There are many marriages where a 10 year age gap is achievable if there's enough love and understanding between the spouses. When they have their life goals, ambitions and perspectives aligned together, a 10-year gap may not be threatening. However, for normal couples, it can be a bit stretchy.
Romantic couples with a large age gap often raise eyebrows. Studies have found partners with more than a 10-year gap in age experience social disapproval. But when it comes to our own relationships, both men and women prefer someone their own age, but are open to someone 10-15 years their junior or senior.
An age gap of 10 years or more is considered a big difference. When one person has a decade more life experience than their partner, the couple might be incompatible. You're likely to have different circles of friends, different interests, and different life goals.
Biologically, sexually and reproductive health-wise short gap up to four to five years, where the girl is younger, works well. If there is compatibility, love and affection, age may not matter for some. Ultimately it is the individual's choice. A woman's desires and sexual responses peak between 20 and 35 years.
Nick Jonas and Priyanka Chopra Jonas: 10 years
They married in December 2018 in multiple ceremonies. The couple's first child together, a daughter named Malti Marie, was born via surrogate in 2022.
Couples with an age gap of 1 to 3 years (with the man older than the woman) were the most common and had the greatest levels of satisfaction. Relationship satisfaction decreased slightly for couples with age gaps of 4 to 6 years and continued to decrease for couples with an age gap of 7 or more years.
A relationship age gap bigger than 10 years often comes with its own set of issues. “While there are always exceptions to rules, a good rule to remember is that dating someone more than 10 years older will present challenges now or later that add to the preexisting challenges any relationship has,” he says.
The age in which tweens develop romantic interests in other people varies tremendously from child to child. Some kids may start expressing interest in having a boyfriend or girlfriend as early as age 10 while others are 12 or 13 before they show any interest.
Meeting someone you like and could see yourself with long-term is wonderful—but if there's an age gap between you two, it could give you some pause. Dating someone 10 years younger than you might sound like a stretch, but in reality, age gap relationships can last just as long as other relationships.
Finally, there is really no rule about “optimal age gap in marriage”. Age difference of one to five years seems to be optimal for most couples, the female spouse being younger.
Stereotypes aside, many women cite maturity, wisdom, and financial stability as good reasons to date men who are older. But is there too much of a good thing?
“When there is a significant difference in age, like 10 to 15 years or more, life experiences can be vastly different.” In relationships with a large emotional maturity gap, the more mature partner could end up carrying a heavier emotional load in the relationship, leading to exhaustion and potentially a breakup.
Take time, significant time. While there is no “magic number” for how long to wait before beginning a new relationship, think in terms of months rather than weeks. Some experts suggest that you should wait a month for every year that you were in the relationship before jumping back into another one.
It has been found6 that people in age-gap relationships live longer. This is potentially due to differential fertility, the ability of the younger partner to care for the older partner into old age and economic security.
In short, research seems to indicate that in many cultures, an age gap of 1 to 3 years is considered ideal — but some researchers suggest even a relationship with an age gap of less than 10 years will bring more satisfaction.
While age differences between couples may spark raised eyebrows, they aren't that uncommon. Though the average age gap between people in heterosexual relationships in the US is about 2.3 years,¹ many relationships endure with a much wider age interval.
A new study suggests that people should get married between the ages of 28 and 32 if they don't want to get divorced, at least in the first five years.
The question surrounding how old is too old or how young is too young has come up so often that researchers have conducted studies to find out the acceptable age difference in dating. Generally, 10 years junior or senior is considered “appropriate” by the standards set by society.
Con: They can be a little possessive.
This is especially true if you still go out to bars and clubs with people your own age. If he's a jealous person, his possessive nature could become a problem in your relationship. Jealous behavior can happen at any age.
Many people assume that age-gap couples fare poorly when it comes to relationship outcomes. But some studies find the relationship satisfaction reported by age-gap couples is higher. These couples also seem to report greater trust and commitment and lower jealousy than similar-age couples.
Sleep and eat well.
Getting plenty of sleep prevents puffy eyes, dark circles, and sallow skin . Eating a balanced, whole-food diet will help you manage your weight and give you the energy you need to keep up with the younger guys (or leave them in the dust). And certain foods can give you a more youthful appearance.
When are we considered old? For women, the old age threshold is about 73; for men, 70.
Collisson and Ponce de Leon started with the hypothesis that people look down on age-gap romances because they perceive them as being unequal. Specifically, the prediction is that people will believe the older partner is getting more out of the relationship than the younger partner is.