You got a fair bit of kickback on this article, but you've held your own.... and quite rightly so. The semantic difference between abuse and criticise Rivka is talking about is trying to make fetch happen. If you're being openly criticised to your face by people who don't know you, then what you've got there is some sort of abuse. Perhaps the word has additional connotations Rivka is adding in - but if someone comes up and apropos of nothing provides you an open critique of your relationship in public in an aggressive manner, that'd be abusive. That's why we have signs up in public spaces saying 'staff will not tolerate abuse' - it doesn't mean they won't tolerate being taken out the back and molested, it means they won't tolerate being spoken at in a derogatory manner.

There's ten years between me and the significant other penguin and that suits us down to the ground. I have a very clear policy on relationships. it consists of two questions. 1. Are you an adult? 2. Do you consent? Everything else is sociological shamfuckery of the highest order.

Here's the Penguin take if you're interested. https://medium.com/lucid-nightmare/im-calling-time-on-the-bashing-of-age-gap-relationships-22e09ae93b1a