Demi and Ashton: What’s Age Got To Do With It?

Demi and Ashton have officially split.  Why do I have a picture here of Tina Turner instead of them?  I'll explain in a minute.

Do I have an opinion about the split?  Not about their split as much as the stigma that still exists around older women with younger men.  And not about them personally, of course, since I don't know either of them, so I have no idea why things didn't work out.  But some people think the marriage was doomed from the beginning because of the age difference, a double-standard view that never seems to go away.  A view that is often distinctly biased, since if you were to ask the same people about a romance where the man is older than the woman, many wouldn't have that same opinion.

I was married to a man a lot younger than me.  Why didn't it last?  Because he was younger, of course.  ha

The marriage didn't last for reasons that had nothing to do with age.  We were meant to be friends and not partners, and to this day we're still friends.

I was also involved with a man who was much older than me.  Why didn't that last?  It wasn't because of the age difference, it was because we just weren't compatible. 

I have a photo of Tina Turner here because she's with a man named Erwin Bach, 17 years younger than her, and it appears they are very happy.  In fact, they've been together since 1985.  Will it last?  Who knows?  It seems like it's going just fine, though.

I believe that love is between two people and really isn't anyone else's business.  It can work for all ages and age differences and across racial and gender lines and it's beautiful and sometimes maddening.  And it's filled with contradiction and feelings that can never be explained by the intellect alone.  Because love at it's core is beyond the confines of the mind and logic and rationality, no matter how much we wish that weren't so.

To try to define it and box it up all neatly to fit into what we think is "natural" is to miss it's most wonderful aspect.  At it's core, love is a mystery.  And no one knows why sometimes it lasts and sometimes it doesn't.  Just ask Tina Turner. 

What are your thoughts?  Your comments welcome below.