Disney's Golden Child Miley Cyrus is dating an older man? Heavens, first naked pictures and now this? I know what comes to mind -- those creepy polygamous cult pictures of thin, nondescript, middle-aged men holding bonneted Laura Ingles-like tweens at their sides. Or the "granddaddy" of them all, 63 years his gal's senior, J. Howard Marshal, his birdie little frame and pink bald round head looking something like the triplet runt next to his young wife's exuberant twin "girls."
Well, wrong on both counts. Miley's new man has not even finished growing, probably still has some teen acne, and shaves an average of once a week. He is only five years older, clocking in at a mere two decades compared to her sweet 15. It doesn't sound like much until you do the math. He is 33 percent older than she: when she was five, he was double her age -- hence, their romance is making headlines.
The flip side is that if Miley and Justin make it past her junior prom, their age difference will diminish in importance, even though they still won't be amongst the majority of Americans, most of whom marry partners who are within three years' age difference -- up or down -- of each other (59 percent of the married population). Over the last few years I've had an increasing number of women dating older -- and sometimes significantly older men in my practice. Noticing this trend, a colleague of mine and I conducted a study: We asked 100 women their opinions on age and dating and found that they are much more open-minded than you'd expect. Their open-mindedness got wider with age, thus opening the "date span" or breadth of the age range of men they'd consider dating, until age became, well, just a number.
Try it: mention the topic, and you'll find that at least one coworker in the next office is a dating a man almost a decade her senior. You saw them at the Christmas party and didn't notice the age difference at all -- thanks to cosmetics, medical advances, and the fact that baby boomers are the fastest growing population to jump back into the dating pool and remarry, maybe for a second or third time. In the new blockbuster, Nights in Rodanthe, Richard Gere and Diane Lane's characters finally find true love in a second marriage.
Now to clarify, I'm not talking about your midlife-crisis-stereotypical toupeed, convertible-driving boss dating his new college grad secretary. I'm talking about women, whether they are 15, 25, 35, or 45 years old, considering older men as possible spouses and going after them. And it's not like these guys are going to be sugar daddies. Many of these men have child support and alimonies to take care of, aging parents, and their own financial woes. They just make good partners.
Dating the Older Man: Consider Your Differences and Decide if He's Right for You (September 2008; Adams Media) is about just that. I'm not saying there are gals lined up six deep at nursing homes, but could 41 million women be wrong? Forget the cabana boy -- it's the dapper divorcee across the pool with his teenagers that your soon to be ex-wife is eyeing.
More statistics from the Grashow/Vranich study:
--Over 62% of women would date a man 10 years older than they are. One out of four said even 15 years' difference was fine.
--What makes that older guy attractive as compared to the younger one? #1 response was: "Being worldly, or having had more life experience." The runner up: "Being able to better communicate emotionally."
--What are the things she worries about when considering an older guy? She isn't worrying about sex, inability to relate to things her age, hair loss; however, she is looking at his skin and muscles, as well as his "ability to talk to her as an equal."
--In bed, how long he can keep an erection isn't a priority. She wants more foreplay and more stimulation, but not necessarily longer-lasting intercourse.
--From whom does she most want acceptance (regarding her relationship with an older man)?
o Her family and his kids were the two most important.
o His ex-wife and his friends were last.
--Her biggest concern in dating an older man:
o That she'll have to nurse him in his old age.
o That people will mistake him for her father. (She's not worried that he won't want to get married or people will think she's a gold digger.)
Interestingly enough, in ancient Greece, the age discrepancy was usually 15 years, with women marrying at age 15 when they hit puberty, and men at age 30, when they got out of the military.
*** Journal of Marriage and Family (1981). Both sexes are more apt to marry an older person at the age of 50 than 30 (same pattern in other countries).
http://www.jstor.org/pss/351348
**** At least in my office and in Norway it seems (in a 2005 article: http://www.ssb.no/english/magazine/art-2005-01-31-01-en.html). This was explained because of traditional age differences. There is more variation in both directions at the beginning of the 1970s. However, this trend began to reverse along with women's increasing education levels and participation in the labor force, more liberal abortion laws, better contraception, and the increase in cohabitation outside marriage.
*****The traditional age mating gradient is most likely to change in women over thirty years old, and in second or third marriages, as per a Florida study: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119472715.
******Evolutionarily speaking, bipolar disorder and autism broken sperm aside, it's older men who pass along the extended fertility gene into offspring of both sexes.
******www.myspace.com/datingtheolderman
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1457264549
*******Two out of three divorces are initiated by women.