What it’s like when your mum’s boyfriend is closer to YOUR age than hers, revealed by a horrified 16-year-old girl

Our first meeting was carefully planned to seem very casual. They had chosen a cafe in Brighton, near where I live, rather than a restaurant or, worse, my home. 

But I could tell from the fact Olly was sitting on the edge of his chair and kept jiggling his foot that he felt anything but relaxed.

Dressed in Vans trainers and a checked shirt – the millennial uniform – he bought me an apple juice and tried to make conversation. What music did I like? What was my favourite subject at school?

He smiled at me too hard and there was an awkwardness between us. But it was his girlfriend I found most annoying. She had pulled her chair really close to him and kept flicking her hair.

And I couldn’t get over the fact that Olly was closer in age to me than her. No matter how hard he tried to impress, it seemed wrong.

Why? Because the girlfriend in question was my mum. And at the time, I was 12, Olly was 29 – and Mum was 50.

What’s worse, Olly was the first boyfriend Mum had had after she split with my dad. I was still reeling from their acrimonious divorce – and now I had to contend with Mum’s new, much younger boyfriend.

As well as feeling upset and angry, I was worried about what my friends would think, if they’d judge us as a family.

Believe me, you go through a whole range of emotions when your mum starts dating a far younger man – in my case, 21 years younger.

It’s particularly challenging if he’s attractive, like Olly. I mean, it was my mum! What on earth was he doing with her? Did he have a thing for old people?

However, though age-gap relationships where the woman is older are less common than the alternative, it seems I’m not totally alone in experiencing this dynamic.

Earlier this week, director Sam Taylor-Johnson, 57, posed on the red carpet with husband Aaron Taylor-Johnson, 34, and her eldest daughters from a previous relationship – who are 27 and 18.

Aaron is only seven years older than the older daughter, Angelica, while he’s 23 years younger than his wife (the couple got engaged when he was 19 and she was 42). And it’s fair to say the fact he’s closer in age to his stepdaughters is all too clear to see.

I wonder if Sam’s daughters have struggled as much as I did.

At first, I found it disgusting. I told my mum it was like me dating someone who wasn’t born.

She just shrugged and said: ‘What am I supposed to do?’ She had fallen for him and wasn’t prepared to give him up just because I found it embarrassing.

Now 16, I still think a 21-year gap feels unnatural. And it’s not necessarily to do with gender; Dad is now dating a woman 15 years younger and that feels worse because it’s such a clichéd male mid-life crisis.

But I particularly hated the way Mum seemed to treat the age gap like a badge of honour. I bet she bragged about it to her friends.

When Mum met Olly in 2019, my parents were still in the process of divorcing. It was painful – they had argued all the time – and as much as I hated the idea of Dad moving out, I had to admit the atmosphere was calmer when he did.

I understood Mum needed time for herself but I didn’t expect her to find a boyfriend so quickly. It felt too soon. I didn’t want to make it all about me, but it was unsettling. She started seeing Olly just after Dad moved out – although I didn’t know it at the time, because she didn’t tell me straight away. Yet my brother and I soon picked up on the fact that something was going on.

The first clues came when she and I were on the bus together on our way home from the shops. She was texting with this secret sort of smile I found really annoying. It was like the roles were reversed; she held her screen away from me like a teenager.

She wouldn’t tell me who she was talking to, either, which raised my suspicions. I glimpsed the bomb emoji next to the shell one in a text she’d received; I was sure someone her own age wouldn’t use emojis like that.

About a week later, I caught Mum taking pouty selfies on her phone, posing on the sofa with her head thrown back. When she saw me, she laughed in a nervous way. I felt angry because she looked ridiculous. I knew they were for the mystery guy. Who else would they be for?

She owned up to having a boyfriend soon after that. She couldn’t deny it any more, not when she and Olly were texting all the time. But it took her another month to tell me and my older brother Finn, then 14, about the age gap.

She dropped it into the conversation one evening when we were all watching TV.

‘Olly’s a bit younger than me, you know,’ she said. I thought she meant only a few years, but when Finn asked her how much younger, she told us the truth. I sat there in disbelief.

Finn was really embarrassed about the age gap, too. We both thought there was something wrong with Olly to be interested in someone as old as Mum.

I told Mum she should act her age, but she replied, angrily, that I would only understand when I got to 50 myself, which is obviously miles away.

Then, Mum started changing before our eyes – and I knew it was because of Olly. When she was with Dad, she had enjoyed gardening and DIY, and they stayed in together watching TV. 

Now she was spending her money on the kind of lacy tights and short skirts my friends would wear. It was mortifying. She started going out to bars and clubs every other weekend with Olly, leaving us with Dad.

I didn’t like it, especially as she was hungover the next day. I wished things could return to how they’d been before.

It was another six months before Mum actually introduced Finn and me to Olly. I think they were both nervous. He looked even younger than I’d imagined and again I wondered why on earth he was dating my mum.

I knew better than to bring it up with Dad, though. I was aware he hated the idea of Olly, too.

For the first year of their relationship, Mum stayed at Olly’s flat for their dates, while Dad looked after us. It was only in their second year that Olly started staying over at ours.

Although I had accepted they were together by this point, it still felt strange having a younger man around the house. To be honest, it made me miss my dad more. I missed having a father figure on hand.

And Olly certainly wasn’t that; he could discuss computer games and skating but he didn’t get too involved with family life.

That said, it was better that he didn’t try to play the role of stedad, unlike Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who refers to his younger stepdaughter as ‘my baby girl’, which feels cringe-worthy.

That’s not to say Olly didn’t have opinions about our upbringing. He told Mum he thought we should get home earlier and do more tidying up. She passed it on because she agreed with him.

Seeing him come out of the shower in a towel once only made the differences between him and Dad more obvious. It was clear Olly went to the gym all the time, and he was much taller. 

I didn’t fancy him myself – he was too old for me. Unlike Mum, I am not into age-gap relationships. Also, that would’ve been way too weird!

I did worry my friends might fancy him, though. They always denied it and I didn’t exactly probe further. At first, I tried not to mention his age to them. Once when he was at home, a friend assumed he was the plumber. She would never have put two and two together because the age gap was so obvious. When I did tell her the truth, she was amazed.

Throughout their four-year relationship, I don’t think I ever felt truly comfortable with the generational divide. I was glad Olly kept a certain distance from me and Finn, because this year they split up. Having gone through my parents’ divorce, I wouldn’t have wanted to go through that sense of loss again.

Mum didn’t tell me specific reasons for the split, but I know the age gap played a part. I felt bad for her because she was really sad and is convinced she won’t meet anyone else she’ll like as much as him – especially at her age.

I’m not against Mum finding a new relationship; in fact, I hope she does. It would be nice to have a father-figure in the house, to do all the things my own dad doesn’t do any more: putting up shelves, taking the dog for a walk, helping me with my homework. But it needs to be someone her own age.

*Names have been changed.