“I was ashamed, I told people he was my uncle” – The couple with a 37-year age difference

A young ice hockey player says he spent years pretending his much older friend was his uncle because he wouldn’t admit he was homosexual and was ashamed of her age difference of 37 years. Janne Puhakka was 19 when he met Rolf Nordmo, then 56, in June 2014. At the time, Puhakka was a professional sportsman who played for the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League and had not revealed his true identity to family, friends or teammates.

“I was scared and I didn’t want people to know about her sexuality me,” Puhakka, who is now 27 years old, told the South West News Service. New York Post. “I was afraid of how I would be perceived in ‘super-masculine’ sports world». Puhakka and Nordmo spent the summer together in Europe and quickly realized their deep attraction for each other.

“I knew I had feelings that I had never felt before, but I kept telling myself it was just a summer fling and it wouldn’t work because of difference our age,” said Nordmo, now 64.

“I was fighting with myself all the time and trying to to fight the love I had for him, but it was impossible,” she continued. “I’ve never felt like this before. I thought, “What the hell does this young man want with me, an old pig?” he said.

For his part, Puhakka himself admitted that was falling in love Nordmo, but he wasn’t ready to come out and say it yet. After the summer ended, he returned to Canada for the start of the next season hockey on ice, with Nordmo staying a bit at a distance until visiting him a little later.

Puhakka — originally from Finland — was staying with a host family in Canada and he lied to them, saying that Nordmo was his uncle, so that she wouldn’t have to explain their relationship when she went to see Nordmo at his hotel. “I had to keep it secret and it’s not nice to hide the person you love,” Puhakka admitted. He finally went to his family and told them that his friend was the same age as his dad. His family took the news well, but the young athlete was not yet ready to tell his teammates and other friends about his relationship – so he continued to tell his uncle’s lie.

Nordmo was married with a woman for 17 years and had three children, before he reached 40. So he understood his friend’s reluctance to openly admit that he is gay. However, the athlete finally gave up ice hockey in 2019 and returned to Europe to move into his partner’s house. The couple have spent the last three years in Helsinki, Finland, where people often mistake them for father and son.

“We find the comments quite enough jokes and once people start talking and getting to know us better they warm up,” said Nordmo. Some other strangers assume that Nordmo – who works as a vet – is Puhakka’s ‘sugar daddy’.

“When we’re out on the town and his I buy a drink, people immediately make assumptions because I’m older, but he has his own business and makes his own money moneyNordmo said. “Sometimes I pay and sometimes he pays,” he said.

The couple says they haven’t noticed her age difference, nearly four decades old, with Nordmo saying: “I often say that Janne is an old soul in a young body and I’m a young soul in an old body.” His three children, who were initially hesitant about their dad’s romance with a teenager around their age, eventually accepted their relationship.

Nordmo is capable of something… more than being in the bedroom with his much younger partner despite being in late middle age. Instead Puhakka revealed that sometimes he has to tell his older friend that he needs a day off from it sex.

For now, Mr gay couple he does not intend to have children of his own and is content to live with their dog. “It’s important to be happy now and I don’t see the point in thinking about the future,” Nordmo said of his advanced years. “Who knows what’s around the corner?” concluded.