A terrified 16-year-old girl reveals how she feels when her mother’s boyfriend is closer to her age than her

Our first meeting was carefully planned to appear very casual. They chose a cafe in Brighton, which is closer to where I live, than a restaurant or worse, my home.

But the fact that Ollie sat on the edge of his chair and kept wiggling his legs showed that he was feeling far from relaxed.

Wearing Vans sweatshirts and a plaid shirt (millennial uniform), he bought me an apple juice and tried to strike up a conversation. What kind of music did I like? What was my favorite subject at school?

He smiled so hard at me that there was an awkward atmosphere between us. But what I found most annoying was his girlfriend. She pulled her chair closer to him and continued to let her hair fly.

And I couldn’t get over the fact that Olly was closer to me in age. No matter how much he tried to impress, it seemed wrong.

why? Because the girlfriend in question was my mother. At the time I was 12, Ollie was 29 and my mother was 50.

To make matters worse, Ollie was the first boyfriend my mother had after she split up with my father. I was still reeling from their acrimonious divorce, but now I had to contend with my mother’s new, much younger boyfriend.

Not only did I feel upset and angry, but I was also worried about what our friends would think if they judged us as a family.

Trust me, when your mother starts dating a much younger man, in my case 21 years younger, you will experience a range of emotions.

It’s especially difficult when you have someone as attractive as Ollie. I mean, it was my mother! What on earth was he doing with her? Did he have something for old people?

But while age-gap relationships where the woman is older are less common than their alternatives, it seems I’m not the only one experiencing this dynamic.

Earlier this week, director Sam Taylor-Johnson, 57, posed on the red carpet with her husband Aaron Taylor-Johnson, 34, and her two daughters, 27 and 18, from a previous relationship.

Aaron is only seven years older than his eldest daughter Angelica, but 23 years younger than his wife (the couple got engaged when he was 19 and she 42). And it’s safe to say that the fact that he’s close in age to his stepdaughters is all too obvious.

I wonder if Sam’s daughters have had the same struggles as me.

At first I thought I hated it. I told my mom it was like dating someone who wasn’t even born.

She just shrugged and said: “What should I do?” She was in love with him and wasn’t going to give up on him just because she thought I was embarrassed.

I’m 16 years old now, but I still think that a 21 year age difference is unnatural. And it doesn’t necessarily have to do with gender. Dad is now dating a woman 15 years younger than him, which makes it even worse because it’s a typical male midlife crisis.

But I especially disliked the way my mother seemed to treat the age difference like a badge of honor. I’m sure she boasted about it to her friends.

When my mother met Olly in 2019, my parents were still in the process of divorce. It was painful – they were always arguing – and although I hated the idea of ​​my father leaving home, I have to admit that the atmosphere was calmer when he moved in. It was.

I understood that my mother needed time for herself, but I never thought she would find a boyfriend so quickly. I felt it was too soon. I didn’t want to make it all about myself, but I was nervous. She started seeing Ollie shortly after her father moved away. However, I didn’t know at the time because she didn’t tell me right away. However, my brother and I quickly became aware of the fact that something was going on.

The first clue came when she and I were riding the bus together on our way home from the store. She sent me an email with a secret smile on her face, which I found very annoying. It was as if the roles had been reversed. She held the screen away from me like a teenager.

She also wouldn’t tell me who she was talking to, which increased my suspicions. In the text she received, I caught a glimpse of a bomb emoji next to a cannonball emoji. I thought someone her age wouldn’t use emojis like that.

About a week later, I caught my mom posing on the couch with her head thrown back and taking a selfie with her cell phone, pouting. She laughed nervously when she saw me. I felt angry because she looked ridiculous. I knew they were for the mystery man. Who else is it for?

She admitted to having a boyfriend soon after. When she and Ollie were texting all the time, she couldn’t deny it anymore. However, it was another month before she told me and my brother Finn, who was 14 at the time, about the age difference.

One night when we were all watching TV, she dropped it into the conversation.

“Ollie is a little younger than me,” she said. I thought she was talking about just a few years old, but when Finn asked her how young she was, she told me the truth. I sat there in disbelief.

Finn was also very shy about the age difference. We both thought there was something wrong with Ollie being interested in someone as old as Mom.

I told my mother that she should act age-appropriate, but she angrily replied that she would understand only when I myself was 50 years old. It’s obviously miles away.

Then my mother began to change before our eyes. And I knew it was Ollie’s fault. When she was with her dad, she enjoyed gardening, doing DIY, and watching TV together.

Now she was spending money on lace tights and short skirts like my friends wear. It was frustrating. She started going out to bars and clubs with Ollie every other weekend, leaving us with my dad.

I didn’t like it, especially since the next day she was hungover. I wished things could go back to how they were before.

It took another six months before my mother actually introduced Finn and me to Ollie. I think we were both nervous. He looked even younger than I had imagined, and I wondered again why on earth he was dating my mother.

But I knew it was better than telling my dad. I also knew he hated the idea of ​​Olly.

For the first year of our relationship, my mom stayed at Ollie’s apartment for dates and my dad looked after us. It wasn’t until their second year that Ollie started staying with us.

At this point I had accepted that they were together, but it still felt weird to have a younger man around the house. To be honest, I missed my father even more. I missed having my father’s doll close at hand.

And Ollie certainly wasn’t. Although he could discuss computer games and skating, he was not very involved in his family’s life.

That said, unlike Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who seems to cringe when he calls his younger stepdaughter “my baby girl,” he was better off not trying to play Steda’s role. .

That doesn’t mean Olly didn’t have an opinion about our upbringing. He told his mother that he thought she should come home earlier and clean up more. She agreed with him and gave it to him.

One look at him coming out of the shower with a towel wrapped around him made the difference between him and his dad even clearer. It was obvious that Ollie was always going to the gym and was much taller.

I didn’t like him myself. He was too old for me. Unlike my mother, I’m not interested in age-gap relationships. Besides, that would be too weird!

But I was worried that my friends might like him. They always denied it, but I didn’t look into it any further. At first I tried not to tell them his age. Once, when he was at home, a friend thought he was a plumber. She would never have put them together because the age difference was so obvious. She was surprised when I told her the truth.

Throughout their four-year relationship, I don’t think I ever really felt comfortable with the generational divide. They split up this year, so it’s good that Olly has kept some distance from me and Finn. I had experienced my parents’ divorce, and I didn’t want to experience that feeling of loss again.

My mother didn’t tell me the specific reason for the separation, but I know that the age difference was a factor. I felt sorry for her because she was really sad and I was sure she would never meet anyone else she would love as much as him, especially at this age.

I’m not against moms finding new relationships. In fact, I hope she does. It’s great to have a father figure in the house, stocking shelves, taking the dog for walks, helping with homework, and doing all the things your own father doesn’t do anymore. . But it has to be someone her age.

*The name has been changed.