I was twenty-nine when I met Paul. He was twenty-five years old man who had started working in the establishment I was working in. I didn’t see him as love interest. We were just colleagues who loved to hang around each other until one night he called and asked for a date. I didn’t feel right about the date but I went anyway.

I didn’t like the concept of office romance but it was easier to go on a date with him because our jobs in the office were parallel. Paul didn’t act his age. He spoke like he had been on this earth before it was formed. He had depth and solutions to things I struggled with. I loved him before he even proposed.

The day he proposed I asked his age and he told me he was twenty-five. The love and everything I harboured for him leaked out of my system. I was like a deflated balloon in the air. I twirled and swirled while falling from the skies. I laughed. He asked why and I answered, “I’m twenty-nine. Four years older than you are. How is love going to work?”

He answered, “Love doesn’t need a number to work and we don’t walk around carrying our age on our foreheads. Who will know?”

Classical Paul. He swept me off my feet with his answer but I was still skeptical. So even when I said yes to him, I put a foot in and one foot out just to have a firm ground in case it didn’t go well. He called me mom when he wanted to be mischievous. I asked him to stop it and he did. He called me Mama Gee when he wanted to tease me. And when he needed my opinion on issues, he came to me respectfully and said, “Prove your age here. How can we do this and that? I need an opinion of an ancestor.”

I realized he meant well and also realized he was willing to use my age to his advantage so when he made jokes about my age or sought to call me names that depicted the age gap, I didn’t feel offended. I laughed along but most importantly, I gave him his respect as my boyfriend. He wanted me to lead. He would put the problem there and ask me to decide. Ninety out of a hundred, he went with what I said.

That hasn’t changed. We’ve been married for seven years and this man still seeks my opinion on things as if I’m his mother. When we fight and he’s wrong, instead of him to apologize, he won’t. He would come at me and say something like, “An’t you ashamed you’re fighting me. Go out there and fight your age. It’s not me you’ll bully.”

I Haven’t Done It With A Married Woman Before | Story Board

He’ll always find something funny to say just to break the ice between us when we go cold. So to the question… dating a man younger than you isn’t the problem. It’s a matter of who you meet and their maturity level. I didn’t like the idea of dating a man I’m older than until I met Paul. He didn’t have a problem with it and he made it work to our advantage. It’s not wrong or right. It’s all about who you meet. If you don’t meet Paul, you might meet Judas and he’ll betray your age.

—Audrey

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