A female business owner who married a man with the same name and age range as her father claims she doesn’t have “daddy issues,” and asks people to be less judgmental.
Jessica Zirkelbach, a boutique owner, married her husband Alan 12 years ago.
At the time, she was 22, and he was 50 years of age— a gap similar to her and her father.
Despite their age difference, Jessica insists she doesn’t have “daddy issues.”
Jessica admits she was looking for someone “like” her dad but didn’t expect her match to be so on the nose.
“I think my attraction to Alan grew over time as far as physical attraction goes, but I was attracted to everything else immediately; his success, the way he carried himself, the way he was a host, the way he pursued me immediately,” she explained on the “Love Don’t Judge“ podcast.
Alan was also instantly attracted to Jessica, but he worried about their 28-year age gap. “I struggled with it initially,” he admitted. “I think I had to ask a couple of times how Jessica felt about that age gap.”
Online critics have pointed out that Alan is old enough to be Jessica’s father, but people rarely say anything to him in person. Alan remembers a particular incident where someone did confront him. “We were on a cruise, and a group of three ladies saw us dancing and saw me kiss her. Then when I walked away, they gave me a hard time about it,” he shared.
“They said, ‘She could be your daughter,’ and that kind of stuff,” Alan continued. “That one got under my skin a little bit more. People may say things behind our back but not right to our face normally.”
According to the Daily Star, the criticism from others only strengthens Jessica’s resolve to make her relationship work. “The doubts of people pushed us together when people said comments like they’ll never last that only motivated us more to prove them wrong,” she said.
The one person whose opinion truly matters to Jessica is her dad, who coincidentally is also named Alan. Her dad remembers the first time Jessica told him about her new boyfriend: “She told me how she’d met this great guy. I said, ‘Really? What’s his name?’ and she said, ‘Alan.’ I said, ‘How old is he?’ She said, ‘In his fifties,’ and I said, ‘You’ve got Daddy Issues!'”
Despite his initial reaction, Jessica’s dad has come to accept her husband. He acknowledged his daughter’s preference for older men and has grown to like his namesake. Speaking to Jessica, he said, “I don’t really think it’s true. I don’t think you have daddy issues at all.”
The couple’s story is a testament to their love and determination to overcome societal judgments and live their lives on their own terms.
Age gap relationships are becoming increasingly common with consenting adults in modern times, though they face considerable amounts of scrutiny—particularly from older women finding themselves competing with younger women for the attention of men within their age group.
According to Deakin University, studies show that while 3/4 of relationships pairing an older man with a younger woman results in high rates of satisfaction, the primary reason for the relationships coming to an end is not due to a lack of commonality, but the pressures caused by disapproval from friends and family.
Additionally, disapproval of “age gap relationships” seems to be amplified in Western countries, as opposed to being more or less normal in other parts of the world.
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