Couple, odd couple?

Love at different ages

The desire, the passion, the love. Are they marked by geography, society, culture, temperament or age? What underlies our encounter with the other? Questions these with a number of answers. With opposite ideals ranging from continence to debauchery -thought within a religious tradition or outside of it-, the truth is that history records periods in which a relationship is approved or disapproved according to the beliefs that prevail at the time.

~ Perhaps one of the points of greatest suspicion is that which focuses on the "choice" of the other with a considerable age difference. Conditioned by parents for centuries, whose purpose was to ensure procreation, or questioned by society, this "unequal union" today does not obey - at least in Western culture - for reasons beyond the members of the bond of love. Still the question arises: can you build a relationship between two people of different generations?

"Teaching" the other from the experiences lived can be a very attractive emotional exchange.

Couples formed by people who maintain a considerable age difference are not exclusive of any particular historical period: they have always existed. But, according to the social context and the time, these "unequal couples" have been the object of prejudices and condemnations or, on the contrary, they have been accepted by society.

The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC) postulated that it was ideal for women to marry at the age of 18 with men who took them around 20, and judged that a minor age difference between the spouses did not contribute to the harmony of the home. Based on guaranteeing the reproductive fullness of women and a certain degree of maturity in men, this ideal of the older man together with a younger woman is a model that has survived through the centuries in different cultures.

The historian and sociologist María Gómez Garrido explains that "the difference in age between the members of the couple was frequent throughout pre-industrial Europe (the rule was that the male was older than the woman); but those decisions did not respond to what we now understand by the choice of a partner. During the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the choice of the couple was strongly conditioned by the parents: they were family agreements based on property and the importance of succession. "

In addition, until the eighteenth century there was no specific concept of "youth". Certain rites marked the entry into adulthood of men, through the gradual acquisition of responsibilities in public life. "Women, on the other hand, were thrown from puberty to adulthood, when they used to be married to fulfill their roles as mothers and caretakers of the home," says Garrido.

Allowable loves In today's society, people no longer choose their partners exclusively from the need to start a family. In this new context, some amorous bonds that, decades ago, would have been clandestine or socially inadmissible due to the age difference between the lovers, are "legalized".

What kind of vital experience does a person who falls in love with someone much older or much younger than her look for? Is a loving bond of these characteristics always pathological, dysfunctional, as some believe? Or, on the contrary, age difference is not a factor that defines the dynamics and emotional commitment of that love?
The answers are multiple. To begin with, it should be considered that some age differences are irrelevant, while others can be very significant: it is not equal a couple of two adults who have been 20 years to a couple formed by a teenager and someone 15 years older. If the bond is built between two adults who enjoy the relationship, the motor of that bond is not necessarily a psychological trauma or part of an affective lack.

Now, do men and women seek the same in this type of affective experiences? Aldara Martos, a psychologist specializing in sexology and couples therapy, explains that men and women can come to look for the same in a couple with age difference: "the desire for protection and satisfaction of certain erotic-sexual needs or the compensation of the lack of affection of the father or the mother who consoles, attends and cares ".

However, not all cases are the same. There is also a kind of social cult to the eternal youth that drives, especially males, to join a younger person to improve their social image, their status, and in which women become an object of consumption more . Many feel that they too will rejuvenate through that choice. "There are men who do not assume the passage of time - they do not accept that their body begins to age - and they look for a young couple that gives them the necessary self-esteem to feel sexually attractive", synthesizes Martos.

As for the woman who seeks a relationship with a younger man, specialists say that she may become fascinated by the novelty and curiosity of experiencing experiences that would be more difficult with a man of her age. "Many women end up chastised by couples of their same age, with whom they have felt bored and unmotivated. Besides living the sex they have not had in years, the relationship is a fascinating adventure, while the young man is delighted to enjoy a woman with experience, "Martos says.

On the other hand, the psychologist Milagro del Valle Mendoza points out that "the young man knows that the older woman is aware of what she wants to achieve and how far she wants to go. It is more calm and serene. Accept that there is no Prince Charming and does not idealize the other. While the younger woman finds in the older man the containment, protection and security that the experience brings. "

In the choice of the couple there is always a projection
of the most significant characteristics of the parental figures,
although there is no age difference.

Emotional encounter

Behind the choice of a younger partner there may be positive motivations and the built links could be very healthy:

• The richness of sharing and harmoniously combining both one's experience and the other's vital learning can result in a pleasant and satisfying bond for both parties. Not all people have a good time with peers of the same age, and the degree of complementarity in these cases may be optimal.

• The older of the relationship can receive an injection of self-esteem by being able to seduce someone younger. However, "physical attraction is not always the amalgam that unites them; it can be the personality, the wisdom or the power that exert their magnetism ", explains Mendoza.

• "Teaching" the other from lived experiences can be a very attractive emotional exchange: some people enjoy that asymmetric position of the relationship.

• Many times, common interests sweep generational differences and are the great meeting point of the couple.

• The erotic bond is often very complementary and enriching: while young people contribute their impulsiveness and energy, older people contribute with experience and sexual maturity.

• There are young men who are not afraid of the independence and autonomy of older women, which makes them very attractive to them.

Affective gaps

There are other cases in which the choice of a very young or much older couple is motivated by insecurities and emotional deficiencies that, sooner or later, will affect the quality of the relationship:

• There are men and women who try to replace the maternal or paternal figure and look for in the older couple the containment, the limits and the care they feel they did not receive as children. Mendoza clarifies that "in the choice of the couple there is always a projection of the most significant characteristics of the parental figures, although there is no age difference"; but when the role of the couple is completely blurred and the role of the father or mother is simply covered in a rigid manner, it is very difficult for the bond to be healthy and satisfactory.

• When choosing a younger partner, many want to dodge the crisis of age, deny the passage of time, escape from their own history. None of these reasons make a good base to build a loving bond, because in these cases the person has a hard time relating to their partner and is linked to what it represents: lost youth.

• Being the economic support of the couple to achieve a position of power produces many men a reassuring feeling: that the woman is economically dependent is a fact that gives them a false emotional security.

From romance to coexistence

Can uneven links be sustained in time? Many times there is a paradoxical effect: the same stimuli that provoked the initial attraction of a relationship of these characteristics-the freshness and impulsiveness of the youngest or the moderation and the seriousness of the oldest-are those that later lead to rupture.

One of the issues that generates more conflict is the expectation of the future. For example, it is not easy to reach an agreement if one of the two wants to have a child and the other does not. In some cases, it is also not easy to "whiten" the bond with the rest of the family or the social environment, especially when it is the woman who has chosen a younger man. The key is that both members of the couple can sincere if they want a temporary adventure or a long-term relationship, given that, over time, the clash of visions and experiences can produce a definitive departure.

With or without age difference, the adventure of cementing an affective bond of a couple is always a complex challenge, a work that is under permanent construction.

Source: +Salud, superyo (year x - number 55)