Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Idk, I've met several guys here on dcum who are in their fifties and are long-time divorcees. They just never wanted to remarry. Whereas, it sounds like a lot of women divorcees are looking for another marriage, or at least LTR. I think in the older crowd there might be a greater disparity between what kind of relationship they want.

You know, when you're young you expect that the other person will want to get married and have kids. But once you've got the kids, why go through the whole marriage thing again?

What? You met men on DC Urban Moms?

Different poster, but I've met two guys from here as well.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Obviously, your best bet will be with guys who understand your situation - divorced guys with kids. Maybe meeting them through kids' activities.

I'm a man. I have no children of my own.

I was married to someone who had a child from her previous marriage. I would never, ever, again marry a woman who had children from a previous relationship who hadn't yet left the nest.

So you do't want a long term relationship?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is always easy anywhere for women to meet men. Let's be serious here. If you go online, you will find them.

Written by a man...

sure, but how is this not the truth??

It's true if she's of better than average attractiveness. it's not true if she's not.

expectations need to be commensurate with degree of attractiveness. it's when expectations and desires are wildly off base that women end up so frustrated and racked with despondency.

This. If a woman is "average" then she has to lower the bar a bit. Same for guys. But an "average" woman in her 40s may have to accept that pudgy, balding men in their 40s are her equivalent. Sure, you can aim higher. But if you consistently have the bar too high, you're going to feel like there's Nobody Out There.

Anonymous wrote:Totally depends on what type of dating said Mama wants. Available men do abound, but do you want them?

I did the post-divorce palate cleanser and briefly dated a guy with an impressive package and good sense of humor. Never intended to take him seriously. Great lay. When I discovered he drank more than I could stand, we parted ways with no ill will. I still see him. He looks vaguely homeless.

Briefly toyed with the idea of remarrying. Met several single dads in various stages of rebound. Lots of great dates. The thought of dealing with their exes for the foreseeable future was too off-putting. One belongs to my gym. She never wipes down her machines.

Did online dating. Again,many good first dates, but a few weirdos and needy guys. Settled into a long-distance "Do you know what this is? 'Cause I sure the f*ck don't!" with a guy who was active duty. Several very passionate interludes followed by months of feeling confused or not giving a damn.

Dated a local politician. Took a lot of showers. Still don't feel totally clean.

Finally, met a guy when I didn't want to meet a guy and he didn't want to meet a girl. In a bar of all places.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Obviously, your best bet will be with guys who understand your situation - divorced guys with kids. Maybe meeting them through kids' activities.

I'm a man. I have no children of my own.

I was married to someone who had a child from her previous marriage. I would never, ever, again marry a woman who had children from a previous relationship who hadn't yet left the nest.

So you do't want a long term relationship?

I'm the PP you are responding to (no children man).

No, I do want to be a long-term relationship - in fact, I've re-married quite happily. I like children too, and I'm planning to have children.

What I want is to have the same degree of priority on average as the rest of the family. Most mothers I've met put their kids ahead of everything, including the children's fathers, never mind johnny-come-lately. "For the children" is frequently used as leverage in the relationship power dynamic. Divorced dads have children of their own and their lives are already organized around children. The two people - both single parents - make for better matches.

It's possible that a single mother is a wonderful gem of a partner, just waiting to be uncovered by the intrepid dating explorer, but it's a lot more work to find out.

I'd never say never about anything - you can never be sure - but I have zero intentions of ever deliberately setting out to raise someone else's child. At this point, all I can imagine is raising my SIL's kids or my sibling's children, in the event something happened to the parents. If we are unable to have children of our own, I would prefer to remain childless than adopt. I do not think I'm unusual among men, whatever joy people discover in adoption and whatever joy I might discover if I were to somehow wind up doing it in spite of my preferences. I did not feel this way until I had married a single parent.

I think many single mothers are up against this - however limited the existing pool of desirable and available single/divorced men (dads or not), it's further limited by a lack of desire to have step-kids. This is not revolutionary or shocking - women tell each other all the time to be wary of being stepmother, and wary of the ex-wife and his "baggage". It's a two-way street.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is always easy anywhere for women to meet men. Let's be serious here. If you go online, you will find them.

Written by a man...

sure, but how is this not the truth??

I'm a relatively attractive woman (single mom) in my 30s and I've found it difficult to find anything more than men interested in casual sex. Yes, finding a man online is easy - finding a man who is interested in an actual relationship, has been challenging. And as a single mom, finding time to actually go on dates has also been a logistical challenge. Perhaps if I had time to go on multiple dates each week, it would be easier to find someone...

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like a friend of mine. He is late 30s and dating but is starting to run into the situation where available women are divorced with kids. Absolutely no interest with raising another man's children but is finding that the pool of available women in their late 30s without children is thin.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Idk, I've met several guys here on dcum who are in their fifties and are long-time divorcees. They just never wanted to remarry. Whereas, it sounds like a lot of women divorcees are looking for another marriage, or at least LTR. I think in the older crowd there might be a greater disparity between what kind of relationship they want.

You know, when you're young you expect that the other person will want to get married and have kids. But once you've got the kids, why go through the whole marriage thing again?

What? You met men on DC Urban Moms?

Different poster, but I've met two guys from here as well.

Is there a dedicated "fuck buddy wanted" thread over there on Explicit? Or are you talking about a pass-through link to match dot com or something? I've been on dcum for an embarrassing # of years and never noticed a legitimate matchmaking area, but, then again I don't spend time on the sex forums.

Anonymous wrote:I am 41 and divorced with two kids. I found dating very difficult. I often met men at lunch or during the evenings my kids were with their dad...but weeding out the normal ones from the wackos or players is hard.

Some men want to be pen pals.
Some men just want sex.
Some have issues.

I have tried online dating and I have quit it.
I tried speed dating, meetup groups and going to bars.

Its very discouraging.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like a friend of mine. He is late 30s and dating but is starting to run into the situation where available women are divorced with kids. Absolutely no interest with raising another man's children but is finding that the pool of available women in their late 30s without children is thin.

When I started dating again post-divorce (mid-30s) the pool of available women without children was definitely the minority. It was even worse when I eliminated all the never-marrieds. I wanted someone who had been married bit did not have kids (like me). I believe you have to experience marriage first hand to understand what it means to be married; I do not believe you can really comprehend it vicariously through anybody else's marriage - no matter if they are your parents or your closest BFF who shares every minute detail with you. Nobody knows what goes on in other people's marriages, don't presume to think you do. Anyway: the pool was too limited (ie, I was being too picky) and I had to back off and reconsider that. I wound up married to someone who'd never been married before and yes, there are times when this experience gap is glaring. But, "it's all good". Honestly, I can't believe how lucky I am to have found her.

I have a sibling who is only now (in her early 40s) starting to try to date seriously, and she's having some success - more than she ever would have had in her twenties - largely because the odds are so tilted in her favor vis-a-vis all the single moms. Though, as the other woman said, it's not true that women have all that many choices. Another sibling and I did some searching of match.com just to see how big the man pool is in our sister's area: it was terrible. My odds were 2x as good as my sister's, even just selecting for no kids.

I think having kids is the same kind of experience: you cannot really understand it (and the priority parents place on their children over all/everyone else) until you yourself are a parent. It's the whole thing about parents rattling on about how their kid is the most amazing person/kid in the world. Frankly, I think it's evolutionary programming (or people would kill their children). Following from this: I think the mother who responded to me above makes total sense to me: she wouldn't be interested in anyone who didn't see her 'family' (read: kids) the same way she does.

Anyway: I think it's a tough tough market for single mothers, and the best odds are finding a single father.