Do Relationships Move Faster When You Are Older

When discussing relationships, bringing up a timeline of different milestones is common. I’ve seen people discuss the best time to become intimate with a new partner. When you want to commit and move forward with the relationship, how soon can you ask, or how late – I’ve seen it all.

When asking all these questions, people think they’ll get better at the ‘dating game’ when they’re older. But do relationships move faster when you are older? I’ve encountered this question many times and decided to break it down. Let’s go into detail to discuss how relationships change as you age and whether time determines your ability to maintain a long-lasting relationship. 

How Do Relationships Change Over Time, and Why?

Based on my experience, either two things will happen as you grow older: you’ll become more set in your ways or wake up to the truth about life. And depending on how you change, your perception of relationships will also change. If you’ve learned that love, as it is experienced, is inside you and not elsewhere, not something you search for and get from outside yourself, you’ll be more open to connecting with other people, you’ll be less creepy and more attractive to a potential mate.

If you’re wondering what that means, I’ll clarify a few important things. To have a steady relationship with someone, it’s helpful to realise that happiness comes from within yourself. Making your happiness conditional or relying on other people’s actions to make you feel happy is never a good way to be happy in the long term. It’s simply a way to set yourself up for disappointment, with a possibly very short term gain.

Everyone is born into this experience, yet it is programmed out of us with conditioning then over time with enough disappointment we often see deeper back to our true self. After you become aware of how love and happiness come from within you, your relationships will be noticably different. But if you’ve gone the other way and have become more cynical and caught up in your conditioning and your ways, then you’ll probably stay alone or have a struggle with relationships.

Do Relationships Move Faster in Your 30s, 40s, or 50s?

To answer the question as to whether relationships move faster when you’re older: it doesn’t matter. Regardless of whether you’re in your 30s, 40s, or 50s, time or age isn’t relevant to emotional maturity – the two things don’t come together. Someone can be in their 20s, be aware of their emotions, and know how to reflect affection towards a significant other. Similarly, someone in their 50s can be in a relationship yet not know how to love, and be completely lost in their human experience, childrean know a lot more about relationships than adults, they are born knowing, how long does it take a child to learn to play? or to love another child regardless of age, race, sexual orinetation, religion, creed, coloour? no time at all, it’ built in, yet then tuned out.

I’ve often heard men and women approaching their 40s saying, ‘I’m too old to play games,’ but age has nothing to do with it. Rather, your ability to sustain a functional and loving relationship depends on your awareness of yourself and your feelings. To do that, you have to go through a complete emotional, mental, and spiritual journey.

And this awareness doesn’t come with age. Some people may not develop it at all, no matter how old they are. Nevertheless, experience does indeed give you the ability to develop that awareness with time. Naturally, as you grow older, you’re more likely to encounter more people, and over time, people come and go, so the only one who can truly make you happy is yourself.

Changing Perspectives As You Grow Older

I realise that the whole notion of ‘relationships moving faster when you’re older’ stems from somewhere, but age isn’t a determining factor. Rather, it’s how you grow emotionally and spiritually that determines whether or not you’ll be in a satisfying relationship.

This growth makes you more open to connecting with people, something that may feel scary when you’re younger. When you haven’t yet attained a certain level of emotional growth, you shelter yourself and avoid opening up to people. It’s a defence mechanism that prevents you from experiencing potentially distressing experiences. Much of it concerns how you’ve already formulated an identity and trying to protect it from being hurt, yet that identity, is not you, you are beyond that.

At one point, you’ll understand that you are beyond your identity, and all those phases were just steps along the way to that realisation. Not to mention, you’ll also be less receptive to what people think of you and their criticism of you. As a result, you’re much more willing to dive in and embrace new experiences as opposed to staying within your comfort zone.

Age Difference: Does It Matter In a Relationship?

Many relationships have an age difference, but there’s no correct answer to this question. Ultimately, it comes down to the person and their individual value system, and sense of self. A common misconception is that age gaps don’t work, but age is rarely the difference. Rather, it depends on your understanding and where you are in your emotional and spiritual journey. When these things align for you and your partner, you’ll feel like there’s a connection.

As a relationship coach, I’ve had to guide couples in navigating through various issues and noticed how age is a varying factor. Couples have come in with similar ages and still complained about how conflicts and other issues took a toll on their relationships. That’s because relationship conflicts, whether it’s abuse, co-dependency, or something else, all arise from a failure to look inward and realise your own experience.

When you finally understand how love comes from inside of you and not from someone else, you’ll start to reflect it outwards and vice versa. Partners who are satisfied with their relationship have embraced internal feelings of discomfort and understand how it plays a role in how they behave.

Can a Relationship Between an Older Woman and Younger Man Work?

