A young woman is engaged to her mother’s friend, who is 29 years older than her.
She says she’s excited to have children with him – despite familing calling him a ‘paedophile’.
20-year-old Kayla Pratt first met her future fiancé, Robert Longo Jr, 49, in March 2018 when she was asked by her mother to drop him back home after a friendly get-together at her house.
The pair found themselves falling in love as the drop-offs became more frequent.
After just five weeks of dating, Robert proposed to Kayla and the couple are set to be married exactly one year later, on 2 August 2019.
Despite family and friends disapproving of their love, dubbing Robert a ‘paedophile’ and Kayla ‘not a real woman’, the couple are excited for their future life together – with plans to buy a house and have children of their own.
Kayla, from Humboldt County, California, US, said: ‘We met through my mother because I would drive him home from the family house after he’d visit so he wouldn’t have to walk two miles.
‘At first, we were just friends and liked the fact we were both very non-judgmental – we weren’t even looking for a relationship at this time.
‘But after time we started falling for each other and when he took me out for my 20th birthday in July we decided to give dating a go.
‘It was a whirlwind from there and we quickly got engaged five weeks later, but I wouldn’t change it for the world.
‘Even though we get rude comments from friends and family, and even random strangers, we want people to know that loving someone means so much more than just a number.’
Since starting their relationship, the pair claim that they regularly encounter rude comments from strangers as well as friends and family.
Kayla, who is currently looking for work, explains: ‘We have received a lot of rude comments, mostly from my family and a few other people.
‘Robert has been called him a pedophile and someone told him that I wasn’t “woman enough” for him.
‘We have been told our relationship is morally wrong and that there had to be something wrong with him for him to want to be with me.
‘Some people are really supportive and some aren’t supportive at all and some people are indifferent to it.
‘Robert has children who are 27 and 29, so older than me, and they are trying to come to terms with our relationship.
‘I have a one-year-old daughter and Robert has acted as her father her whole life, so she doesn’t think anything of it.’
The couple plan on having children of their own together in the future.
Kayla said: ‘Despite raising my daughter as our child, we plan on having a few more children together biologically.
‘Once we get married in August this year, we are going to move into our own house together and then think about the future in terms of kids.
‘Although other people have negative opinions on our relationship, we are happy and don’t want anyone to jeopardise that.
‘We are both of legal age and in love, so we believe there’s nothing wrong with that.’
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