So earlier this month my wife and I celebrated our 12th wedding anniversary. We've been together for 13 years now, me from the US and she from Kherson Ukraine. Sadly we we've seen quite a few RW/UW-AM marriages fall by the wayside during that time including two couples close to us. My wife and I have a twenty year difference and it hasn't made a difference, but then, as now, I believe you have to be a certain type of person to make it work. For my part I believe I'm young at heart and I still work out like an animal, as one of my ex-military friends told my wife last weekend after a day of water-skiing. We constantly enjoy new activities with my wife and kids...I've taught my wife to shoot pistol and rifle, to land big game fish on light tackle, ride enduro motorcycles, shoot bow (I just took up bow hunting this year and loving it)...we still have date night and dance the night away. To be honest she admits she has difficulty keeping up with me at times. I've helped her get into real estate and she has become a star agent consistently hitting circle of excellence every year in our county/state.
It's been a long road but the thing I think it comes back to is to be successful it has to be look and feel like a normal relationship, not an RW/UW-AM marriage. We've had our shares of arguments and disagreements but rarely were they cultural except at the beginning when my wife did not understand the differences between American and Eastern European culture. These days it comes down more to parenting styles, and little things that can drive someone up the wall if they're not aware of it or not open about communicating problems.
Along the way we had two kids - a 9 year old boy and 2 (almost 3) year old girl. Both are the the light of my life. Before the Covid-19 hit I coached my son to state kart racing championship with an eye to a national championship. He and I ride motorcycles like maniacs and he's unbelievable talented - he is very quick and I've had two bad crashes chasing him down that had me laid up for three days while my wife worried that I'd broken my leg. My two year old is smart as a whip and loves sitting on my motorcycles - I smell another racer in the family.
In the end I think the statistics about these marriages matter only if you ignore red flags and are in love with the idea of being in love. For my part the RW/UW part of the equation doesn't matter too much to me anymore other than the fact that my wife has conservative, traditional values and I am a right leaning conservative so we're perfect together.