To resent that my future depends on whether a man deems me good enough

Have you followed Matthew Hussey?

Dating is a numbers game and figuring out the quickest way to meet guys to find the right one for you. It sounds like the ones you met so far isn't right for various reasons and you feel like you had to "lower your standards" for an average guy. Don't spend too much time thinking about the past or guys that isn't worth your time that stops you from finding the right one in the future.

Good luck

Sorry you are having such a a hard time OP - both in your life and in the comments!

I sounds tough and I get why you feel the way you do, I don't know why this keeps happening to you, sounds like you have had more than your fair share of idiots! I know with me and many others, meeting their partners/husbands has been down to right place right time luck, or a serious of life decisions that lead to them - maybe this just hasn't happened for you yet. You are no less valuable because of this!

With the work thing, I worked with my husband for over a year before we started getting closer and eventually dating, I even dated someone else at work during the time we were just colleagues, the other guy was an idiot and I vowed to never date someone at work again, luckily I didn't stick to it!

Personally I don't think there's anything wrong with you, I don't think you need to improve yourself and enjoy being single more, it does not sound like you are desperate just frustrated and that's ok. Therapy may help when when you get off the waiting list but not so much from an improvement perspective just from a help you deal with the feelings perspective.

I will keep my fingers crossed for you OP, I hope you find what you are looking for and can look back and realize it all led you there. All the best x

It must be looking at the 15 thanks I have received already for suggesting it! 😁

This book is the stuff of legends. I absolutely LOVE it.

OP, there’s something sort of transactional about all your posts on this thread and I think the other one which I also commented on.

Boyfriend/partner/husband relationships are more than friend + sex = marriage material. There’s another level.

You sound as though you can make solid connections, have good relationships with colleagues, have plenty of friends and good family relationships. But even setting aside your resentment (and yes 30-45 is the absolute worst age for being unwillingly single), it’s like you’re missing a trick. If rejection has been going on for 12 years, that’s not just bad luck - you’re the common denominator.

It’s not about tricks or a game or feminine wiles or whatever. It’s something else and it sounds to me like you feel that if you do abc that your DESERVE a ltr.

It really takes a special kind of person to write a post so hateful, cruel, misogynistic and revolting, and still think that the problem lies with anyone who responds badly to it. I'm very happily married with kids and nothing to prove and I think it's foul.

I know you think I'm reacting to your statement that men tend to prefer younger women and some people don't get married and I just can't handle the truth, but I'm not. I'm reacting to how you are so clearly trying to wound someone who is struggling, who has had thoughts of suicide in the past, and who has done nothing to you and who you wouldn't bloody know if she bit you on the arse. To be fair, you aren't the only one though.

It's entirely possible to acknowledge realities of the situation without being a complete hole about it. Plenty of posters have.

@CountessWindyBottom what a lovely supportive post, in stark contrast to many on here! The OP may or may not heed your advice but regardless, I think a compassionate, understanding reading of the situation such as yours, is far more beneficial than the ' beat with a stick until it complies ' approach! I hope the OP is still around and reading some of these posts - lots of us have gone through very similar and we get how painful it is.

I hear a lot of women talk like this but you ask a single run of the mill guy how many dates or even matches he gets in a year, when it comes to dating it is 100% a woman's world.

I think some people on this thread are being rude and obtuse @Iwilldrawjapan. It’s evident that this is a source of pain for you and that you find it distressing and you are absolutely entitled to feel the way you feel.

I have quoted the above however because I think your own narrative around being in a relationship could do with some work. Why are you giving all these assholes the license and then the headspace to make you feel so bad? This has nothing to do with your worth and consequently your self worth. Why afford these fuckwits that opportunity? Who are they to you and does their opinion really matter on the grand scheme of things?

As someone who married at 36, after a relatively short courtship and now with gorgeous children and a lot of love, I am really glad I hung on for the right person. And I know it feels more difficult in your 30s but you know yourself better and if you do meet someone then how wonderful. You also have to imagine a future where you may not. And I think accepting this, taking time away from dating and ultimately deciding if people are worthy of dating you and all you have to offer is where the sweet spot lies.

Please give yourself a break. You don’t necessarily need therapy or anything but take some time away from dating and ease that self enforced pressure. I appreciate that this is something you want but you are potentially jaded and may benefit hugely from deciding that this simply isn’t going to be something you will
pursue for the next 6-12 months:

I wish you well xx

Volunteer to get away from all this self-absorption.
It will come across in your body language.
Perhaps you’ll meet someone or maybe you won’t.
Thats life

What a nasty, misogynistic post.

Ahh OP I’m sorry you are going through this. You are getting some crap advice on here.

1. Don’t take this on you. There is nothing wrong with you. So many men these days are just commitment phobes and think they can live their adolescence well into adult hood. So many really attractive, wonderful women are in the place
   you are.

2. Unfortunately these are the years where the men have all the power. There are so many women wanting to start families and worrying about their fertility. Meanwhile men sit pretty in the idea they have all the time in the world , and whenever they want they can just mate with a younger woman. Later in life the power shifts, when women no longer need men for reproduction and realise they are quite typically contributing far too little and asking far too much.

