I Fully Believe They Love Each Other
“I’m 34, my dad is 65 and he’s in a relationship with someone who’s 26 (so 8 years younger than me). They’ve been together for 3-3.5 years and are happy together, and I’m happy for them.
At first it was a bit awkward for me, up to the point that it took me a half year before I decided to meet them together (at first I just met with my dad alone every week). I was mainly worried about my dad (still am, a bit), he came out of a long relationship that went really bad (got cheated on after 8-9 years) and he had a really rough time with it.
So I was scared he would end up in the same depression if this one went bad as well (not because of cheating, but the age difference eventually could catch up to them, as an issue).
I’ve spoken openly about my worries with my dad, a few times, along the last 3 years, and it will take time for them to actually go away… There’s a 38 year age gap and my dad, at some point, will get health issues because of age and I’m cautious of what will happen. Both of them assure me they love each other and that they’ll take care of each other, no matter what.
I fully believe they believe that, I fully believe they love each other, that’s very apparent from the way they interact. And I’m very happy they feel that way with each other and found that happiness.
But I’ll always be worried that when the typical health issues start, someone will have to do the day-to-day care and that brings a lot of strain on a relationship, even for couples who’ve been together for 30+ years and are roughly the same age.
In this case, they’d potentially be together for less than 10 years when it starts (I hope my dad remains 100% healthy till he’s 100, but realistically…). So, happy they are happy, cautiously optimistic for the future.” Story credit: Reddit / @straks