Reply to If a man or woman is over 39 and never married what do you think?

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Reply to "If a man or woman is over 39 and never married what do you think?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm 53 and never married. I did have opportunities but balked at all of them. My standards were not too high or picky - I just refused to take the load that so many women take in long term committed relationships. By that I mean the patently unfair distribution of household labor and childcare obligations and life management tasks. I especially had no desire to take on that subservient role in the face of ingratitude, inconsideration and often also infidelity.

I won't kid you, life as a single woman going it alone has often been hard. I have always had wonderful friends who buoyed me up, but I have often wondered if my life couldn't have been much easier and better with a man by my side.

But now that I'm in midlife I'm looking around at the failed marriages, the widows, the very unhappily married couples who are staying together for finances and out of habit and who look like people who spend all their time lonely and unhappy but yet spend most of their time in 'togetherness.'

I feel grateful for my occasional loneliness which is much easier to bear than that awful loneliness one can experience with someone else sitting right there in the same room.[/quote]

This speaks to me.  I'm about the age of this OP and am actually married with children now, but had a very independent life and successful career in my 20s and early 30s.  In my case, I made a choice based on what I wanted and what aligned with my values.  It sounds like this OP did exactly the same thing.  The OP just had different values and made different choices than I did, which is perfectly okay and healthy!

For women, I think the big difference is that there comes a time when you think to yourself, is getting married and/or having children within the context of a married relationship something I'd definitely like to do, and if so, at what trade off?  We know we have a biological clock, and we incorporate that knowledge into our choices.  Successful women have choices.

For the posters saying it's mental illness... you're just wrong.  It's actually very mentally healthy to know that marriage is not for you in general, or that you think you would be marrying the wrong person to it's better to pass, just as it's mentally healthy to know that you don't want to children and to not have them (rather than having unwanted children).  I don't hear the content, single women posters saying they are anti-relationship, just that they'd like a relationship that is on their own terms.  Again, a very healthy attitude.

Sure, mental illness or some other personality flaw leads some to stay single, but it is not the only reason may be a driver in a some, but not most cases.  Also, there are many, many, many mentally ill and deeply flawed people who are (or were once) married.  [/quote]

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