3. I was in your shoes once . For me the biggest fears I had were around my fertility as I just knew I wanted children and a family. The best advice I was given was from much older women . They said “if you want to have a baby, have a baby”. I was like - but I also want a relationship- they were like “of course! And a man will come along sooner or later if that’s what you want. There are always men around, but if you want a baby- have a baby!” It sounded all so simple put that way and it was. This was truly the best advice. I know you said that you don’t feel like you would cope with solo parenting - how about plutonic co-parenting as an option for starting a family ?

You say in your OP that your life depends on whether a man finds your worthy. It doesn’t. Society- the patriarchy taught you that. Take your life into your own hands- it’s yours to take. You just have to be brave enough x

A PP used the term, sorry for confusing you with them. However. At no point was I a bitch to OP. I suggested she try shifting her focus to make it less tunnel visioned.

And I suggested that because I have seen it happen. I have seen friends become so wrapped up in wanting that "perfect" version of life that they simply cannot focus on anything else. I've picked my friend up off the floor when the latest loser left her in bits because she was certain this would be the time she fell madly in love. I've comforted my friends when they say they can't see the point in life when they can't find someone to have this with.

You, on the other hand, have been a bit of a bitch to me, for daring to suggest that she change her focus. Which, by the way, I did in response to a PP asking what needed to happen to help get OP to where she wants to be. That is my suggestion. Stop focusing on it and focus on yourself. Widen your social circle. You'll be amazed what might happen.

I have not used the term "smug marrieds", so am confused why you supposedly quote that.

I am not bitter, I am happily married.

I'm just asking you to stop being a bitch to OP because you clearly have no idea how she feels.

I feel terrible for saying this but most of the couples who seemed madly in love in their 30s are barely clinging on/ having affairs / getting divorced in their 40s. You’re under a huge amount of social pressure in your 30s to meet The One and have children and that forces people to couple up with people who are not ideal for them. It’s so unfair, particularly on women. I do feel for you and wish you weren’t so unhappy about your situation.

Why are people on this site so goddamned mean!? It is unreal, so so nasty. I can only surmise that most of you are very unhappy and discontented, and avidly wait for threads like this so that they can pour bile on people who are having a rough time. Not a good look, loves. OP, I hope you're doing a little better today.

Do you go for a certain type of man? If you're slightly masculine in behaviour (in you avt more the way a man would than the majority of women) have you tried dating men that are slightly softer?
Relationships (I think) are a balance, 2 masculine or 2 female people in a relationship doesn't always work. Maybe try someone you wouldn't normally go for?

Sorry if you have, totally get you must be frustrated to death right now.

Why are you putting so much value on men, whether you are desirable to them, whether they will develop feelings for you?

I'm single, have been so in the most part for 10 years. I've fleetingly felt what you describe in the earlier days but then pretty much every single one of my female friends moan about their useless partners and I'm genuinely thrilled I don't have to deal with this.

Do you have friends you can do things with - girls trips, dinner, movie night etc? Love comes in many different forms, it doesn't have to be romantic love. I got a dog!

Maybe you need to do a bit of work on yourself and your confidence to feel OK with your own company. It's OK to be single, and better to be single than with some arsehole just for the sake of being in a relationship.

😂😂

OK. You make all the assumptions you want. There was no settling. I was not young. Nor was he.

Being married doesn't mean we have no experience of being single. It doesn't mean we have no experience of life outside of a marriage, rosy or otherwise.

It comes across as very bitter when you talk about "smug marrieds" not knowing what single life is like.

Welcome to life sista! Please don't be naïve and think everything will be rosy with Mr right in your life. Sure some of things are better but lots of things can be WAAAAAAY worse.
I was single for forever so I hear you but the right guy came along and I got married at 42. Lots of my coupled friends are now divorced and married life brings a whole new set of challenges 😆 just read Mumsnet!!!!! The struggles are very real, run very deep and can be very painful. Throw kids inyo mix and u at a whole other level. That's my tuppence worth for what it's worth.
But I found being the only single one super hard too. So I do empathise and have no other advice than love Ur friends and family and enjoy doing all the things u r free to do before Mr right does appear. And he will🥰

You are not young, you settled for a man young. Good luck when it's a good man, bad luck when it's a bad man. But very obvious to anyone who had a long time single in the ages 27-40.

At what point did I say I was young? You're making assumptions there. I read what OP wrote and responded to it how I interpreted it.

And "I've considered ending my life over this" is not just a vent.

I think you are reading too much into OP having a big vent at the disappointment of not being quite where she wants to be. Big claps that you settled for a bloke whem you were young, but it's really ok for someone to be disappointed - especially when they don't have children. It's a biological response frankly that is common; just see how many of us who settled later in life have commented that they felt the same. Your response is common too, which is why single people so often stick to discussing such matters amongst other singles!

The entire post is that she believes that's what her future depends on. She's said that she's considered ending her life over it.

I've read all her posts. She very much sounds like it consumes her. Which will come across whether it's intended or not.

I am lucky with my DH. But I also am lucky in that I am very content in myself, and was before I met him. I love him and our life very much. But I never needed a husband to be a complete and happy person. I already was one. I still am one. I will be one if the day ever comes that I don't have DH.