Top Five Anxieties When Entering an Intergenerational Relationship

For individuals entering any type of intimate relationship there is going to be some level of anxiety.  One is always concerned if the other party is going to like them.  However, for intergenerational couples these anxieties may come in the form of age or status related concerns.  Often these anxieties can be subliminal, not fully apparent to the individuals involved in the relationship.  By addressing these anxieties consciously, though, an individual can either move beyond them and let the relationship flourish, or identify incompatibilities that are irreconcilable and decide to move on.  Today I present to you five major points of anxiety for gay intergenerational couples.  I hope they serve as a starting point for self reflection for my readership as well as a conversation starter here at GtD.

Perception - Individuals within intergenerational couples are often concerned with the perceptions of others, particularly if they are entering their first age disparate relationship.  As I discussed in many of my early posts here, there are a number of stereotypes surrounding intergenerational couples.  This can lead to a lot of anxiety for those individuals, which can effect how they approach the relationship.  I remember fearing intensely the reactions of family and friends to the news that I had entered a relationship with someone much older than myself not to mention anxieties over the way strangers may treat us as well.  Outside societal pressure can definitely have negative impacts on ones relationship and until I came to the conclusion that I had to make my own decisions, I questioned what future John and I might have.

Opportunism - Both older partners and younger partners my have concerns that they are taken advantage of.  Is the younger partner simply using the older for financial gain?  Is the older with the younger merely for sexual reasons or for status within the gay community.  While the problem of opportunism can be a legitimate concern, and I would never encourage an individual to let themselves be taken advantage of, the charge of opportunism is a serious one and can be quite hurtful if not true.  Fully examine anxieties over opportunism, before acting upon them.

Performance - This is probably an anxiety felt more acutely by older men than younger men.  Incidence of decreased sexual function increases with age.  Some older men fixate on problems they may have with sexual function leading to anxiety about how that will effect the relationship or how the younger man may react.  To a lesser extent younger men may have some anxieties in this area, worried how they may measure up to previous partners in the love making department.

Autonomy - On the other hand anxieties over autonomy are more likely to touch the younger partner.  Older partners in intergenerational relationships are often more established financially and professionally, and may have a leg up in terms of their relationships with friends and family (i.e. how long they have been out and accepted by those groups).  For the younger individual this may pose a challenge to their independence and self authorship.  How do you cultivate a healthy relationship with someone that has already established their identity when you’re still working on yours?  At the same time the older partner may fear hindering their younger partner’s development, concerned they may hold the younger man back.

Rejection - Ultimately the anxiety we all share when we enter a new relationship is the fear of rejection.  The previous anxieties feed the fear of rejection as do other concerns.  The older man may fear that he not in good enough shape.  The younger man may fear that he’s not educated or experienced enough.  And because of these or other anxieties both parties ultimately have anxiety over rejection.  Early on every small argument and disagreement my feel like grounds for rejection.  Fortunately as time goes by, if all these anxieties are confronted and dealt with, that anxiety of rejection begins to fade and a stronger relationship is left in its place.

 

Questions on Infidelity

Recently the blog DoWhatYouLike had a post that posed several questions about infidelity and how we defined it.  You can see their original post here.  In responding to the post I ended up writing a comment that could almost stand alone.  I decided to repost that comment here and see what other people thought about the topic.

I think this question is a lot harder to answer than you might first think, and really depends on the couple. I recently read Dan Savage’s book The Commitment and then a few other writings on the topic of monogamy, fidelity, non-monogamy, and infidelity. Gay male couples (and some straight couples) don’t necessarily define fidelity by sexual exclusivity. It is the emotional commitment to their partner that they find the most compelling. However I think some are comforted by monogamy, finding that sexual exclusivity is the bellwether for a healthy relationship. However that might not be the case and it is a facade for problems that lie beneath the relationship. My point here is that there are different understandings about fidelity between different people and among different couples, and what works or is appropriate for one couple might not work for another. The most important part of broaching the touchy subject of fidelity is good communication. An individual in a couple needs to let their partner know where they feel comfortable placing the boundary of the relationship. If a husband is getting too emotionally close to a female coworker then that needs to be addressed. It’s not necessarily that the relationship needs to change, but that discussing the relationship can enhance the level of trust and understanding within the couple. Fear and recriminations are one of the greatest threats to the health of a couple.

Tell me. What are your thoughts on fidelity?  How do you/you and your partner define fidelity?  Is it fair or even possible to place the same criteria of fidelity on different couples, gay or straight? Also consider participating in the poll below.

 

Homeland: Perhaps We Can Go Back Again, Pt. 1

I have mentioned before that I thought that telling people that I was interested in older men was like coming out a second time and that the age difference between my partner and I was where I felt I would encounter the most resistance about our relationship.  I visited my parents over the holidays and really confronted the consequences of coming out to them face-to-face for the first time; thankfully without much anguish.  It is also now coming upon one year of being out to them and, in a way, that means one year of really, truly being fully out to the world.  It feels like a good time to reflect on the past year and this final, monumental step of coming out.

During November and December of 2007 I began seriously considering coming out to my parents.  For the first time in my life I was in a committed relationship, and the idea of coming out started to feel less like a lie of omission and more like a bold faced lie.  I began reading a number of books about coming out; I found Betty Fairchild and Nancy Hayward’s Now That You Know exceptionally helpful.  The idea of coming out to my parents filled me with anxiety.  We were always the sort of family that never talked about controversial topics, so sex and religion were generally off the table.  I had no concrete idea of how my parents felt about homosexuality.

