The Truth About May- December Marriages

(Newser) – Can a marriage work when your husband is 20 years older than you? Erin Singer is willing to take the risk. Yes, it means enduring her friends’ shock at the age gap; yes, “people are betting against us. You, even, as you read this,” she writes at Salon. “But no one knows why one relationship is an eternal flame and another is just a birthday candle.” In Singer’s case, the “day-to-day stuff”—like who gets up for the baby at night—is no problem.

But that doesn’t mean she won't wonder about her situation. “When our youngest is 20, David will be 70,” she notes. “And it’s hard not to let my mind wander over to the prospect of widowhood in my 60s.” But there are major benefits to the age difference, too: “David is smarter and more worldly than any man I’ve previously dated and he’s more established —it’s nice being 29 and not having to make mortgage payments.” And though she was long concerned about what others might think, now there’s “nothing they could say that would matter to me.” Click for her full column.