- POPSUGAR Australia
- Living
- Are Relationships With Big Age Gaps Destined to End?
Are Relationships With Big Age Gaps Destined to End?
Instagram / Getty
By now you’ve probably heard that Florence Pugh has confirmed the end of her three-year relationship with Zach Braff.
I, for one, am sad about it. As someone who has been in meaningful relationships with older people, I connected with Pugh’s public defence of their relationship, often criticised on social media for their 21-year age gap.
But Pugh isn’t alone in this conversation. Celebrity couples like Sarah Paulson and Holland Taylor, Nick Jonas and Priyanka Chopra-Jonas and Katharine McPhee and David Foster, who all have substantial age gaps, have all had to defend them, multiple times.
Age gaps seem to bother us when it comes to romantic relationships. According to Normal‘s in-house sex coach Georgia Grace, this is mostly because we assume the younger person is being taken advantage of.
“This can certainly can be the case,” Grace explains. “But if everyone is consenting of the age difference, then it can be a very healthy relationship.”
Back in April 2020, Pugh took to her Instagram to reveal the extent of negative commentary that had surrounded a birthday tribute to Braff.
“Within about eight minutes of the photo being posted, I had about 70% of the comments hurling abuse and being horrid, and basically bullying someone on my page,” she explained at the time.
“I’ll underline this fact —I am 24 years old. I do not need you to tell me who I should and should not love, and I would never in my life, ever, ever, tell anyone who they can and cannot love. It is not your place, and really it has nothing to do with you.”
Earlier this year, rumours swirled that Pugh was romantically connected to her Midsommar co-star Will Poulter, with social media users somehow thinking it was totally fine and okay to celebrate that she’d “moved on with someone her own age”. Many trolls also referred to Braff as a “fossil man” during this time.
Ever-ready to stand up for herself, her beliefs, and those she loves, Pugh slammed these comments on social media. “Regardless of your opinion on who I should or shouldn’t be with, if you’re complimenting someone by trolling another person… you’re just bullying. There’s literally no need to be horrible online — no need,” she wrote back in May.
While the couple has ultimately broken up, media outlets are still attributing this to their age difference and the difficulties this presents. Articles breaking the news of their breakup are rife with assumptions like “the constant negative comments were enough to drive a wedge between the pair”.
The breakup and surrounding conversation got me thinking, why are relationships with big age gaps consistently undermined? Why do so many people assume that they won’t last?
Part of me can’t help but put it down to fear. Whenever we see something we’re not familiar with, such as polyamory, a relationship dynamic we haven’t been brought up to understand, we feel the need to question it.
“We all want something different out of a relationship, so who are we to deem what is moral and valuable in other peoples’?” asks Grace.
“When someone is attracted to an older person, we don’t need to read into it. They’re consent adults, they’re free to be there and it’s not our place to assume that their age creates dangerous power dynamics. That’s something that we often project onto relationships with age gaps, but it says more about us than the relationship in question.”
Relationships with big age gaps are a common thing on TikTok at the moment, with many accounts being dedicated sharing insights into the couples’ everyday lives.
These videos bring about a mixture of commentary from TikTok users, from extreme criticism, to support and gratittude. “Feels so good to have some visibility on age gap relationships, feel less alone”, one user writes.
“People in relationships with age gaps often struggle the most with identifying other people’s judgement about them,” says Grace. “That is one of the main challenges they face.”
“They often feel hyper-aware of the age difference and what other people say or think behind their backs. This can instil a sense of doubt in the relationship, which is obviously detrimental.”
But according to Grace, this doesn’t mean relationships with age gaps are destined to not last.
“[Someone younger] might be attracted to someone older because they’re more mature and their values align more,” she says.
“They may have similar life experiences and goals, that they aren’t able to connected on with people of their own age. This could go either way; wanting to be with someone who is at a more mature stage of their life, or with someone who is at a ‘younger’ stage of life. Neither of these desires are wrong, it all just comes down to what you’re looking for in a relationship.”
If you’re looking at the success of a relationship, you should be looking at things like values, goals, communication, love, kindness and commitment to resolving conflict, Grace says. Age doesn’t matter if those dynamics are at play!
Personally, I find it a bit sad to accept that unconventional relationships are still needing to be explained and defended in 2022. It’s worth remembering, though, that you and your partner’s feelings are the only ones that matter.
Age is truly just a number.