My boyfriend and I have a small age gap between us, he’s nineteen and I’m twenty-five, turning twenty-six in September. I was in a previous relationship that was very toxic and abusive that ex and I were together for three and half years, I moved in with my ex two years ago. I met my boyfriend through my ex, my ex’s sister who was seventeen when she started dating my boyfriend’s dad when my boyfriend was like fifteen to seventeen years old. my ex’s sister and my boyfriend’s dad have broken up for awhile. And since my boyfriend was seventeen I’ve had a crush on him, but he only saw me as his cool older sister, until this past February when he started to develop feelings for me. When my boyfriend and I were just friends I would y’know hit on him in a friendly kind of way but also not in a friendly kind of way, i was in my toxic relationship at the time but wouldn’t cheat my ex knew about the harmless flirting and did not mind from my knowledge. Once my boyfriend started to have feelings for me, we would talk about sex, I’m very open about my sex life, I was forced into prostitution when I was like nineteen to twenty years old and I am not ashamed of what I was, so I openly talk about it to my boyfriend when we’re still friends and now while we date. My boyfriend and I have been friends for three years so we have way better communication skills etc than my ex and I had, and I think the reason why my boyfriend and I have better communication skills etc is because we were friends before we started dating. My boyfriend has only had one other girlfriend when he was thirteen years old, but she had cheated on him, and he never dated again until me. his first girlfriend is the one who took his virginity. I still live with my ex though as we live in an adult foster home as we are both mentally disabled. I’m more mentally handicapped than my ex or boyfriend. Where I am from we base your mental disabilities by levels my ex is a level two and I am a level seven. I am working on moving out and hopefully my boyfriend and I can find our own apartment together. My boyfriend and I love each other very much, he said “I love you.” first. He knows about the abuse with my ex because he had witnessed a lot of it. So he knows I’m going to need constant reassurance, constant or almost constant attention, that I’m extremely clingy, he knows about my mental disabilities and he know how to talk to me and explain things to me so that i understand unlike my ex who would just yell at me. my ex would slap my face when i would sleep just so I could wake up and make him food. my ex treated me like his own personal butler and maid. My ex constantly would accuse me of cheating even when I had a meeting with one of my social workers. my current boyfriend is more understanding, kind, caring, loving and is very patient with me. He is showing me love that I never knew was possible. as a child I was raped and molested by my birth father from the ages of four until I was eleven, my mom knew about the rape and molesting and she abandoned me and flew to England to be with my stepdad. a little while after she left my little sister and I were apprehended by Child and Family Services the abuse didn’t come out until about a year or so after my little sister and I were taken away for negligence. So I never really knew anything about this kind of love I’ve usually dated men who abused or used me. my boyfriend just wants to make me happy. And I just want to make him happy. I always believed that a woman’s place is raising the children, cooking, cleaning, doing laundry and pleasing her husband I am very old fashioned this way. like a 1950s housewife if you will. I apologize for this rant but i had to get it out there, because not everyone likes the idea of my boyfriend and I dating because of him being nine teen and me being twenty-five almost twenty-six. He lives with his mom close to my house and his Mom wouldn’t be happy about him and I dating so we haven’t told her, but his dad knows he is more of a daddy’s boy than a mama’s boy. His dad is accepting of the relationship, but we do believe his mom may think something is up with him. because he has lost weight due to all the sex we have he’s starting to get a six pack.