Latest / I Do, Part 2 / Ask Amy & T.J.: “We Have a 25 Year Age Gap. 13 Years Ago, Our Relationship Didn’t Work, But Could Now Be Our Time?”

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Ask Amy & T.J.: “We Have a 25 Year Age Gap. 13 Years Ago, Our Relationship Didn’t Work, But Could Now Be Our Time?” · I Do, Part 2

0:02
Speaker 1: Hey, if folks, sit is Monday, September first, and age
0:07
Speaker 1: a nutting but a number when it comes to dating.
0:10
Speaker 1: But what if she is an eighteen year old freshman?
0:16
Speaker 1: Because age still matter if the gap is twenty five years?
0:19
Speaker 1: But oh, the story gets oh so much more complicated
0:23
Speaker 1: than that. And with that, welcome to this relationship edition
0:26
Speaker 1: of Amy and TJ. We're going over Robes, a question
0:29
Speaker 1: that a reader sent into us on our yahoo dot
0:33
Speaker 1: com column asking for some advice. You can find it
0:35
Speaker 1: yahoo dot com, a new one every week in the
0:38
Speaker 1: life section. Let's start with that, Robes, there is an
0:42
Speaker 1: age gap here twenty five years. Now. When you first
0:47
Speaker 1: hear that, is that a big deal?
0:49
Speaker 2: Oh, it's a pretty big deal. I mean that's a
0:51
Speaker 2: parent to child generational gap.
0:53
Speaker 1: Okay, so you would have a follow up question immediately, Hey,
0:56
Speaker 1: thinking about dating somebody he's twenty five years older? Your
0:59
Speaker 1: first question question, you need to know how old the
1:02
Speaker 1: woman is right now? Right?
1:03
Speaker 2: Yes, one hundred percent, Because well, there's already going to
1:07
Speaker 2: be a literally a generation gap between the two of you.
1:11
Speaker 2: But if you've lived enough life where you can go
1:15
Speaker 2: into that relationship with enough experience, you won't obviously ever
1:21
Speaker 2: catch up with your partner, but you've had enough life
1:24
Speaker 2: experience that you can navigate your way through it potentially successfully.
1:29
Speaker 2: If you're young, if you've just started off in life,
1:32
Speaker 2: if you've just left your parents home, it's like you
1:36
Speaker 2: just went from your dad to your boyfriend. Like it's
1:40
Speaker 2: almost as if you are still seeking that same sort
1:42
Speaker 2: of relationship where you've got that dynamic where someone is
1:46
Speaker 2: a parental figure to you, because how could he not.
1:48
Speaker 1: Bekay, it's hard to endorse, is it not at that age?
1:52
Speaker 2: No?
1:52
Speaker 1: Okay, details are different, and there are a lot of
1:54
Speaker 1: people out there with age gaps in their relationships. But
1:57
Speaker 1: it's a hard I would say, as I'm looking at
1:59
Speaker 1: it a couple of different ways. It's hard as a
2:01
Speaker 1: parent especially, but it's hard to endorse a relationship when
2:07
Speaker 1: somebody is seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, even up to twenty five,
2:11
Speaker 1: and somebody has a twenty five year age gap. It
2:14
Speaker 1: can work, People can fall in love, that's from the outside.
2:20
Speaker 1: When it's somebody you care about, a family member, especially
2:23
Speaker 1: a kid. If somebody you love a child, it's difficult
2:28
Speaker 1: to stomach.
2:29
Speaker 2: Frankly, I think it's very hard, and yes, there are
2:31
Speaker 2: plenty of examples of successful relationships where they've met in
2:36
Speaker 2: their early twenties and he's twenty years older and they're
2:38
Speaker 2: still together to the end. So I would never say
2:41
Speaker 2: it couldn't happen. But yes, my daughters who are nineteen
2:44
Speaker 2: and twenty two, I would not want them to date
2:48
Speaker 2: out of their decade basically up until they're thirty period.
