Well, he/she could have been trying to train them equally? Like right now, all of my characters apart from 1 who's level 38, are level 35's and 36's and I've only just gotten to the holy city or palace deep within the mountains, I guess that could be an excuse oh and this is 50 hours in.
Ps, Garnie's opinion is worthless without a good explanation and she probably won't even fill you in on that so ignore her.