Anonymous wrote:I'm shocked how many of the women here are willing to remarry.

Anonymous wrote:

If I want to get out I want to be able to just walk out a door.

Make sure to tell her this. And every future woman you meet.
I can promise you you'll never have this same problem again.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a late 40s woman. I will never remarry. Hard no. I don’t think it’s common at all for people to change their minds.

But do you date? Have you found someone “prefect in every way?”

Once you do find someone perfect and date for a couple years, then what?

They ask what you are thinking after a couple amazing years?
You tell them marriage is not for you. But this and that. You have your guards up.
Then they reciprocate that.
The closeness disappears.
You break up.

Sometimes I date. If I date someone for a few years, why does anything have to change? You have your place. I have mine. We see each other when we want. Why is this hard to understand? No ONE needs (or should) get married past 40. It is completely unnecessary. And too legally complicated.

Thx for YOUR opinion. Noted.

The real question is if you have the EQ to take note of others’ opinions on the matter.

I answered someone’s direct question about me personally. No need to be snarky.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a late 40s woman. I will never remarry. Hard no. I don’t think it’s common at all for people to change their minds.

But do you date? Have you found someone “prefect in every way?”

Once you do find someone perfect and date for a couple years, then what?

They ask what you are thinking after a couple amazing years?
You tell them marriage is not for you. But this and that. You have your guards up.
Then they reciprocate that.
The closeness disappears.
You break up.

Sometimes I date. If I date someone for a few years, why does anything have to change? You have your place. I have mine. We see each other when we want. Why is this hard to understand? No ONE needs (or should) get married past 40. It is completely unnecessary. And too legally complicated.

Because OP says they are each other's "person". I guess we don't really know what OP meant by that, but some level of bond and attachment.

What is OP's plan for life with a casual girlfriend forever? Casual dating relationships are all well and good, but when the time comes to do some serious caregiving and get each other through an illness or a surgery, it's not necessarily something you can expect from someone you're deliberately keeping at arm's length. Is OP fine with his girlfriend declining to do that, and also fine with letting her cope on her own if she's having a serious issue?

You don’t need to be married to take care of someone. Most men will leave their wives if there is a serious illness. You are naive if you think marriage has anything to do with this scenario. It doesn’t.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP it’s fine to want what you want. But you seem super mad that she’s not totally cool with your world view.

She gets a preference on this issue too. The biggest red flag to me is how irritable you sound about not only wanting your own way, but wanting her to agree with you. She may not, and if you actually care about her, you need to be clear with her so that she can use that information to make her own decision, which may be to leave.

Nobody knows what she wants. She actually didn’t say. She just asked a couple questions.

Which makes OP's attitude even more of a red flag. She "just asked a couple questions" and bro is still mad.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a late 40s woman. I will never remarry. Hard no. I don’t think it’s common at all for people to change their minds.

But do you date? Have you found someone “prefect in every way?”

Once you do find someone perfect and date for a couple years, then what?

They ask what you are thinking after a couple amazing years?
You tell them marriage is not for you. But this and that. You have your guards up.
Then they reciprocate that.
The closeness disappears.
You break up.

Sometimes I date. If I date someone for a few years, why does anything have to change? You have your place. I have mine. We see each other when we want. Why is this hard to understand? No ONE needs (or should) get married past 40. It is completely unnecessary. And too legally complicated.

Because OP says they are each other's "person". I guess we don't really know what OP meant by that, but some level of bond and attachment.

What is OP's plan for life with a casual girlfriend forever? Casual dating relationships are all well and good, but when the time comes to do some serious caregiving and get each other through an illness or a surgery, it's not necessarily something you can expect from someone you're deliberately keeping at arm's length. Is OP fine with his girlfriend declining to do that, and also fine with letting her cope on her own if she's having a serious issue?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a late 40s woman. I will never remarry. Hard no. I don’t think it’s common at all for people to change their minds.

But do you date? Have you found someone “prefect in every way?”

Once you do find someone perfect and date for a couple years, then what?

They ask what you are thinking after a couple amazing years?
You tell them marriage is not for you. But this and that. You have your guards up.
Then they reciprocate that.
The closeness disappears.
You break up.

Sometimes I date. If I date someone for a few years, why does anything have to change? You have your place. I have mine. We see each other when we want. Why is this hard to understand? No ONE needs (or should) get married past 40. It is completely unnecessary. And too legally complicated.

Thx for YOUR opinion. Noted.

The real question is if you have the EQ to take note of others’ opinions on the matter.

Anonymous wrote:It's hard to imagine how you'd finally meet your person after having "lost" in love for all this time and then still not want to spend your time and resources with them. It's instinct to want to protect and care for someone you deeply love. Their well-being becomes of upmost importance to you. Two adults who are madly in love and have fewer than "twenty good summers" left to spend together naturally want to make a home together. That's what couples do, regardless of age. The bonding, nesting, and making one another a part of every moment in your life is the normal progression of a union built between two adults. There's no reason to think that doesn't apply after a certain age.

As I see it, the fact that OP is keeping his GF at arm's length either means he isn't truly convinced that his life is immeasureably better with her in it, or he's got some baggage that he needs help from a therapist to unload before he blows it. Prenups take care of the financial issues that might be a worry for OP; Money is not the reason to not remarry. OP probably knows this in his heart of hearts and it is just an easy excuse he's using to maintain distance. At the very least, OP needs to WANT to live with his GF if the relationship is going to advance. The relationship either grows in its intensity and commitment, or it will wither.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a late 40s woman. I will never remarry. Hard no. I don’t think it’s common at all for people to change their minds.

But do you date? Have you found someone “prefect in every way?”

Once you do find someone perfect and date for a couple years, then what?

They ask what you are thinking after a couple amazing years?
You tell them marriage is not for you. But this and that. You have your guards up.
Then they reciprocate that.
The closeness disappears.
You break up.

Sometimes I date. If I date someone for a few years, why does anything have to change? You have your place. I have mine. We see each other when we want. Why is this hard to understand? No ONE needs (or should) get married past 40. It is completely unnecessary. And too legally complicated.

Anonymous wrote:In my experience, women want commitment and marriage but will say they don’t (or try and convince themselves they don’t) in order to attract men.

Anonymous wrote:

If I want to get out I want to be able to just walk out a door.

Make sure to tell her this. And every future woman you meet.
I can promise you you'll never have this same problem again.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can't speak to remarriage, but I was very ambivalent about marriage even with my longtime partner until one day I wasn't and decided I wanted to get married. It was because we went through a series of major life issues, including him being hospitalized and me losing a parent. It made me realized that making it "official" would make it easier for us and for others, because it helps clarify our situation for everyone. There are some legal reasons it's useful. But then when we actually got it done, it was emotional too. It felt important to have made it formal and really tied our futures together in a permanent way.

But I didn't realize that when we first moved in together. It took time and experience to understand why getting married would be something I cared about.

Maybe you GF experienced something similar. If her first marriage was bad, she may have gone into a relationship with you with a negative view on marriage, but have started to realize there might be a version of marriage that is good.

If you disagree, you should be honest with her.

You can draw up legal documents for this without being married.

I guess but this seems like a weird amount of effort to go to when the concept of marriage already exists. Like isn't a marriage just a legal document? Why not just get a prenup and a marriage license, rather than try to codify you relationship from scratch via contracts?

If I want to get out I want to be able to just walk out a door.