A Woman Likes Older Men. A Father's Complex?

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

In a report from the Italian magazine Chi, Elisabetta Canalis describes her relationship with her ex-boyfriend George Clooney as "a father-daughter relationship." Therefore, they never talked about marriage or children. It remains to be seen if the relationship between the 30-year-old model and the 20-year-old actor fell apart due to the age difference. However, the problems reported by Canalis are not atypical in the group of young women and older men.

But what attracts women to men with gray temples? Love, trust and security are what young women look for in men much older than them. However, this design does not always work due to the age difference.

Do you like older men? Is it a father complex?

The fact that mature men are often attracted to young women is nothing new. Celebrities such as politician Franz Müntefering (age difference under Mrs. Michelle 41) or actor Till Schweiger (between him and girlfriend Francesca Dutton 23) have already demonstrated this. Discharges and judgments quickly arise in the head, because: he is old and rich, she is young and sexy. Together, this is a great and convenient partnership. On the other hand, the fact that young women wantonly mature men of the age of their fathers and grandfathers raises doubts, as does the idea that older men may seriously believe that they are experiencing a second youth with a significantly younger partner. Yet celebrities are not the only model examples. What is so attractive about the age difference? And most importantly: is such a relationship suitable for a long joint future?

It is not always easy for couples with a large age gap. Friends and relatives are often critical of the relationship and confront the couple with typical clichés: he is looking for a young beauty for his ego, she is looking for material security and suffers from a father complex. In fact, it is not only love that brings such couples together. Psychologists know that women who are prone to a much older man tend to have a strong need for security, often linked to unresolved daddy relationships. Women whose fathers were difficult to reach or who were separated from their father are especially affected. Such women usually do not see men of the same age as men, but rather boys who should not be taken seriously, psychologists say, describing the phenomenon.

Reduce the degree of moral judgment

Cologne psychologist Ulrich Schmitz lends insistence on completely ignoring moral condemnation for the time being. Of course, there are many different kinds of "Games" to find oneself in human society.

"This also includes attraction between people with very large age gaps," says Schmitz. It would be presumptuous for him to “pathologize everything that is initially unfamiliar to the eye.” If two people have an equal relationship, even if it is only sexual, in which no one is subjected to unfair exploitation, then this is only one of the forms of variation in our life. quite unusual, of course."

According to psychologist Schmitz, relationships between partners with large age differences become pathological when people overdo it with "games": "When young women make themselves even smaller, and men, in turn, dominate, become mature and experienced, added which, in my opinion, has a touch of incest. " These behaviors were too similar to the father-daughter relationship.

Such forms are by no means automatic in partnerships with a large age gap.

Appearance plays a big role

Berlin psychotherapist Wolfgang Kruger also sees no reason to immediately sound the alarm in the event of a relationship between a young woman and a man who might be older than her father: "We now have a great tolerance for all types of relationships that are possible."

However, Krueger cannot completely hide the fact that he is puzzled by the thought of purely sexual attraction between 20 and 60. “At 20, looks naturally play a big role. For young women, an attractive man usually has to be slim and strong,”says Kruger. According to the psychotherapist, the fact that women then choose a much older man, who simply bears the traces of life from age, falls out of the usual pattern: “The woman is thriving, the old man sees the end of life. This is fraught with a great danger to be and remain a stranger to himself. So no chance of a happy ending? At least, if only physical love is in the foreground.

Guys are often considered overly childish

Both experts find a partnership based on love, trust and security much more understandable than a predominantly sexual relationship. Older men often have a balance between self-esteem, sophistication, and reputation. Obviously this is popular with young women. Moreover, from a psychological point of view, young people are often vain, self-centered and jealous - traits that women of the same age often perceive as children.

A large age difference usually works well as long as the older man is healthy and strong. Sickness and goodbye to the active world of work are usually the stumbling blocks that lead many relationships to fail, Kruger said. Because then the emphasis shifts to something that was previously often suppressed by both partners: masculinity gives way to physical weakness, a confident business person is sent to retirement - and either he becomes bored, or he plunges into hobbies and travel that the partner cannot share or enjoy yourself because you are still busy with work and career.

Thus, the differences between young and old are exacerbated. It is difficult for both of them to find a common rhythm. This is fraught with the great danger of alienation. This is a bit like Andreas Burani's words “In Other Ways”. It says: “My heart beats faster than yours. / They don't fight as one anymore. But that's exactly what is critical to long-term partnerships, the scientists have found.

What's the ideal age difference?

Kruger notes two boundaries in this regard: in partnerships with a difference of nine years, the risk of separation increases significantly. With an age difference of 20 years, the risk of separation is 95 percent. This is also supported by a study of the ideal age gap conducted by Emory University in the US state of Atlanta: if you put it down to numbers, a relationship actually has the highest chance of strength if both lovers are the same age, or if there is a maximum of four years between them, a maximum of seven. as the researchers found. This has a lot to do with the equally fluid lifestyle and, above all, with sexuality.

“All our life experience is connected with sexuality,” explains Kruger: “And that's why it's good when the person I'm sleeping with is just as old. It is not only the physical that plays a role here, but also our whole personality, that is, what I think, what I feel, who I am, how far away I am. Peers hesitate in the same way, share the same insecurities. And this is good, because they both speak the same language - both in life and in bed."

Age plays a role, at least in love.