2:53
Speaker 1: Okay, So we mentioned all this, folks, because we had
2:56
Speaker 1: a young lady writ into us Carrie Cassie. Excuse me,
2:59
Speaker 1: Cassie wrote in Now, yes, there's an age gap, she
3:03
Speaker 1: wrote in and asked us about. But I have kind
3:05
Speaker 1: of been messing with you all because there's another very
3:07
Speaker 1: significant detail to this story that needs to be added
3:10
Speaker 1: before you kind of just come to a conclusion. This
3:13
Speaker 1: isn't just a simple hey, there's an age gap? Should
3:16
Speaker 1: we date? No? No, no, no, no. There is much
3:18
Speaker 1: more to this.
3:19
Speaker 2: One wrote Yes. Here is the actual question or letter
3:24
Speaker 2: that was written into us Amy and TJ. When I
3:26
Speaker 2: was a freshman in college, I fell in love with
3:28
Speaker 2: a man twenty five years older than me. The connection
3:31
Speaker 2: was unshakable, but I was young and he was newly divorced.
3:36
Speaker 2: Co parenting eight kids. It didn't work. It's been thirteen years.
3:42
Speaker 2: I'm about to turn forty, and he stepped back into
3:45
Speaker 2: my life. I think we've both grown a lot and
3:48
Speaker 2: might be ready for a real relationship. He worries that
3:52
Speaker 2: my parents and my friends won't approve, but I don't
3:55
Speaker 2: want to crowdsource my relationship. If we try again, will
3:59
Speaker 2: it be the same old story or could it be
4:02
Speaker 2: for real this time? Cassie.
4:05
Speaker 1: Now, folks didn't see, but I wish they could have
4:07
Speaker 1: seen you at a particular moment as you were reading this,
4:10
Speaker 1: you stopped, you made a little face, you looked up
4:13
Speaker 1: at me, you scratched your notes. You had a whole thing.
4:16
Speaker 1: And the line was I was young. He was newly divorced,
4:22
Speaker 1: co parenting eight kids.
4:25
Speaker 2: That's a huge twist in the story. The twist is,
4:30
Speaker 2: yes they had or he had eight kids, but that
4:36
Speaker 2: now they want to try again. And now she's older,
4:39
Speaker 2: Now she's pushing forty. He's in his sixties. I guess
4:44
Speaker 2: his children have been raised. She's lived a lot of
4:47
Speaker 2: her life. So my advice to her was to go
4:51
Speaker 2: for it, yes, but to really you know, obviously, she
4:54
Speaker 2: has to ask herself if she wants kids. At this point,
4:56
Speaker 2: it's kind of do or die. At the age she's at,
4:58
Speaker 2: she has to kind of that ship is either sailed.
5:00
Speaker 2: I'm guessing he probably is not too into having more
5:05
Speaker 2: kids if he already has eight. I can't even that guy,
5:08
Speaker 2: can't even give my head around that. But yeah, So
5:11
Speaker 2: as long as she has come to peace with the
5:14
Speaker 2: fact that she doesn't want any more kids and she's
5:17
Speaker 2: okay being a step mother figure ish even though she's
5:22
Speaker 2: probably a peer in terms of age to his kids, Like,
5:25
Speaker 2: as long as she's gotten all that space in her
5:29
Speaker 2: head figured out, I don't see the harm. She's lived
5:32
Speaker 2: enough of her life at late thirties, she can make
5:37
Speaker 2: a grown up decision.
5:38
Speaker 1: What problems do you have then? You don't have that?
5:41
Speaker 1: She can make this decision now, but not then. My
5:45
Speaker 1: question is so much of my advice, if you will,
5:48
Speaker 1: was based on I need to understand a dynamic that
5:52
Speaker 1: what forty three year old man is pursuing and has
5:58
Speaker 1: fallen in love with and think his life and his
6:01
Speaker 1: future is with an eighteen year old freshman in college.
6:06
Speaker 1: I need that answer before I move to the next thing,
6:08
Speaker 1: because I'm trying to understand where his head is and
6:12
Speaker 1: where in his life he places an eighteen year old
6:17
Speaker 1: freshman sweetheart. He clear he probably has kids her age.
