Power Imbalances in relationships: My personal story

When people asked how I met my ex-partner, I often felt awkward and made a vague comment about how we used to ‘perform together’, which was only part of the truth. We met when I was 16: even though he wasn’t my personal teacher, he was a teacher at the music service where I used to study. We stayed in touch after I left at age 18 to study at a music conservatoire and we started dating when I was 20, moving in with eachother within 2 weeks.  He was 17 years my senior. 

From the beginning of our relationship, he was upfront about both his desires and concerns; having a family was important to him and he didn’t want to wait more than 5 years before having his first child. He was concerned about the age gap and didn’t want to pressurise me. At the time, I was unfazed by this- I was completely in love and I guess I thought we could cross that bridge when we came to it. Even though I had thought throughout my teens that I probably didn’t want children, I wasn’t sure how I would feel in a few years time. 

Four years into the relationship, we started trying to get pregnant. 9 months and 2 miscarriages later, I decided to take a break from the stresses of trying and re-focussed my mind on changing careers, making a spontaneous decision to train as a Mental Health Nurse. This specific decision was partly influenced by my desire for a change in career that did not require too many years of additional study, as I didn’t want to wait too long before trying again. I was pleased to get on a post-graduate course which meant I would be a qualified within two years.

Our relationship deteriorated quickly; within months of the second miscarriage he decided to end the relationship, claiming that in hindsight he hadn’t really felt properly ‘in love’ with me for a large proportion of the 5-year relationship, but didn’t understand why. He did admit that he was perhaps more enamored with the idea of having a family, than the reality of the relationship with me. I was left feeling shocked and confused. Not long after our relationship ended, he got together with an ex-student 25 years his junior and is now married to her with children. 

My reason for sharing this personal story is that I have recently been thinking about risk factors for power imbalances in relationships, and I want to share my thoughts on how age gaps can be a significant risk factor. I want to share how the relationship felt from the inside at the time, how I see the situation now and why I think we should take a ‘risk assessment’ approach to assessing power imbalances in relationships, rather than categorically condemning certain types of relationships.

The inside perspective

When the relationship first started, I remember having an intense feeling of imposter syndrome: ‘why is this charming, smart, successful man interested in me?’ I was waiting for the inevitable point in which he would ‘discover’ me for who I was: an insecure young woman who knew very little about the world. But as time went on, my insecurities diminished as he expressed more certainty in his love and commitment to me. It was, for the most part, a very happy relationship, he was loving and supportive and I felt ‘understood’ in a way I had never felt before. The age gap never seemed like a problem and I genuinely really wanted to have a family with him.

I can’t talk about his perspective now, but I am fairly certain that he didn’t believe there to be a power imbalance in the relationship at the time, and certainly would have been horrified to have caused any harm at all. He often expressed how I was much more emotionally mature than he was,  as well as more secure and self aware. Although I believed this at the time and perhaps I did have character traits that made me seem more mature, I now think this view was mostly a result of motivated reasoning. 

My current narrative

I do not regret the relationship-it was a happy few years and the financial and personal stability I experienced allowed me to explore certain avenues for a period of time, for example- I became deeply engaged in meditation and other spiritual practices that impacted my life positively. Although the relationship ended in a way that was shocking and upsetting, I recovered more quickly than I thought I would. 

However, I now see that the power imbalance at the beginning meant that I quickly invested in the relationship at such a young age, and I compromised my own values and development in order to sustain the relationship. And I feel concerned for the version of me in a parallel universe: the young mother in a relationship with a man who had fallen out of love, with little financial income and no real career of her own. After all, I was pregnant twice so this was so close to becoming reality; and despite his naive belief in this, I am definitely not convinced that having a child together would have been enough for him to ‘fall in love’ with me all over again. 

There are lots of risk factors for power imbalances in relationships: for example,  large inequalities in life experience, relationship experience, finances, intelligence, life skills, self esteem or emotional awareness. And there are types of relationships where power imbalances are almost inevitable, for example, teacher-student, therapist-client or  manager-employee, which is why romantic relationships within these contexts are disapproved of by society. I don’t think romantic relationships are always problematic in this context, but there is a very high risk of a power imbalance. 

When it comes to relationships with a large age gap, particularly when one individual is a very young adult (late teen or early 20’s), it is very likely that many power imbalance risk factors will be present, even if it isn’t always the case (ie it is likely that there are inequalities in  life experience, relationship experience, financial stability, knowledge about the world, self knowledge, self esteem and emotional awareness). 

Most people in their late teens or early 20’s will have recently left home and are likely to be in the early stages of figuring out their values and needs independently of their parents view, for example, working out what they want to do with their career, what they want from a relationships etc. This certainly was the case for me.  My partner’s conviction in my emotional maturity (and therefore my lack of vulnerability) validated the relationship for both of us: I was incentivised to ignore the fact that there was an imbalance present in our relationship, and he was incentivised to believe I was invulnerable. Yes, I may have been more able to handle emotionally difficult topics than many 20 year olds. But I was still very inexperienced with relationships, I felt deeply uncertain about my career and future life in general,  and felt insecure and unsure of myself. He was also much more financial secure than me and had a good income, whereas I was a student living in a run-down house share when we met.  I became dependant on the relationship for a certain lifestyle-I  lived basically rent-free in a 3 bedroom house that he owned. This financial stability was both a blessing and a curse - although I was working as a freelance musician and cello teacher, I didn’t really need to work that much.  I had decided soon before graduating that I wanted to change careers but I avoided making a decision about my future career, deciding to focus on having a family first. 

I made decisions about my life to align with his values, desires and lifestyle due to the importance and weight I put on sustaining the relationship, including those with permanent consequences. I almost moved to rural Germany to live near his family, despite not speaking the language and having few career prospects there. I would have had children with him, if it hadn’t been for the miscarriages. The relationship influenced my career choices and definitely made me less ambitious. Yes, the reality is probably much more nuanced than I am making it sound and there was more power symmetry in the relationship as it went on, but I don’t think it was balanced in the beginning. It is normal for relationships to change your values to a certain extent, but because I was so uncertain about what I wanted from life at the time we got together, it was hard to differentiate between changes as a result of the relationship vs just growing up. Scarily, within a year of the relationship ending, I reverted back to the view shared by my 19 year old pre-relationship  self: that I probably didn’t want children, and I have become much more certain about this during the last few years. I now have a more compassionate view of my situation, but for many years I avoided telling people about my past attempts to get pregnant out of embarrassment; I thought it made me appear irresponsible and impetuous. 

I don’t think we should consider large age-gap relationships as categorically wrong and shame older people who start relationships with very young adults.  But we should raise awareness about why it can be problematic (i.e. high likelihood of power imbalance) and we should not actively encourage or normalise these relationships (for example in the media). Just because it is consensual and the person is over 18, it doesn’t necessarily make it ok. It is likely to feel very different from the inside and both parties will be incentivised to think their relationship is an exception despite the risk factors considered from an outside view, but it is probably best to assume you are not the exception to the rule.