How Young Can Women Be For A Serious Relationship?

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-By Caleb Jones

A little while ago commenter JJ, an older gentleman, asked a very interesting question, one I’ve been asked before and have given great thought to:

Realistically, what age would you say is the youngest (beautiful) woman I can expect to have a long-term relationship (or even marriage) with?

Good question! First, let’s review the three basics regarding much younger women in relationships:

1. They must be legal wherever you are. If you don’t know the age of consent in your city, find out before you start dating much younger women. Europe, Asia, and South America are pretty relaxed about this. But if you live in the US, American women (and many American men) will react with psychotic, volcanic horror if she’s even one year under the age of consent, and will gleefully throw your ass in jail and brand you a sex offender even if they know it was 100% consensual and you did nothing wrong.

You can weep at the latest insane case right here. A teenage boy had 100% consensual sex with a teenage girl who lied about her age. Police arrested him and charged him with statutory “rape.” The girl and her mother testified in court that indeed the girl did lie about her age, and that they didn’t think the teenage boy had done anything wrong nor should be punished, and that everything was fine.

But because America has gone insane, he got a 90 day prison sentence, 5 years of probation, a permanent criminal record, and is now a registered sex offender for the next 25 years. At age 19, his life is destroyed. And he did nothing wrong.

Bottom line, Americans are uniquely weird about teenage girls having sex with even slightly older men. If you live in the US, know your local laws and check ID before you touch. (Sadly, Canada is also getting bad about this, so you Canadians better watch out too.)

2. Dating a much younger woman in a monogamous relationship is staggeringly stupid, even when younger guys do it. Never expect a woman under the age of 23 to be monogamous, regardless of what she promises. She’ll cheat on your ass and do it with a smile on her face, or she’ll dump your ass like a hot potato the instant she starts to like someone else and for no other reason. Only date younger women in NONmonogamous relationships (unless you like drama).

3. Dating VYW (women between age of consent and about 23) as FBs and MLTRs is fine, provided you remember that she’s a teenager or damn near it (more on this in a minute), so set your expectations accordingly regarding her behavior. I’ve done it many times and never had a problem. Just remember that “set your expectations” part. Too many men date these near-teenagers and then are shocked and furious when they see these women exhibit near-teenage behavior. Well, duh. With under-23 women, just like with over-33 women, set your expectations accordingly, or stay away.

Now what about having a much younger woman in a truly serious relationship? Like a high-end MLTR, OLTR, or OLTR marriage? This is where things get a little more complicated.

What Age?

Where exactly is the cut-off age for women who are acceptable for a long-term, serious, in-love relationship?

I don’t think there’s definitive, objective answer. I don’t think anyone can point at a specific age and say “Any woman over age X will be okay, any of them under that age is a bad idea.” Regardless of what age you choose, it’s going to be arbitrary.

Regardless, I can give you my answer. This an admittedly subjective answer, though it's from a guy with a massive amount of dating and relationship experience who has dated (in long relationships) women of all ages, from 18 to 50+. Feel free to take it or leave it.

I’ve had to give this a lot of thought, because twice in my life I found myself in “serious” relationships (nonmonogamous ones of course) with women you were much younger. Here’s what I came up with.

Long-Term Expectations, or Not?

The issue is not the relationship being “serious.” Rather, the issue is how long your expectations are of a future relationship with this woman. I don’t think the determining factor is how “serious” things are. I think it’s whether or not you have long-term expectations of the relationship lasting.

Here’s a perfect example. Years go I bashed celebrity Doug Hutchison for getting legally and monogamously married to a 16 year-old. Unlike everyone else who was horrified (crazy Americans again, sigh), I had no problem whatsoever with the age difference. If she’s legal and cute and it’s consensual, go for it! I had a problem because it’s utterly insane to expect a relationship to last a long time with a god damn 16 year-old girl.

They were legally separated in less than two years (of course!). A teenage girl is not someone who’s going to stick around. Period.

So do I think it’s a good idea to get into a serious relationship with long-term expectations with a woman under the age of 20? Nope. You’re a complete dumbass if you do that (and many men do, including younger men).