When I went home for the holidays that year I intended to come out, but couldn’t bring myself to do it.  There was another sort of family crisis happening at the time that was already affecting the mood back home, and so I decided not to add to the stress of the season.  However, the visit was incredibly stressful for me;  having to make secretive phone calls to John, being unable to talk to my brother about the relationship for fear of being overheard, and the general dis-ease created by denying my relationship.

Upon returning home I decided that I needed to come out sooner rather than later.  In late January I mailed a coming out letter to my parents.  This isn’t a method I’d necessarily recommend to everyone, but I decided for my parents and I it was the best option at the time.  In my letter I discussed how I came to identify myself as gay, my personal journey with that identity, and how I now felt happy and successful in my life.  However I did not state that I was in a relationship or discuss John;  I decided I’d let them acclimate themselves to the idea that I was gay for a bit before jumping into the relationship side of it.

I waited about two weeks after mailing the letter before I contacted them.  I had hoped that they would call me first, but after giving them some time for the letter to reach them and for them to process what they read I called.  I spoke to my father first and was buoyed by his reception of my letter.  He told me that the thought that I might be gay had crossed his mind in the past and said that “people are they way they are, you can’t try to change them”.  He also related a story about someone he had gone to school with that had gotten married and had kids, but later came out and now lived with a partner.  I was elated at my father’s willingness to try to relate with me.

During the first call my mother hadn’t been at home, so I called back a couple days later.  She was clearly much more uncomfortable talking about the subject than my father was.  She asked some questions and didn’t seem too upset, but overall she seemed to want to avoid the topic.  She did ask me if I was in a relationship with the man I was living with and I admitted yes, but said I’d prefer to discuss him more later after they’d become more comfortable with the idea of me being gay.  I did convince my mother and father to check a copy of Now That You Know out of their local library.  I think it helped them innumerably as well.

Over the proceeding months I began to reveal additional information about John.  Eventually I wrote them a second letter.  Through both the letter and phone conversations I explained that I had always been attracted to older men, that John was exceptionally important to me, and that I considered him my partner.  I also sent them some photos of John.

By the time it came time for me to return home for Christmas of 2008 they were getting a pretty full picture of John.  They knew he was much older than me, though I still have yet to give a precise age, they learned he has adult children, and I often spoke to them about our life together.  However they seldom asked about John or even alluded to him in conversation unless I brought him up first.  I was anxious to see my parents face-to-face, to see if they would be more willing to discuss my homosexuality in person, and what questions they might ask about John.

Coming up:  My visit home during Christmas 2008.

 

Five Tips for Introducing Your Age-Different Lover to Friends

During the course of our relationship, John and I have introduced each other to a wide range of friends.  From gay friends to straight friends, close friends to mere acquaintances, we have navigated a wide range of introductions.  These experiences have ranged from pleasant to painfully awkward.  The following are a handful of recommendations I’ve gleaned from our experience on introducing your age-different lover to friends.

1.  Make the commitment that you are going to introduce your significant other to your friends. There are two reasons to do this.  First, if you are remotely serious about the relationship or if you are consistently attracted to people of a vastly different age than yourself your friends will have to know some time.  Such a relationship is doomed to failure if you try to maintain separate lives; you’d be building the relationship on a foundation of insecurities.  Second, your friends are likely to find out about your relationship at some point anyway.  By taking the initiative to tell them yourself you can prevent misunderstandings and introduce your boyfriend/lover/partner on your own terms.

2.  For those that you think may find an intergenerational relationship a challenge, you should front-load the first meeting. Let your friends know up front about the age difference prior to the first meeting, but frame this discussion as a positive or at least neutral aspect of your relationship.  Also let them know what drew you to your significant other.  It’s easy to try to ignore the age issue, especially of you don’t find it a challenge yourself.  However I’ve found that it is better to address this head on so that friends and acquaintances don’t feel blindsided by this minor detail.

3.  Make the status of your relationship clear. Lots of confusion can arise if the nature of your relationship is ambiguous amongst friends and acquaintances.  I remember uncomfortable instances of flirtation from other men at some of the first parties John and I attended together.  Without a clear message about our dating status, that I wasn’t just a little fun, others felt free to make overtures.  In another instance an acquaintance, though she knew we lived together, assumed we weren’t romantically involved.  It made for a slightly uncomfortable conversation; I was embarrassed I hadn’t made our relationship clear in the first place.  Clarifying your relationship with others can also help you avoid some of the assumptions made about intergenerational gay relationships.

4.  If you think your friend may find your intergenerational relationship challenging, make the introduction on neutral ground. Inviting them to your place, especially if you share your home with your partner could be intimidating and could put your friend on the defensive.  Instead, find a mutually agreed upon neutral location such as a restaurant or coffee shop to make your introductions.

5.  Use tact and respect the boundaries of both your friend and your significant other. While I have advocated for frankness with your friends when it comes to introducing them to your lover, this must also be balanced with decorum.  There is such a thing as “too much information”.  Though you want your friends to know how much you like your partner and how into him you really are, you don’t have to share intimate details.

Do you have any other suggestions for introducing an age different partner to friends?  Any outstanding memories of making such introductions? Please share them with us in the comments section of this post.