A woman in a 23-year age-gap relationship has revealed the benefits of being with an older man.
Influencer Ellie Hillary, nee Liptrot, 22, from North Wales, met her husband Mark Hillary, 45, after a night out in December 2021.
In the three short years since, her relationship has led her to quit her dental nursing job, uproot to Cheshire, become a stepmother to Mark’s two children, and give birth to their first child, Marco.
It’s a set of circumstances that Ellie couldn’t be more pleased about, but when she shared their romance online at 18 while Mark was 41, thousands of followers looked on in disgust.
‘At the beginning, I’d say the hate was 70 per cent of all comments,’ Mark said in conversation with Femail, recalling how people would call him ‘horrific’ names, including terms like ‘grandpa’, daily.
However, looking past the critical eyes of strangers on the internet was worth it for Ellie, who believes she’s found her forever partner.
And unlike most men her age, who are typically working first time jobs, Mark, a business owner, has afforded Ellie luxuries including holidays and a surprise wedding in Ibiza – and she ‘barely even notices’ their age-gap, she said.
Ellie’s list of benefits also extends to the bedroom because she values Mark as ‘more thoughtful, caring, and considerate’ lover compared to men her age.
Ellie, 22, and Mark Hillary, 45, (pictured) have opened up on the reality of being in an age-gap relationship
The pair, originally from North Wales, recently wed in Ibiza, Spain, after Mark surprised Ellie with a wedding
Recalling the beginning of their love story, Ellie, then 19, explained how she was longing for food after a night out and asked her friend to get some in the early hours of the morning.
As a ‘prank’, she said, that friend gave Ellie Mark’s number, and so she ended up calling his phone late at night, requesting he drive them to get food.
‘They rang me, and I ignored it first,’ Mark recalled. ‘Then, I was awake in the middle of the night at about 2am,’ adding, ‘I ended up ringing it back and it was Ellie.’
Ellie, undeterred by Mark being a stranger, persisted in her pursuit of a late-night meal. Mark continued, ‘She said, ‘Can you take us for some food, and I want to go out.”
‘I was like, ‘No, no, no’. But then in the end, they convinced me to go and do it. And then that was it. That’s how we knew each other.’
The relationship soon progressed, with Ellie and Mark spending more time together and with their mutual friends.
By April the following year, Mark and Ellie officially became boyfriend and girlfriend, an event their friends and family saw coming, they said.
When asked whether friends or family objected to their relationship, Ellie said, ‘It wasn’t a big shock, really, they knew that I’d go out with Mark.’
Ellie, who used to work as a dental nurse, and Mark welcomed their son Marco into the world last month
When Ellie learned that she was pregnant, it came as surprise, but she said she was ‘very excited’
The pair didn’t tell friends or family that they had wed until their revealed the happy news on social media
Ellie added that people ‘don’t necessarily notice’ their age gap because she’s ‘very mature’ for her age while Mark is ‘young for his age’.
However, two people who perhaps didn’t have the foresight about Ellie and Mark’s relationship were his two children, Izzie and Marcus.
Mark said, ‘They were a little bit late to know… They thought we were friends for a little bit longer than we were.
‘We said we were friends [until we knew] it was going to go somewhere. Then we told them that we were in a relationship.’
After Izzie and Marcus learned of their father’s new girlfriend, Ellie began sharing clips of their family life online, contributing to their combined follower count of over 300 thousand.
One of the first videos Ellie recalled creating was a TikTok trend that asks users to show an old picture of their partner before they met, besides one of themselves at that time.
She shared a photograph of Mark in his twenties besides an image of a sperm to represent herself as a joke because she wasn’t yet alive when Mark was that age.
Many viewers couldn’t find humour in Ellie’s post and shared hateful comments regarding their relationship.
In addition to her son Marco, Ellie is also a stepmother to Mark’s two children from an earlier relationship – Izzie and Marcus (pictured)
Mark said that when they first shared their relationship online, trolls would call him ‘horrific’ names
‘I did a couple trends, and it blew up very, very quickly,’ Ellie recalled. People didn’t just troll her about her relationship, but also her role as stepmother.
Ellie said, ‘I remember the second or third video I posted of me and my stepson doing peace and pouts with middle fingers [up], and people were saying, ‘How dare you let your stepson do a middle finger.
‘Then we took off. I think that got a million views and had thousands of comments from people with opinions.
‘I think from that point on, we were like, ‘Wow, there’s real interest in our lives’, and we went with it.’
The couple were able to look past the haters because of their ‘thick skin’, said Mark, with Ellie adding, ‘[Hate] wouldn’t bother me to my face, never mind online.
‘The people sitting behind the screen are nine times [out of ten] people that you know that are on fake accounts. [It’s] embarrassing.’
However, in recent times, Ellie and Mark have noticed a transformation in their comment section – people now share supportive messages rather than hate.
They believe that, through showing their personalities and loving family home, they’ve transformed their viewers from hateful to supportive.
‘As soon as people saw our personalities, it sort of brought up the following,’ Mark said, adding, ‘Now it’s people just invested in our lives and what we get up to on a day-to-day basis.
And in October last year, the couple had a major update to share with their followers – they were expecting their first child together.
Thinking back to discovering she was pregnant, which was unexpected, Ellie recalled, ‘I was very nervous but super excited. It was a shock.’
Once the nerves settled, the pair and their stepchildren were over the moon to be welcoming a new child into the world together.
The surprises didn’t stop there, because Mark later shocked Ellie by preparing a surprise wedding in Ibiza.
Mark treated Ellie to a luxury stay in Ibiza’s Ushuaia beach hotel, where prices range from £420 to £8,100 per night, and branded the stay as a baby moon.
While the pair had discussed marriage before, they never set plans in stone, and so Mark took it upon himself to plan the special day before their baby Marco was born.
‘[I chose] Ibiza because it’s quite a big part of us because I used to live there and it was our first holiday,’ Mark said, who also packed a veil and other items for Ellie.
The nuptials took place a few short weeks before they welcomed Marco into the world, and Ellie had no idea she was going to come home a wife.
Ellie said her ‘baby brain’ meant she overlooked glaring clues that Mark had something up his sleeve.
The pair shared clips from their special day, which took place in a small Spanish church.
After they said their vows, Ellie and Mark went back to their hotel to celebrate with bubbles in a hot tub on their balcony.
They waited until they posted online to tell friends and family because, ‘We kind of just want to enjoy it and keep it to ourselves,’ Mark said.
One month later, the couple welcomed their son Marco, whose name is inspired by Mark’s.
Ellie and Mark already have more children on the brain, with Ellie joking that she’d happily have her next soon, who Mark said might be called ‘Mark junior’.
The father-of-three said his experience as a parent means he can help Ellie help bring Marco up in areas that she’s still learning. ‘I even taught Ellie how to change Marco,’ he said.
Reflecting on her whirlwind past few years, Ellie said that despite all the hate, she wouldn’t change a thing, and urges others in age-gap relationships not to be put off by others’ opinions.
‘At the end of the day, it’s your life. You’re in control of your life, and you shouldn’t live your life pleasing others, because you need to live your life and make yourself happy.
She concluded, ‘What other people think, and what everyone may want for you is not always what is going to make you happy.’
