While I completely agree with you about the media portrayal of age gaps being problematic, I have a different perspective.

My husband is ten years older than me. I met him when I was 23 and he was 33. I wasn't a teenager, and neither of us was swimming in a dating pool searching for large age gaps to build relationships with.

The only issue with our age gap is that he is and always will be a generation older than me. When we got engaged, I told him that he'd had many age-appropriate experiences that I was yet to have and that he would need to understand my need to explore it all without being told what the likely outcomes would be because he'd been there and done that before.

It's not always smooth sailing, but he is the man I love and we have been together 17 years!