Then what about age 20? Or 21?

As a man who has dated a hell of a lot of younger women in his day, I can tell you this for a fact:

Women act like teenagers until around age 23.

I have observed absolutely no difference in behavior or thought processes between 22 year-old girls and 18 year-old girls. None. One can legally drink and the other can’t, but that’s literally the only difference. They’re both just as immature, reckless, carefree, happy, fickle, chaotic, and irrational. They both drink and/or do drugs just as much and just as often. Even if they have kids. No difference.

Yes, there are always those rare girls who are unusually mature at these ages, but those are the unusual exceptions to the rule. If you’re dealing with a woman age 20-22, she’s still a teenager. I don’t care if the first digit of her age is a “2” instead of a “1,” she’s still a teenager.

Think about this: How many 20 year-old women do you know who live on their own, in their own house or apartment, don’t live with family or friends, and pay 100% of their own bills without any help from government, family, exes, or child support, and maintain the same full-time job for more than 12 months?

I’ve never seen a 20 year-old girl do that. Ever. I’ve never seen a 21 year-old girl do that either. Or a 22 year-old girl. But 23? Yeah, I’ve seen a small number of 23-year-old women pull that off. Not many, but some.

There are many other reasons why I see 23 as a clear cut-off to beyond-teenage maturity for women, but I don’t have time here to go into all of it. You get the point.

So it’s not a good idea to get into a serious relationship with long-term expectations with a woman under the age of 23. She’s a teenager.

What about age 23 then?

I still wouldn’t get into a serious relationship with long-term expectations with a 23 year-old (unless she was an amazing exception to the rule). 23 is when women start to get their shit together. That doesn’t mean I can trust her to stick around consistently for five or ten years just because she’s no longer a teenager. However, I do admit that once a woman is 23, we’ve entered into a grey area.

How about age 24?

Still a grey area, but I’d be much more confident about 24 than I would 23.

How about 25?

Yes.

So there you go. It takes all the way until age 25 for me to give a solid “yes” to the question of eligibility for a serious relationship with long-term expectations. Provided she’s passed all the other requirements for an OTLR (you’ve been dating her for at least six months, preferably a year, and you’ve had zero or near zero drama or jealousy, and she’s survived The Talk), then I think an older guy getting into serious, long-term relationship with a 25 year-old is perfectly fine. Go for it.

Minimum vs. Ideal

Now you might ask, “So if 25 is the minimum ‘definite’ age for something long-term and serious, what would be the ideal age for this? Certainly the ideal age would have to be older than 25, right?”

Correct. If you were actually out screening (and you know how I hate that word) for the ideal, long-term OLTR woman, you would be looking for a woman over the age 25, not going for a bunch of 25 year-olds.

The problem is that dreaded Age of Doom, age 33, where a woman’s ASD spikes into the stratosphere. A relationship may work fine with those over-33 woman, but getting to sex with her the first time to start that relationship is likely going to involve a lot more work, time, financial expense, and compromise than many of you are willing to put up with. Unless she’s another exception to the rule, getting into that wonderful relationship isn’t going to be feasible because of her own false Societal Programming and mental barriers regarding sex.

Therefore, unless you don’t mind waiting 8-15 hours of face time and spending $150-$250 just to maybe get to first-time sex with that over-33 woman, then you’re looking at an ideal serious-relationship age range of 25-32.

That’s as close as I can get to giving you a solid number. For most high sex drive Alphas, it’s somewhere between 25 and 32. I’ve always had the number 27 rolling around in my head as “ideal” for a long-term serious relationship, but that’s completely arbitrary. A 25 year-old would also be fine, perhaps even a 24 year-old. Going the other direction, a sexually liberated, low-ASD, over-33 woman, what few there are, would be perfectly fine with me as well, but then we’ve definitely left the “young” zone and are thus straying away from our original question (though if you’re over age 55 or 60, a woman in her 30s would certainly be considered “younger”).

So there you have it. My take is admittedly subjective, but I am coming at this from a place of vast experience. Your best bet is to take the above as a template and slightly modify/tweak it based on your own age, life situation, and preferences. You won’t go wrong doing that.

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