6:21
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm sure he does.
6:23
Speaker 1: Where that dynamic I'm trying to understand how do we
6:27
Speaker 1: go from that to this? A lot of things have
6:29
Speaker 1: happened in both of their lives in those years, but
6:32
Speaker 1: I needed to understand and I want to desperately understand
6:35
Speaker 1: that initial dynamic. Does it matter? And I might be
6:39
Speaker 1: not looking at this the right way? Ropes, What doesn't matter?
6:42
Speaker 1: How it was then, this is now? She's a grown
6:45
Speaker 1: ass woman. He is now sixty early sixties.
6:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean for her to want to be with
6:50
Speaker 2: someone like that, I would also obviously she I'm sure
6:53
Speaker 2: can do the math. And it's one thing for someone
6:55
Speaker 2: to be in their sixties, but ma'am, when you get
6:56
Speaker 2: into your seventies and your eighties, it's a big difference.
6:59
Speaker 2: And if you're in your forties or your fifties, like
7:01
Speaker 2: obviously that's the age we're in right now. We're very active,
7:04
Speaker 2: We're very we you know, can run have marathons and
7:07
Speaker 2: climb mountains and go all day shopping, and you know,
7:10
Speaker 2: you start choosing to go through life with someone who
7:14
Speaker 2: is twenty five years older than you. While it didn't
7:17
Speaker 2: seem like a big deal, funny enough in terms of
7:20
Speaker 2: vitality and just probably energy when she was in her
7:25
Speaker 2: early twenties and he was in her forties, that actually
7:28
Speaker 2: probably felt pretty normal and pretty similar. It's now, Yes,
7:31
Speaker 2: you might be more mature as if as a woman,
7:34
Speaker 2: and be able to make a better decision, but now
7:36
Speaker 2: you're gonna be dealing with other issues, physical issues that
7:40
Speaker 2: maybe you aren't prepared for. There's just a lot to
7:42
Speaker 2: think about. And look, plenty of these relationships have been successful.
7:45
Speaker 2: I know people who have age gaps like this and
7:49
Speaker 2: they're they're just soulmates and it's okay. So I would
7:52
Speaker 2: never I don't discourage her from seeking it out. I
7:55
Speaker 2: can only imagine she's gone through and figured out all
7:58
Speaker 2: the rest. My issue was being worried. He's worried about
8:03
Speaker 2: her friends and her family not approving. I think that
8:06
Speaker 2: should be the last on her list of things to
8:09
Speaker 2: be considering.
8:10
Speaker 1: I'm with you one hundred percent. And this thing she
8:14
Speaker 1: wrote in here is the crowdsourcing. What was her line here.
8:16
Speaker 2: About she doesn't want to crowdsource her relationship? Basically, you know, yes,
8:21
Speaker 2: let other people have an impact on what she does
8:25
Speaker 2: or doesn't do.
8:26
Speaker 1: And they should and you are ultimately responsible. But I
8:31
Speaker 1: hate using the word crowdsource because it sounds negative, like
8:35
Speaker 1: I'm gonna put it in somebody else's hands. No, anything
8:37
Speaker 1: you do in your life that's that important, you should
8:39
Speaker 1: absolutely get counsel. You should go to the people that
8:43
Speaker 1: you love most and the people that love you most,
8:45
Speaker 1: and they're going to give you good counsel. Don't please,
8:48
Speaker 1: I encourage everybody. Don't label anything as crowdsourcing or thinking
8:51
Speaker 1: you're giving somebody outside of your relationships or input in it. Yes,
8:54
Speaker 1: they should listen to them, listen to it closely, and
8:57
Speaker 1: then you make the decision. But absolutely she'd be talking
9:00
Speaker 1: to other people. I as a as a parent, my
9:05
Speaker 1: answer is different than a guy on the outside. It
9:09
Speaker 1: would be tough robes. It just is she has to
9:11
Speaker 1: I don't know if she has kids. It's possible she
9:13
Speaker 1: could already, Yes, it's possible.
