I had a relationship with a man 16 years older than me for 1.5 years. I was 25 and he was 41 when we met. We worked at the same tv channel. Aand he was married. We started to talk about Dostoyevski, 80's classic rock, philosophy and such. I would never think about the possibility of it turning into a relationship. But it did. Now i'd like to say, I know exactly how wrong it seems from outside. But it felt so right and naive. We were in our bubble. I didn't even stop and think about his family, wife or anything for a second. We would get together, talk about just anything and make love. I don't even know how long could i go that way.
Today I still can't explain how discreet, timid, right and happy we could feel. But we did. We never felt we were doing something wrong. Sometimes he would cry, say that he was "the tumor" of this naive relationship since he was older. I should mention, he said at the beginning that his wife and he was estranged. 3 months into the relationship, he left home and filed for divorce. It took 6-7 months to be single again and it was a messy divorce but he didn't tell me much. He tried hard to not reflect me anything negative.
We were truly happy. Walk hand in hand, feed birds in the park, drink beer and watch the sea. We were never social, we didn't meet with each other's friends. In fact, we were lonely people, we didn't like to socialise in general. So we were very discrete. And i never told my parents, he did. He wanted to get married and have kids. I always thought i would introduce him to my family when we decide to get married, not before.
He struggled financially after his divorce and because of separate maintenance. We never spoke of it as an agreement but we were waiting for him to put his life back on track to get married. Time passed and somehow, he got tired and angry for it was taking too long. He had troubles with his work and family. On the other hand, i was always happy with him but i felt that we were becoming estranged. Again, today i can't explain why exactly we broke up, it just came naturally. No feelings were hurt, no fights were had, we just wished best for each other. We didn't even have a proper break up talk. And we never spoke again.
We were in love, always felt comfortable with each other, always listened and understood each other. We were romantic, we were fun, he sometimes acted childish with me, we talked politics, about life and everything. We were depressed with the rest of the world but always happy and humoristic with each other. I don't remember a time when i said "this is because of the age difference". Of course we had our differences but it was only normal and not age related. I never felt like that anyway.
And the sex, it was always good. I never felt inexperienced (I had one long relationship before) or him being too experienced and edgy or anything like that. I was always satisfied and passionate and i thought he was the same.
I sometimes wonder, what would happen if i was a social type and go outside with friends my age. Would he be jealous? I had a lot of close guy friends but during that 1.5 time period, i didn't do much with them or my girl friends. Maybe i did that instinctively, i don't know. But i can say, it was just a normal relationship, no drama due to age gap.