I was 36 and my wife was 23 when she first expressed interest in wanting me to ask her out. We had been through a lot together that had thrown us into a relationship the 5 months prior and had become really close good friends.

Ya, I looked a little younger, but so did she, which turned out to be the problem. At first we were kind of shocked by it all, as even acquaintances had a wide strange look, and people would "Talk" to her. But we then met other age gap couples who were so supportive. Many of them had been married for decades and had such wonderful marriages.

One couple, who became our close friends, told us to think of it as a type of prejudice ignorance, like racists from the 1950's. And in a way it kinda is. Many of these people don't know you, or how great your relationship is, but they think because you come from a different background, here in terms of years, something bad will happen. It has been drilled into their heads it's wrong, like brainwashing.

You know your relationship is balanced and an amazing partnership, but they don't. So you have to feel kinda sorry for the lack of understanding.

In some ways it is a kind of bigotry, so you really can't worry about it. Now I'm all for safety, and making sure a relationship like this works, is healthy and not one sided, but when both are obviously happy and thriving, then it is their problem if they have a problem with it. Not yours. You tend to tune it out, and I went out of my way to drop friends and even business partners who wouldn't accept it.

The one thing that is really interesting, that people don't talk about is how one day, everyone completely goes the opposite way, and people suddenly supporting you, become your cheerleaders, and you become the cool couple everyone wants to be around. Usually happens after things get really serious, but they see how positive it is for both of you. Suddenly we were asked everywhere, even by distant relatives who we hadn't talked to us for a while, and everyone wanted to invite us over. My wife would make friends so easily, and women wanted to know how we made it.

We became the romantic story. We still are to many people. So though it's not so great at the beginning, later on it's fantastic and a real ice breaker. It's really weird.