9:15
Speaker 2: She didn't mention that she had another relationship with that
9:17
Speaker 2: she ended up having children. She did not mention that.
9:19
Speaker 1: Doesn't it begin in with that? At this point what
9:23
Speaker 1: the kid question? Isn't it begin and in with that
9:25
Speaker 1: question if she wants to have kids, it's likely he
9:28
Speaker 1: does not. Yes, doesn't it begin in with that question?
9:31
Speaker 2: And she didn't bring it up, So it didn't seem
9:33
Speaker 2: like this was an issue for her, because if it were,
9:36
Speaker 2: I'm sure she would have brought that up in the question.
9:38
Speaker 2: She would have said, Hey, what do you think if
9:40
Speaker 2: I still want to have kids, should I be willing
9:42
Speaker 2: to throw away my shot at having or becoming a mom. No,
9:45
Speaker 2: she didn't talk about any of that, so I actually
9:47
Speaker 2: think because she chose not to speak about it, it's
9:49
Speaker 2: not an issue.
9:50
Speaker 1: Okay, comments are starting to come in about this, and
9:54
Speaker 1: encourage all of you all again. Go to Yahoo dot
9:56
Speaker 1: com Life section. You'll see the article there. You can
9:59
Speaker 1: see what other people starting to write in, and we
10:01
Speaker 1: love and we encourage you to chime in as well
10:04
Speaker 1: with your advice. But this robe seems so far we're
10:11
Speaker 1: not going to get into it yet. Some of the
10:12
Speaker 1: comments we've seen, but so much of a question of
10:16
Speaker 1: simply taboo. It feels when there's an age gap in
10:22
Speaker 1: a relationship, it's taboo for some reason. We accept it
10:27
Speaker 1: to a certain degree when it's the man older than
10:29
Speaker 1: the woman, but it's still this thing we haven't gotten
10:32
Speaker 1: a good handle on yet. How love can look different.
10:36
Speaker 2: Yes, and I think a lot of it is. Look,
10:38
Speaker 2: we're all different ages mentally. I really do believe that. Yes,
10:42
Speaker 2: we have a physical age, Yes we know when we
10:44
Speaker 2: all came into the world. But I think so many
10:46
Speaker 2: of us have different energy ages, like significantly. And there
10:51
Speaker 2: are older folks who have that youthful vitality, that younger spirit,
10:56
Speaker 2: and they want to be around people younger than them
10:58
Speaker 2: and that feels comfortable to them. And I get that.
11:01
Speaker 2: I think I'm one of those people. I like to
11:04
Speaker 2: be around younger folks. I tend to gravitate towards younger people.
11:08
Speaker 2: My friends all tend to be younger than me. You're
11:10
Speaker 2: a little younger than me. I do feel like I
11:14
Speaker 2: have that younger energy. However, I do think like within
11:21
Speaker 2: a decade that makes sense. When you're talking two decades,
11:23
Speaker 2: twenty five years, that is a significant difference. It's again
11:27
Speaker 2: not that it can't work, but that is a that's
11:30
Speaker 2: just a huge, a huge change. And there it's not
11:34
Speaker 2: even a physical because I think that's fine. Obviously, whatever
11:37
Speaker 2: or whoever you're attracted to isn't necessarily just physical it's
11:40
Speaker 2: emotional obviously, and it's spiritual, but there is an experience gap,
11:45
Speaker 2: and there is a power dynamic. I'm curious, like you
11:50
Speaker 2: pointed out, when she met him, if she was a
11:52
Speaker 2: freshman in college and he was twenty five years older
11:54
Speaker 2: than her, how did she meet him? Was it? It
11:56
Speaker 2: could have been at a bar, it could have been
11:58
Speaker 2: at a bookstore, but see her professor, was there some
12:02
Speaker 2: sort of a power dynamic that played a role in
12:06
Speaker 2: her relationship with him? And that's just something that she
12:08
Speaker 2: should examine because that would be the unhealthy part of it.
