Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I was your daughter. Nothing, and I mean nothing, that my mother or anyone else said or could have said to me at that point would have made a difference. My story has a happy ending: I married in my late 30s and was fortunate to squeeze two children in just under the line in my early 40s. But I do have regrets, even now, about wasting so many good years on ill-suited partners.

Yup, nothing is making a difference with my daughter (I'm not the OP, BTW). I hope she has a happy ending as well & I'm pleased things worked out well for you!

Thank you! Please understand, though. On some level, deep within herself, I'm betting she knows this as well as you do. It's just a matter of when she is strong enough within herself to act on it. Therapy helped me a lot.

I dated my wife for four years before I proposed. We lived together for one of those years. Now we've been married for 15. Worked out fine.

Anonymous wrote:OP, I was your daughter. Nothing, and I mean nothing, that my mother or anyone else said or could have said to me at that point would have made a difference. My story has a happy ending: I married in my late 30s and was fortunate to squeeze two children in just under the line in my early 40s. But I do have regrets, even now, about wasting so many good years on ill-suited partners.

Yup, nothing is making a difference with my daughter (I'm not the OP, BTW). I hope she has a happy ending as well & I'm pleased things worked out well for you!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agreed. My friend is 27 and has been dating her boyfriend for 5 years. He's a Jerk. They just moved in together and by that I mean he's allowed her to move her stuff in to his place. Her name is on nothing tied to that house (well except for the postal Service). He could kick her out tomorrow and she'd have no recourse. He keeps coming up with reasons why he's not ready for marriage (he's 34). I'm worried she's wasting her prime years on him.

This sounds like my daughter. She's 29 and she's been dating her boyfriend for 7 years. He's a jerk. She just moved out of state to move in with him, and she doesn't have her name on anything. He also has a ton of reasons why he's not ready for marriage (he's 35). She's definitely wasting her prime years on him, and it makes me sad. She wants to have a child, and he's not saying yes or no but just stringing her along. I've tried everything to convey to her that she doesn't need to wait on him, but clearly message not received...it sucks.

OP, I was your daughter. Nothing, and I mean nothing, that my mother or anyone else said or could have said to me at that point would have made a difference. My story has a happy ending: I married in my late 30s and was fortunate to squeeze two children in just under the line in my early 40s. But I do have regrets, even now, about wasting so many good years on ill-suited partners.

Anonymous wrote:This post reflects some fucked up notions about a woman's value. As if physical beauty is the beginning and end of what she has to offer. As if it's a good idea for her to "lock in" a life time with a guy who wouldn't want to be with her if she met him in her 30s. As if it's illegal for her to propose.

Date someone who is kind to you. If you love them, marry them. If they don't want to get married & you do, move on to someone else who is kind to you. Repeat as necessary.

No, it reflects reality. OP is dead on. Women are most attractive physically in their late twenties and -- what is missing from this post -- the pool of eligible, decent men shrinks DRAMATICALLY after that point. Working life is not a continuation of the grad school/ entry years environment where everyone is single, meeting new people and going out all the time.

Oh my gosh. I am 29 and I'm finding this out the hard way. I've been single for a year and a half, and I keep dating guys for 2-3 months at a time, knowing they're not what I want. I guess it's better to break it off, knowing it's not a good match, after only a couple months rather than a couple years though.

Anonymous wrote:Agreed. My friend is 27 and has been dating her boyfriend for 5 years. He's a Jerk. They just moved in together and by that I mean he's allowed her to move her stuff in to his place. Her name is on nothing tied to that house (well except for the postal Service). He could kick her out tomorrow and she'd have no recourse. He keeps coming up with reasons why he's not ready for marriage (he's 34). I'm worried she's wasting her prime years on him.

This sounds like my daughter. She's 29 and she's been dating her boyfriend for 7 years. He's a jerk. She just moved out of state to move in with him, and she doesn't have her name on anything. He also has a ton of reasons why he's not ready for marriage (he's 35). She's definitely wasting her prime years on him, and it makes me sad. She wants to have a child, and he's not saying yes or no but just stringing her along. I've tried everything to convey to her that she doesn't need to wait on him, but clearly message not received...it sucks.

Anonymous wrote:Also young women need to be honest with themselves about if this is the relationship they really want, just as it is. I wasted years with a guy who was willing to commit and did propose, but I was unwilling to move forward myself unless certain things about him and our relationship changed. I would advise women not to stay with a guy that they would want to marry only if something about him changed. Most likely it will never change and all your time will have been wasted.

This is so true!

We've all heard this too many times, within our network of friends. We don't use this information to make decisions regarding our own relationships no matter how many times we hear the stories.

Why?

Especially, for women in their 20s who have years and years of opportunity ahead of them.

Anonymous wrote:Also do not move in with a man hoping he will propose. All he is commuting to is a roommate who has sex with him, splits the rent and possibly cleans and cooks for him. Do NOT do it.