When people have questions about whether a relationship can work despite a large age gap, they assume that conflicts can arise due to differences in perspective. But based on online trends, more older women are looking to date younger men, so, if you prefer data, there’s evidence that age gaps aren’t necessarily a bad thing.

Issues between younger men and older women can arise when one partner tries to reflect their inner insecurities onto the other person. They may try to cope with internal discomfort by trying to control or belittle their partner, which causes friction in the relationship.

The Importance of Understanding

In relationship coaching, the foundation of dealing with any relationship issue is to develop a thorough understanding of oneself. After that, you can move on to understanding your partner. Needless to say, as long as you and your partner have a deep understanding of your own emotions and don’t place a condition on your love, you’ll feel satisfied.

How Fast Should a Relationship Move Physically?

This is a pretty common question among new couples – I’ve seen how people get worried about moving too fast in the relationship. It prompts people to wonder, ‘am I moving too fast?’ or ‘is he/she uninterested because I’m moving too slow?’ Again, there’s no specific answer as to how fast your relationship should move.

How quickly you and your partner want to progress entirely depends on your understanding of the dynamics and the value you place on them. Of course, that doesn’t mean moving quickly is a bad thing. It’s entirely possible to meet someone who is aware of their feelings and understands you. At the same time, you may meet someone different from you in many ways. Therefore, it may take some time to work out your internal issues before you can reflect the love already inside you.

Sexual Intimacy as a Way of Coping

It’s common for people to move too fast when they first enter a relationship, only to realise later on that they regret it. At the time, you may feel like it’s the right thing to do; but later on, you realise that it affected your ability to develop a meaningful understanding. In these situations, physical intimacy is used as a way to cope with internal unease. As a way to avoid these thoughts, you may find yourself rushing into a relationship, there not really a too fast, only peoples opinion, you can live life without regrets.

However, it only acts as a temporary way to put those feelings aside. As a result, the intimate experience with your new partner doesn’t allow you to develop a deeper bond. Because you’re too busy using it to get a temporary escape from that internal discomfort, you’re not receiving the love and affection your partner is sending your way.

Why Do I Move So Fast In Relationships?

There could be many reasons why someone moves too fast in a new relationship. While it’s not always a sign of something bad, you should ask yourself this question when your partner is moving at a slower pace than you (and it’s making you uneasy or annoyed). 

Moving Too Fast in Co-Dependent Relationships

One area where it’s common to move too fast in a relationship is co-dependency. People in co-dependent relationships, whether they’re givers or takers. Givers are people who sacrifice their sense of self to meet all of their partners’ needs, ignoring their own needs in the process. Meanwhile, takers take advantage of this aspect (intentionally or unintentionally).

Co-dependency is the result of learned behaviour; it’s never innate. Givers learn from a young age that validation and appreciation come from external sources, such as parents and significant others. Therefore, they go above and beyond in an attempt to feel appreciated and loved.

When they interact with people, they seek people who have certain traits. Relationships with such people act as a way to gain validation. Because physical intimacy is treated as the most desirable aspect of a relationship, they want to meet their partner’s needs. When they do, it’s often at the expense of their own comfort and needs.

Lacking a Sense of Self

With my years of experience as a relationship coach, I’ve seen that many conflicts, whether they’re relationship issues, addiction issues, and other mental health issues, arise from a core place: lacking a sense of self.

One of the key reasons why individual therapy is emphasised to address relationship conflicts is that people have yet to look inward and understand who they are. When you haven’t looked at your experience and faced your inner feelings, you have a hard time defining yourself. So, when you enter a relationship, it’s difficult to discern where the other person ends, and you begin.

When a sense of self is absent, others’ interests and ideas can seem as if they’re your own. Similarly, it could also mean that you rely on a significant other’s presence to give you meaning and happiness. You feel like you wouldn’t exist without them, so what they want is what you want. In such situations, moving fast feels like the right thing to do. 

Conclusion

Relationships are a core part of our lives, but not because they make us whole. We’re already whole, but a significant other allows us to experience love and radiate it towards another person. But since there’s no rule book for relationships, people often wonder if they should go in fast or slow when entering a new relationship.

Being older allows you to have more experience, which is often associated with emotional maturity, but old age isn’t the same as emotional maturity itself. Rather, keep in mind that people can gain emotional maturity and have a fulfilling relationship at any age. When you have a deep understanding of yourself and your partner, it doesn’t matter how fast or slow you go. But when there are signs of dysfunction and conflict, it’s time to look inwards and see where the issue is coming from and if it’s causing you to move too fast. If that’s the case, you and your partner should speak with a licensed professional to experience and embrace your inner self. By truly loving yourself, you allow yourself to love someone else more fully – regardless of how old you are.