12:11
Speaker 2: If she's trying to find a father figure, if she
12:14
Speaker 2: wants somebody to take care of her. There's nothing wrong
12:16
Speaker 2: with wanting someone to take care of you, but it's
12:18
Speaker 2: just a question that when you have that big of
12:21
Speaker 2: an age gap, you have to be cognizant of and
12:24
Speaker 2: ask yourself, why am I attracted to someone who is
12:27
Speaker 2: significantly older than me with a very different experience in life?
12:32
Speaker 1: You know that is you just hit on exactly why.
12:35
Speaker 1: You probably articulated it or helped me put it together
12:39
Speaker 1: better than I can. It's at eighteen years old. My
12:45
Speaker 1: problem with their relationship is the dynamic when she was eighteen.
12:48
Speaker 1: What is a forty three year old man doing with
12:51
Speaker 1: an eighteen year old child? So let's take it back
12:54
Speaker 1: a year. What is a forty two year old man
12:56
Speaker 1: doing with a seventeen year old high school senior? Go back?
12:59
Speaker 1: And then the year was a forty one year old
13:01
Speaker 1: man doing with a six There's no age as you
13:04
Speaker 1: keep going back that it feels appropriate right now that
13:07
Speaker 1: time of her life, there is nothing as a forty me.
13:12
Speaker 1: I'm forty eight, I have nothing an eighteen year old,
13:16
Speaker 1: nineteen year old twenty.
13:17
Speaker 2: Twenty one, forty eight, So you'd be with the twenty
13:20
Speaker 2: three year old? How would that feel? That would be
13:23
Speaker 2: Ava is about to turn twenty three, so that age
13:26
Speaker 2: Ava's friends, that would be the age date her friends.
13:30
Speaker 1: I can't stand any of them. I can't stand being
13:31
Speaker 1: around them. We don't have anything to dog go out.
13:33
Speaker 1: You're fey, just kidding, love y'all, gummy, Marcus all crew.
13:37
Speaker 1: You know I love you, But what I'm saying to
13:39
Speaker 1: you we don't have necessarily things in common. We've done
13:43
Speaker 1: fun things together and were going to hang out, but
13:45
Speaker 1: we have different interests, we have different schedules we have
13:48
Speaker 1: It just doesn't work.
13:49
Speaker 2: It's funny because I think about, like you, dating in
13:52
Speaker 2: that age group, it wouldn't look inappropriate. You look young,
13:56
Speaker 2: they look, you know, kind of ambiguous, like you don't know,
14:00
Speaker 2: mid to late twenties. You could you could pass for
14:03
Speaker 2: someone in their thirties, so it wouldn't raise eyebrows the
14:06
Speaker 2: look at all, which is funny, But the difference in
14:11
Speaker 2: experience and interests and likes and all of that is vast.
14:17
Speaker 1: Well, whoever's listening right now, if you're over the age
14:19
Speaker 1: of thirty five, imagine dating an eighteen year old. No,
14:25
Speaker 1: it just so when if.
14:27
Speaker 2: It's one thing, I was gonna sorry, I was gonna
14:28
Speaker 2: say it's one thing to date or have a physical
14:30
Speaker 2: relationship with them. Fine, I can see why you'd be
14:32
Speaker 2: attracted to maybe, but to have a significant relationship where
14:36
Speaker 2: you're saying this is my soulmate, this is who I
14:38
Speaker 2: want to spend the rest of my life with, this
14:39
Speaker 2: is who I want to marry. That's very different.
14:42
Speaker 1: And this is why I'm trying to be always mindful
14:44
Speaker 1: and respectful of people who do have age gaps, because
14:47
Speaker 1: it doesn't automatically mean it's a disaster or automatically mean
14:51
Speaker 1: it was untoward or that was a problem. I just
14:53
Speaker 1: know what it means what an eighteen year old is,
14:57
Speaker 1: and I know what it's like to be in your forties, right,
15:00
Speaker 1: I know those two people should not be socially out.
