Couple with 24-year age gap reveal how they fell in love

A 28-year-old woman has revealed how she met her husband – who is more than two decades older than her – during an internship.

Text exchange sparks 24-year age gap romance. Picture: Supplied

A 28-year-old US woman has opened up about how she and her now-husband first sparked up their romance – despite the fact he is more than two decades older than her.

Eva Keller was just 21 when she flew to California from her home state of Florida to start an internship at Disneyland after she finished university.

That is where she met Joseph “JP” Perez – who was 24 years older than her.

The pair became friends when the “considerate and nice” JP made sure Eva had time to visit her friends who had flown across the country to see her.

“About halfway through my internship, before I even met JP I had already made plans to continue my internship back in Florida once this one was over. I had also enrolled in grad school back in Orlando,” Eva told news.com.au.

Eva Keller and JP met while working at Disneyland. Picture: Supplied

“So when the time came around for my internship to end, I was very sad to leave,” she said.

“I had made a lot of great friends and we had spent every day together for eight months.

“I had been through this before with previous Disney internships while I was in college, so I was used to everyone going their separate ways after a few months.

“JP was one of those people that was hard to leave, but we kept in contact regularly while I was away.”

But, when she returned to Florida, things at her job became difficult. She was working 16-hour days, the team was inexperienced, disorganised and every guest interaction was difficult.

She was also studying full-time.

Eventually, she decided to move back to California and continue her studies online.

Text exchange sparks 24-year age gap romance Picture: Supplied

Eva was no longer working for Disney, but was still hanging out with the friends she made during her internship, including JP.

Things shifted in their dynamic during an evening text exchange, where Eva revealed other friends had expressed their interest in being more than friends.

“He made some sort of comment along the lines of trying things out with him to avoid making mistakes with someone else. I asked if he was serious and he said he was,” she said.

“I had only been back for a little over a month before our first date happened and we had known each other for just under a year.”

The pair began dating and, after two years together, the pair went on a weekend away in Solvang – an area of California known for its wineries and Danish-style architecture.

On their last night there, the pair were walking back to their hotel from dinner and everything was closed, when they stumbled across a famous windmill.

The pair began dating after a year of friendship. Picture: Supplied

It was there JP proposed.

With the age gap, Eva spoke about her family’s reactions to the relationship.

“My grandparents actually met JP at the end of my internship because they flew out to take me on a road trip for my birthday before heading back to Florida,” she said.

“They thought something was up at the time and commented on it multiple times after, but there was no interest in each other at the time.

“I’m pretty sure everyone on my mum’s side of the family still thinks we were just keeping our relationship a secret for a year before telling people, which is not what happened at all.”

She said her father didn’t know about the relationship until JP asked his permission to propose, as it’s not something the pair typically speak about.

But age gaps aren’t uncommon in her family – with a nine-year age gap between her parents and 13 years between her mother and stepfather.

The pair are now married. Picture: Supplied

She said her aunt married someone her own parents’ age – and her aunt did warn her that there can be difficulties in marrying someone much older, particularly as her aunt was left a widow in her 50s.

But no one has ever been critical of the couple’s relationship.

“As much as we’ve travelled and been out in public together, we’ve never had negative interactions with people,” she said.

“I see news stories all the time of age-gap couples saying they have these bad interactions all the time, out of nowhere, from strangers but that has literally never happened to us once.

“I don’t know if it’s because we’re not into PDA, so the average person wouldn’t see us together and assume we’re married and think ‘ew gross’, but I don’t know. That has always been interesting to me.”

The couple had an intimate wedding, and with neither wanting children, just want to enjoy their life and travel to new places together.