DOES age gap matter in a relationship? Younger man, older woman… It is really about matching personalities, not so much about age.

As the roles of man and woman in society have evened out, so have our attitudes to what makes a perfect mate broadened.

The white-picket-fence- and 2.4-children-family is no longer the solitary, shining beacon of successful couples it once was. Relationships have become more fluid. A woman can make a relationship work at the age of 30, 40 or even 50 and where the partner is much younger or even where the age gap is generational.

Sachin Tendulkar, whose wife Anjali is older than him, says the age difference did not stop him from proposing to her, simply because he knew “she was the one”. The two met through common friends and instantly hit it off. That the woman was older than the man never crossed their minds.

It really seems to be the case of a meeting of minds and a close bond scoring over everything else. A perfect example would be beauty queen and actor Aishwarya Rai’s union with three-years younger co-star Abhishek Bachchan. Upon getting married, she is supposed to have said that because of their friendship life seems like a “smooth flow”. Nothing unnatural.

Sameer, 28, discovered Shaleen, 36, in college where she was his faculty. Says he, “She was a friend, philosopher guide and taught me that I couldn’t live without her.” Shaleen says, “Age is just a state of mind. I did not consciously choose my partner because he was younger, but because we were on a level spiritually and emotionally and he possessed all the qualities that I would have wanted in an ideal partner.” If you did not know it, you would never guess there is such an age difference between them.

There is an argument that older women want younger male partners to hide their age. To that psychologist Sanjay Chugh says, “It has to do with love casting its magic and adding the youthful glow and even years to your life.”

Chugh agrees that age is one of the least important factors in a successful relationship. “Whether the man or the woman is the older partner, the essential ingredients that uphold a relationship are companionship, compatibility, compassion, understanding, kindness, affection and trust -- factors that don’t necessarily bear any relation to age.”

It’s the understanding between partners that matters the most. Sameer says, “It did take Shaleen a long time to trust me because she had a bad marriage earlier and was very cynical about men in general.” She was also very concerned about Sameer being ridiculed or rejected by his family because he was marrying an older woman. He takes it in his stride: “I do want people to think well of me, but spending a lifetime with someone I love is far more important.”

Age doesn’t necessarily translate to a certain level of maturity or attitudes or interests. You can, for example, have two 20-year-olds with totally diverse interests, different outlooks on life and different degrees of maturity. Also, you can find a 70-year-old who is on the same wavelength as a 30-year-old.

Designer Ritu Beri shares her experience of being married to someone decades older: “It works both ways. The initial compatibility and ego hassles are far fewer

or less intense because

the older person in the

couple is indulgent and the younger one is more respectful due to the age gap.” Both respect and indulgence are important ingredients for

a harmonious relationship, she says.

Actor Archana Puran Singh, who has spent the past few years with a man a dozen years her junior, says that one of the greatest attractions of her boyfriend is his enthusiasm for life and her. She claims that most men of her age or older are cynical and suspicious, carrying a lifetime of relationship baggage and weary of what – or who – might come next.

Her partner, on the other hand, accepts her as she is, no questions asked. But the best of all, she says, she and her so-called toy-boy ‘have fun together’.

Reality bites

Shaleen emphasises that in her relationship it’s the here and now that matters the most. No doubt many age-gap couples feel the same. This may be great for now, but what about five, 10 or even 20 years down the line? What we want from life evolves as our experience changes. Will a couple standing on different parts of their separate life maps be able to work for ever, or will their wildly disparate needs at different times inevitably drive them apart? An older partner with a family from a previous relationship, for example, may well be reluctant to start again.

What about the long-term future? The wider the age difference, the more is the need to ponder over this. Are both partners in a relationship prepared to accept the potential consequences of one growing old and possibly even infirm, while the other is still relatively young? One never knows, a role shift from one of loving to one of caring or being cared for might happen sooner than one imagines.

How about the nosy-parkers who make it hard for you to take a love affair to the altar? “Your relationship will survive to the extent you are able to handle these situations, and remain confident in yourself and each other,” says Chugh.

All long-term partnerships need trust, flexibility and understanding to survive. In many ways, the problems that cross-generational couples deal with are just permutations, says Chugh, of the difficult choices all couples face. As the old saying goes, the path to true love is never easy. So why let something as trivial as a decade or two

get in the way of finding bliss with the Mr Right or Ms Right?