15:03
Speaker 2: I mean, it's fun to hang out with Annalys and
15:05
Speaker 2: her friends. It's fun to hang out with am and
15:07
Speaker 2: her friends. But that's where it begins and ends.
15:09
Speaker 1: It's not our dating pool. No speak about all those
15:12
Speaker 1: kids we have in the house. This is our dating
15:14
Speaker 1: so weird, that would be absolutely weird.
15:17
Speaker 2: And again, he has eight kids, So okay, you did
15:20
Speaker 2: the math forty three. If he had eight kids at
15:22
Speaker 2: forty three, he had kids her age period. There's no
15:27
Speaker 2: way he had to have started having kids in his
15:29
Speaker 2: early twenties.
15:31
Speaker 1: Huh. Yeah, you know what. Look, we have an opinion,
15:33
Speaker 1: You have an opinion. Everybody seems to maybe have an opinion.
15:36
Speaker 1: We don't have all the details, but hey, if you
15:39
Speaker 1: want to be encouraged, look no further than the president
15:42
Speaker 1: of France.
15:52
Speaker 2: Welcome back to this edition of Ask Amy and TJ,
15:56
Speaker 2: where we had Cassie right in and ask if she
16:00
Speaker 2: should start up a relationship she ended thirteen years ago.
16:06
Speaker 2: There was a twenty five year age gap. She was
16:08
Speaker 2: in her well, she was a freshman in college, so
16:10
Speaker 2: eighteen nineteen years old, started a relationship with somebody who
16:13
Speaker 2: was newly divorced, who was twenty five years older than her,
16:15
Speaker 2: who had eight kids. So it was co parenting eight
16:19
Speaker 2: kids with his ex wife. It didn't work out, but
16:22
Speaker 2: now thirteen years later, she wants to know if she
16:25
Speaker 2: should try again. He's come back into her life. She's
16:28
Speaker 2: almost forty, and maybe the timing was wrong and the
16:32
Speaker 2: person was right. And so our advice to Cassie was
16:36
Speaker 2: slightly different. I told her to go for it. I
16:40
Speaker 2: thought that she should proceed with caution, even with skepticism,
16:46
Speaker 2: but why not give it a try. What if he
16:49
Speaker 2: was and is her person and she just needed to
16:53
Speaker 2: mature a little bit, He needed to take care of
16:56
Speaker 2: his family for a little bit and be focused on
16:58
Speaker 2: his eight kids. Now that enough time has passed, this
17:02
Speaker 2: might be the right time, the right place, and the
17:05
Speaker 2: right man who knows.
17:07
Speaker 1: Okay, I am totally on board you putting it that way.
17:09
Speaker 1: I'm totally on board with your advice. I'm saying, why not,
17:14
Speaker 1: Like I stop, and I caution, And maybe that is
17:16
Speaker 1: a dad having daughters. I pump the brakes a little
17:20
Speaker 1: bit when I hear certain things when it comes to girls.
17:23
Speaker 1: But what you're saying makes sense, Then why not you
17:26
Speaker 1: say something that in particular always jumps out if this
17:29
Speaker 1: is your person? Like who are we? Who am I?
17:33
Speaker 1: Who is anybody to say what? And who this person is?
17:36
Speaker 1: And if this works and how it works and why
17:38
Speaker 1: it works? And who are we to say? It's just
17:41
Speaker 1: I always want to caution myself. You are very good
17:47
Speaker 1: at that. You'll say it out loud, but you always
17:49
Speaker 1: want to make just You don't have to judge. You
17:52
Speaker 1: can hear. You can hear and listen and maybe even disagree.
17:55
Speaker 1: But we don't always understand all the dynamics and what's
17:58
Speaker 1: happening and what works for them might not be what
18:00
Speaker 1: would work for me. So I think your advice is
18:03
Speaker 1: probably the best in what you just said, then why
18:06
Speaker 1: not give it another shot? If you think this is
18:08
Speaker 1: your person?
18:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, and we have one of the biggest
18:12
Speaker 2: examples you teased it before we went to the break
18:14
Speaker 2: is the president of France. I mean, if you really
18:16
Speaker 2: look into his story, it's kind of jaw dropping. I
18:19
Speaker 2: don't know that it would fly in the United States,
18:21
Speaker 2: But hey, I don't know. We have President Trump with
18:23
Speaker 2: a very storied, interesting history in dating and divorces and
18:28
Speaker 2: women and.
18:28
Speaker 1: All of that.
18:29
Speaker 2: But yeah, the story of President Macrone and his wife.
18:33
Speaker 2: She was his teacher, was it his English teacher, history teacher?
18:38
Speaker 2: Which one? Was it theater teacher? Okay, yes, you're right,
18:40
Speaker 2: it was the theater teacher. But he waited until he
18:44
Speaker 2: got out of school.
18:45
Speaker 1: Correct, nothing was going on, And they say when now, yeah,
18:51
Speaker 1: but he's what's the age gap? I can't remember.
18:53
Speaker 2: Oh it's twenty something years.
18:54
Speaker 1: Is really okay, but still he the president of France
18:58
Speaker 1: is currently married too, and has been married for quite
19:00
Speaker 1: some time to a woman who was one of his
19:04
Speaker 1: teachers in high school. And do I have it right, ropes,
19:08
Speaker 1: wasn't she married with kids at the time.
19:10
Speaker 2: Yes, so their relationship so he she is his senior
19:15
Speaker 2: by nearly twenty five years. This is almost exactly in
19:18
Speaker 2: reverse the same story. And that is her name is Brigitte,
19:25
Speaker 2: and yes, she was his high school teacher and he
19:31
Speaker 2: was a student. And yeah, they said that they love
19:36
Speaker 2: each other and they've always loved each other and they
19:38
Speaker 2: had to wait for the right time, but they've clearly
19:42
Speaker 2: made it through some tough times.
19:44
Speaker 1: We always don't. We have that tendency to question any
19:48
Speaker 1: relationship that doesn't look a certain way. It doesn't look
19:51
Speaker 1: the way we think it should look, it doesn't follow
19:53
Speaker 1: along a certain trajectory that we think it should, and
19:58
Speaker 1: that's too bad. I understand so a certain degree, but
20:00
Speaker 1: I don't like the cynicism where we don't Why can't
20:03
Speaker 1: we start with giving even love the benefit of the doubt?
20:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I hear you. If you, if you look
20:09
Speaker 2: at the story, this is pretty remarkable. Brigitte and Manuel Macrone.
20:15
Speaker 2: So his parents found out they thought that he was
20:21
Speaker 2: seeing her daughter, but when they found out that he
20:24
Speaker 2: had feelings for the teacher. She was thirty nine, he
20:27
Speaker 2: was fifteen, they sent him to boarding school to get
20:31
Speaker 2: him away from her. Okay, she you're right. She had
20:34
Speaker 2: three children and was married and they were around Emmanuel's age.
20:39
Speaker 2: So her children were the same age as Emmanuel Macrone
20:42
Speaker 2: and that lasted for ten years. So that's pretty remarkable.
20:48
Speaker 1: But wait, what lasted ten years? So?
20:51
Speaker 2: Oh, he was born in December of nineteen seventy seven.
20:53
Speaker 2: That's amazing. So you're the same age. So the two
20:59
Speaker 2: kept in touch over the years, but Brigitte was married
21:02
Speaker 2: at the time and had three children who were around
21:03
Speaker 2: a manual's age, and she chose to prioritize them. That
21:07
Speaker 2: lasted ten years, so they had feelings for each other,
21:10
Speaker 2: but they didn't act on it. So this is actually
21:12
Speaker 2: almost identical to their relationship. And then they came back
21:16
Speaker 2: revisited it, and then they decided to get married and
21:21
Speaker 2: they've been together.
21:21
Speaker 1: How is it possible. No one would accept, No one
21:26
Speaker 1: that a fifteen year old boy could have the proper instincts,
21:32
Speaker 1: maturity experience to know what love is like or supposed
21:37
Speaker 1: to be like with a thirty nine year old woman.