+1000

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This post reflects some fucked up notions about a woman's value. As if physical beauty is the beginning and end of what she has to offer. As if it's a good idea for her to "lock in" a life time with a guy who wouldn't want to be with her if she met him in her 30s. As if it's illegal for her to propose.

Date someone who is kind to you. If you love them, marry them. If they don't want to get married & you do, move on to someone else who is kind to you. Repeat as necessary.

Couldn't agree more.
To say nothing of the fact that many women aren't even interested in marriage during their "most eligible years" - what a crock!
It's not 1950 and women have made too many steps forward to go back to rearranging their priorities, self-worth, and personal ambitions to align with the traditional values of wife and mother.
Furthermore, not every relationship that isn't speeding 75mph down the highway toward marriage is a waste. Some relationships move at slower paces and some relationships lead toward other destinations - but that doesn't make them a waste. If the two parties involved are in agreement with where they're going and how fast, if that's their preference...then that's their prerogative.

I never agree with posters who say this, but do you really want to be destined for IVF in your early 40s? C'mon, there are limits, and I say this as a woman who practiced law for 9 years before she had her first child and who's continued to practice other than maternity leaves ever since.

This is an important bit a advice. I wasn't ready for commitment, so it doesn't apply to me directly. Besides, my brother says I peaked at 38, when I met my XH. So there's that.

But this is a hard truth that gets lost or ignored when we have the discussion about career and relationships. We are all aware when there is the lack of advancement at work. We see it for what it is and move on. But with relationships, we hang on for far too long.

When a man says he's not ready, please believe him. Moving in won't change his mind. It'll just buy him a few more years of comfort, while you sit in a growing pile of frustration.

There are 6 billion people on the planet. Cut bait and find another. You are not showing love or worthiness by hanging onto a man who is "not ready." You're living with less than you require and lose out on the life you truly want. We'd never do this in job situations. Why we think romantic partnerships are any different is a mystery.

This holds true for women in marriages, where the desire to have children is put on hold for years because DH "isn't ready" to take that next step. Believe him, don't try to convince him---not if a childfree life isn't for you.

A girlfriend of mine is mourning the end of her relationship. She'd been with her husband since they were teens. He made a point of following his career in such a way that she had to continually make unfair choices regarding her own professional life. It turns out that he had been doing this in the hopes that she would decide to leave him. Sure, she's mourning the loss of that relationship. But the most difficult piece for her is that he could have left her at 35, instead of 40, when she believes biological children within marriage were still an option for her. That is what she suffers the most. She's a resilient woman and is making her way out of a deep depression. She's asked me to be her "wingwoman" as she gets back out there into the dating pool. Her thoughts are now centered on adoption and fostering. It was cruel of him to string her along when he knew it was over. She was shocked to learn that he'd been speaking of her in the worst terms to his family, which she had considered her own. They all knew she was nothing more than baggage his was hoping to escape.

We hold on too long, hoping to convince a partner to participate in our dreams, instead of finding a love who shares the same goals.

Agree with OP. Met my husband when I was 27.

Also young women need to be honest with themselves about if this is the relationship they really want, just as it is. I wasted years with a guy who was willing to commit and did propose, but I was unwilling to move forward myself unless certain things about him and our relationship changed. I would advise women not to stay with a guy that they would want to marry only if something about him changed. Most likely it will never change and all your time will have been wasted.

Anonymous wrote:This post reflects some fucked up notions about a woman's value. As if physical beauty is the beginning and end of what she has to offer. As if it's a good idea for her to "lock in" a life time with a guy who wouldn't want to be with her if she met him in her 30s. As if it's illegal for her to propose.

Date someone who is kind to you. If you love them, marry them. If they don't want to get married & you do, move on to someone else who is kind to you. Repeat as necessary.

Couldn't agree more.
To say nothing of the fact that many women aren't even interested in marriage during their "most eligible years" - what a crock!
It's not 1950 and women have made too many steps forward to go back to rearranging their priorities, self-worth, and personal ambitions to align with the traditional values of wife and mother.
Furthermore, not every relationship that isn't speeding 75mph down the highway toward marriage is a waste. Some relationships move at slower paces and some relationships lead toward other destinations - but that doesn't make them a waste. If the two parties involved are in agreement with where they're going and how fast, if that's their preference...then that's their prerogative.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This post reflects some fucked up notions about a woman's value. As if physical beauty is the beginning and end of what she has to offer. As if it's a good idea for her to "lock in" a life time with a guy who wouldn't want to be with her if she met him in her 30s. As if it's illegal for her to propose.

Date someone who is kind to you. If you love them, marry them. If they don't want to get married & you do, move on to someone else who is kind to you. Repeat as necessary.

I agree. I feel like OP's advice is 80 years out of date.

OP would not have given this advice 80 years ago because people got married in their late teens or early 20s because there was no reliable birth control and they wanted to have sex. Go look at the forum on infertility and then get back with us. There are a lot of people who regret wasting time.

+1