An age-gap couple who met as co-workers and are now engaged

• I started work, but one of my older colleagues found me so attractive that I couldn’t attend the meeting.
• Despite having a 17 year age difference and living in different states, we found common ground.
• I believe our age difference will strengthen our relationship and we are looking forward to marriage.

“This is going to be difficult,” my former colleague and now fiancé thought to me the first time he saw me appear on a video tile in Teams as part of a regular work meeting. .

It was March 2022, and I had just joined the marketing firm where he was a senior account executive as a senior freelance writer. Soon after, he was tasked with leading a weekly meeting that included me and two others of his. This continued until the end of the summer when he decided that his initial attraction to me was putting himself in an awkward position.

“I started to really like you, not just because you were beautiful, but as a person, so I told myself that I needed to step back and separate my work life from my personal life,” said my soon-to-be husband, Colin. To tell. “I’ve never been in a position at work where I felt so attracted to someone. I thought, ‘I have to give this meeting to someone else. I can’t run this meeting.'”

Our similarities trumped vast logistical differences

Communication between Colin and me was minimal until September of that year when he heard from a mutual colleague that my 10-year relationship had just ended. He asked the office administrator for my phone number and emailed me asking how I was doing. He also sent me pictures of his dog to cheer me up.

I’ve known him for some time to be a very friendly extrovert, so it took me a few days to notice that his text messages were teetering on the line between friendly and something more. . So I asked him how old he was.

“I’m 44 years old, how old are you?” he texted back right then.

His age of 27 was shocking to me. He had a very mischievous personality and I thought he was in his mid-30s. He didn’t think it would last 17 years. age difference.

On the other hand, he thought I was in my early 30s because of my career stage and maturity.

Things were further complicated by the fact that he lived in Boise, Idaho, not right next door to my home base of Charleston, South Carolina.

Still, we agreed to talk. Our connection seemed a little strange on paper, but I realized we also had a lot in common. We both went to a small music school with dreams of becoming songwriters. Then I realized there were probably more possibilities, so I changed my major. stable career. Although we both lived in Nashville, we had long been drawn to Charleston, South Carolina for no particular reason.

After talking for a week, Colin booked a $600 ticket to fly across the country for their first date, but the trip was cut short by an unexpected nine-hour layover and change of destination. Instead of landing in Charleston around 4 p.m., he landed at an airport two hours away in Georgia, where I picked him up just after midnight.

It’s been a love affair ever since.

Our age difference only makes us stronger

After publishing an essay about the differences between Colin and me regarding life stages, finances, and retirement planning, I quickly realized that age difference relationships are still quite controversial. For the first time in my life, I received hate mail, and it opened my eyes to how often couples with an age gap are left out of the broader “love is love” conversation.

In my opinion, our age difference makes us stronger as a couple. From the first week of our discussions, we seriously discuss life issues, covering topics such as how we define love, where we want to live, whether we want a family, and build a healthy foundation of vulnerability and honesty. had to be built.

He provides a level of wisdom and maturity that helps me fight my own challenges every day and helps me keep him young. We are not ignoring difficult situations that may arise in the future (such as me taking care of him in old age), but we both know that it is worth sacrificing everything we have found in each other. I never think there is.

We are both more in love than ever and can’t wait to elope and continue building our lives together, from big experiences like international trips to the smiles and little moments in between. We are committed to staying curious about each other so that we can always grow together.

Kelsey Herbers is a freelance marketing writer and journalist based in Charleston, South Carolina. Connect on LinkedIn.