refreshingly honest post I’ve seen written about May-December couples!   I. love. it.

How about you?

“May-December” and Life..

(Posted by Maya)

May-December: Canadians in age-discrepant relationships
Canadian Social Trends Autumn 2003
by Monica Boyd and Anne Li

North Americans often assume that most married or common-law partners are close in age to each other and this, in fact, tends to be the case most of the time. There are, however, exceptions, couples with substantial age gaps between them. Although the typical pattern for age-discrepant marriages is the so-called “May–December” relationship, in which the woman is much younger than the man, the reverse also may hold.  Read entire article now.

Maya’s Critical Review

This article appeared in Statistics Canada’s “Canadian Social Trends” publication in the fall of 2003. It is a study of Canada’s 2001 Census of Population, with a focus on age-gap unions. I have been unable to find citations of this article, but I believe that, despite dealing exclusively with Canadian data, it provides important information that may have resonance with Americans as well.

Read the rest of this entry »

Put all the Seasons to Work for You in Your Relationship

So you’ve found the “MayDecember Secrets” website and blog – now what?  Well first, you’ll subscribe to our RSS feed and our newsletter.  There is a lot of valuable information out here and new things are being posted almost every day.  We wouldn’t want you to miss anything!    Second, you just start reading.   If you aren’t in a relationship with an age gap, you may be wondering what is here for you.  While our secrets do come from our May December Relationship, we know they will enhance any marriage in any season.  We all know the seasons as they relate to weather.  In the many years we been in private practice, we’ve seen the same processes that happen cyclically in nature also happen in relationships.

We don’t think of the seasons as one-time pass-throughs in our marriage.  When an older man or woman meet that special someone, it doesn’t automatically mean the older person is in the winter of his or her life.  Nor does it mean the younger person is only in the spring of his or her life.   The seasons are more than a yearly occurrence.  At any given time, the essence of each season is at work in our lives and relationships.  They are ongoing parallel processes.  Understanding how the seasons are moving or flowing at any moment in your relationship can help you work WITH what’s happening instead of working AGAINST it.

Spring brings growth, summer is a time of stability, letting go happens in the fall, and winter is the season of hibernation.  The essence of each season is a necessity to life.  No one season is better or worse than the other.  They each bring different gifts and they exist in an interdependent relationship with each other.  When you learn to recognize and use the seasons in your marriage and your life amazing things can happen. Read the rest of this entry »

It surely feels that way.

(Posted by Ron)

I’m lost. It’s too late. I doubt that I will be able to recover from this. We were sitting at the Waffle Hut Sunday (yes, if you don’t look too closely at the kitchen it’s possible to eat there.) I looked down and found my cell phone in my hands. Yes, my cell phone. On most days I don’t even know where it is. More importantly, I was using the keyboard to make a note. OMG. I am lost! I swore to never touch the keyboard.

Do you want more proof?

We were recently in that bastion of sin and waste in the deserts of Nevada (my first trip.) While eating dinner in one of Wolfgang’s restaurants (more proof!) a gentleman and his date/girlfriend/wife sat down next to us. I knew we were kindred souls because there was obviously an age difference between them. His hair was grayer than mine but that just means I have a better hairdresser.

It was kind of long and stringy, but something about it looked really good to me. I came back and decided to let my hair get long (again). Last week Gayle discovered something called Malleable Moulding Paste (must be British.) What’s the connection? She looked upon my now longer hair as an experimental zone for the Paste. I don’t think it worked. Our friend David agreed when he saw it. I don’t think I’m ready to be seen in public with hair styled to look as I do when I wake up each day. At least I hope the experiment is over.

But what am I going to do about the cell phone?  And did I just type OMG?  OMG!!!  WTF??