21:40
Speaker 1: That's wild. It's no one would say, yeah, it's possible.
21:44
Speaker 1: We just don't. But here they are and look at that,
21:47
Speaker 1: and should I judge? I don't know.
21:49
Speaker 2: They've been married for eighteen years.
21:50
Speaker 1: Now, one of w which is most of the most
21:52
Speaker 1: marriages in the eights.
21:53
Speaker 2: Yeah. So they got married in two thousand and seven,
21:56
Speaker 2: and that was a year after she divorced her ex husband.
21:58
Speaker 2: So yeah, they had that ten year period where he
22:02
Speaker 2: went and lived his life. She kept raising her kids,
22:05
Speaker 2: worked on her marriage, or tried at least to maybe
22:07
Speaker 2: save her marriage. Who knows. They ended up divorcing, and
22:11
Speaker 2: then Emmanuel and his wife ended up marrying. And we
22:15
Speaker 2: did see that little incident on the plane a couple
22:17
Speaker 2: months ago, but short of that, seems like they have
22:20
Speaker 2: a good relationship. So who's to judge?
22:23
Speaker 1: What do you do? Because there are people that are
22:25
Speaker 1: listening to us and saying, give me a freakin' break. Stop.
22:29
Speaker 1: This is ridiculous, it's inappropriate, it doesn't work. How dare
22:32
Speaker 1: you even? There are some like you just can't get
22:35
Speaker 1: your head around how that's okay and why it's pop?
22:38
Speaker 1: Do we need to get our heads around now? We
22:40
Speaker 1: don't need to.
22:41
Speaker 2: I don't think we need to understand everyone's relationship, but
22:44
Speaker 2: I think we can respect it if real you know
22:47
Speaker 2: it just to know that we don't know, and to
22:49
Speaker 2: know that we don't understand, and to know that it
22:51
Speaker 2: wouldn't be something that we would be interested. But I
22:53
Speaker 2: think we can respect it. And especially when you see
22:55
Speaker 2: two people who seem to be in love with each other,
22:57
Speaker 2: who work at it each and every day, it can be.
23:00
Speaker 2: It can seem bizarre, it can seem unusual and strange.
23:03
Speaker 2: But I actually did not realize how many similarities there
23:07
Speaker 2: were between Cassie's relationship and this one is just the
23:10
Speaker 2: genders of reverse. So you know, she could look to
23:15
Speaker 2: President Macrone's relationship and think, you know what, it worked
23:18
Speaker 2: for them, why couldn't it work for me?
23:20
Speaker 1: So Cassie, take that with you, and these are fascinating questions.
23:25
Speaker 1: Please keep your comments coming. We are starting to collect
23:28
Speaker 1: and see already, but we'll do another episode in which
23:30
Speaker 1: we will we will share some of the comments that
23:34
Speaker 1: you all have written in began to say Yahoo dot
23:36
Speaker 1: com in the life section. Please please please comment in Cassie,
23:39
Speaker 1: good luck to you. So still we are pulling for you.
23:42
Speaker 1: These things are hard. Relationships are hard, no matter what
23:45
Speaker 1: it looks like, doesn't robes they're soul are difficult.
23:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, but there's something pulling those two together and you
23:53
Speaker 2: shouldn't ignore it because that is special, that is magical,
23:55
Speaker 2: that doesn't happen every day. Think about it. She's lived
23:58
Speaker 2: a ton of her life thirteen years was he, and
24:00
Speaker 2: they still feel this pull towards one one another. So
24:04
Speaker 2: explore it, Cassie, and hopefully you can let us know
24:06
Speaker 2: how it goes. We appreciate it, and we appreciate you
24:09
Speaker 2: listening to us, Thank you for listening to this episode
24:12
Speaker 2: of Ask Amy and TJ. On'm Amy Robock alongside TJ Holmes.
24:17
Speaker 2: Have a great day, Everybody,