I know everyone is stuck on Rumple’s age but I am thinking this is another one of the liberties they are taking with the fairy tales. I think Rumple and Cora were married before Rumple became the Dark One. I think Cora was power hungry before she somehow gained magic because Regina made a comment about how her mother is always thinking of ways to climb the social ladder or something like that (you don’t need to be evil or have magic to be someone like that). She seems like just the type of person who would leave a husband who runs from a war and would have no problem abandoning a child if she thought doing so would get her something better.
Because of what a horrible person she is I can see Rumple thinking it is better to tell Bae that she is dead than tell him that he was abandoned because she wanted to climb the social ladder. Or it’s possible she found a way to get magic and that’s actually why she left them – not because Rumple ran from a war (he might not have run from the war after all) and he didn’t want Bae to know that magic was more important to her than Bae. Oh Snap!!!!! That’s basically what Rumple told Belle!!!!!! What if that’s what Cora told Rumple before she left him and Bae??????? “My power means more to me than you.” No wonder Rumple looked horrified when he was turning into the Dark One! And no wonder he would want to find a way to do away with all magic!
I love it when theories occur to me as I type!!!