Uncomfortable Truths I Learned From Dating Someone Older

In dating, we see different dynamic, or ‘combination’ and people’s preferences vary. Honestly, I’ve always imagined myself dating someone my age but being single for almost two decades, my preferences faded. Aside from my preferences fading, watching my friends and cousins have their hearts broken broke relationships for me. I came to terms with being single and genuinely enjoyed it rather than being in wrong relationships.

If you told me I’d be dating someone older, I would not believe it. Being single since birth and a relationship with someone older as a first destroyed every notion I have about dating. This article solely represents my personal experiences and does not reflect other people’s truth and relationship.

Uncomfortable Truths I Learned From Dating Someone Older

Keeping your relationship private but not secret is not an entirely bad thing

In this generation of dating, flexing each other on social media and posting about your relationship became a standard between couples. Relationships and social media are so intertwined that anything less than being public implies negative connotations like cheating. As a Gen-Z, I shared the same sentiments, I placed so much value with being posted online.

For context, my partner is turning 28 and I’m a 22-year-old graduating student. Early on in our relationship, we often argued about how he’s not posting about me as much as I did. My partner also rarely talks about our relationship—especially our problems—with other people, even our closest friends. I misinterpreted his preference to keep the details of our relationship private with secrecy and embarrassment.

I never realized the value of privacy until I posted a selfie, faking my location to a bar. I received a message from my partner’s previous admirer asking what happened then inviting me out for a drink. After this experience, my partner told me that only I can give other people the access to my life. We can’t control how people would react to our posts on social media.

Temporary things and temporary people will only waste your time

Most uncomfortable truth I learned from dating someone older is that choosing temporary things hurt you in the long run. When I was a teen, I felt desperate to be in a relationship because almost everyone I knew were in a relationship. However, after seeing my friends cry and have their hearts broken, I realized alone is better than many temporaries. I also noticed how my friends developed a constant need to be in relationships or else they feel alone.

Dating someone older lets you see that perspective because their minds are set in the future and not on temporary happiness. My partner’s visions and long-term goals in life are not only for himself but for us. The relationships you build are investments of your future and you don’t waste your time on short-lived and temporary investments. Life is fleeting and nothing is scarier than spending all that time with someone and something temporary.

Your partner is not responsible for your growth and healing and vice versa

People seek the company of others to fill the void they feel inside, leaving them more scarred than before. Of course, there is no such thing as a ‘completely healthy and stable’ person and almost everyone has a trauma. However, it’s a different subject when the healing of your trauma depends on someone, worse if that person is temporary. Your partner is most likely healing from something that traumatized them as well.

Not growing individually ruins relationships just as much as growing alone and outgrowing your partner. In a relationship, it’s easy to subsume your partner’s dream as your dream, making you lose sight of your own. Growing individually doesn’t mean leaving your partner behind, it’s continually seeking to improve yourself with your common goal in mind.

It’s important that you both have dreams and support each other in achieving them. Your relationship is the one that benefits when both of you strive to grow. With our age gap, I try not to glamour at his success and call them my own. I strive to build my own dreams and equally contribute to achieving our dreams as partners.

Relationship is not always going to be 50/50

I always thought relationships are all about meeting halfway, but I realized it’s not enough to make a relationship last. It’s ideal but it’s too good to be true, especially on bad days. On bad days, you can’t expect more from a 50/50 relationship when your partner finished doing what he/she usually does. You can’t show up and bringing only your 25 in the relationship, it will seem unfair but it’s an uncomfortable truth in every relationship.

Being in a relationship with someone older showed me that even mature and responsible people fall short in the relationship. Being at your hundred percent all the time is impossible and unnatural because everybody gets tired. That’s what keeps the relationship going—the compromise and sacrifice. On days you can’t give your half, your partner fills their half and your quarter. On days your partner can’t show up, you show up for him or her.

Breaking up is just as difficult is keeping it together

This uncomfortable truth is probably the most life-changing thing I learned from dating my partner. Arguments and disagreements normally happens in a relationship considering you’re two people coming together from different backgrounds and lifestyle. My relationship with my partner revealed how immature I still was in dating and as a person. Early in our relationship, I asked for breakups over petty and trivial disagreements.

However, longer in our relationship, I realized it doesn’t work that way. Breaking up and moving on takes as much work as keeping your relationship together. It just depends on which difficult work you’re willing to put up with.