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

Sorry I couldn't let this pass without commenting. Where had the OP mentioned anywhere in her posts that she's ONLY looking for her future spouse and has nothing interesting about her life to share and is entirely laser focused on meeting her future husband? She seems well rounded and plenty interesting to me with her career sorted, friends and her own property. I'm sure it's not intended, but your tone is coming across as a little ' smug married ' here. There's nothing to suggest in any of the OP s posts that she doesn't enjoy similar hobbies to yourself or enjoys good friendships or isn't as interesting a person as You. The only difference being, you were lucky and she hasn't been thus far.

I sympathise-I felt the same as you and after being dumped by someone I'd loved but who I found out had been repeatedly unfaithful, I married the wrong person. I was more lonely than you can imagine with him and felt terribly trapped until I divorced after 22 years (waited for children to grow up). I'm now single and content but I notice that many people my age stay in very unhappy marriages because they're scared to leave. I have been single shamed by them and members of my own family. They can all foxtrot Oscar as I fo as I please and feel very peaceful

But one person can fulfil many of those needs. And friends and family fill in the blanks.

My DH cannot talk about literature to save his life. I love books. He built me a fabulous bookcase and I talk to my friends who also love literature about it. I don't sleep with them though.

If, however, someone is only interested in whether you're likely to be their future spouse / parent of your children, you're probably not going to seem that interesting to them.

Most people want an interesting, special person to share their lives, not just mediocre for the sake of ticking boxes.

I want interesting people. I want the ones who can talk about history, language, feminism, literature, art, gardens, sports, relationships, all sorts. And the ones who are great in bed. No one person can answer for all my needs, be it emotional or intellectual (or sexual, for that matter) - and I like to get different perspectives on things. I think people can expect an awful lot from one interesting, special person.

By living her life. Meeting people, going on dates, weeding out the crap. Giving chances to people she would normally reject (for more superficial reasons, still reject the red flags). Widening her circle so she meets a wider variety of people.

I get everyone wants to vent sometimes. But getting to the point where you feel like ending your life over it means that you've become very tunnel visioned. And the rest of your life, the space where you have actual experiences and would be more likely to meet people, gets shoved out of focus.

Bring it back into focus. Shove the "lack of" to the fringes instead. People are drawn to interesting people.

The two posters above, you're both right in your own way. The OP may end up in an utterly dire/ mediocre marriage or she may strike lucky and bag herself a gem of a man and live happily ever after. But that's not the problem - because right now she has neither on the horizon. the issue is how does she get from here to there?

Funny you should say that...

I was never interested in "being in a relationship". Happy on my own, happy to be part of one, either worked. Weirdly, despite not being "stunning, model like, etc" type attractive (I've always been ok, if you like minimal effort), or particularly "typical" as a woman, it meant I wasn't short of offers. I was picky though.

Two of my oldest friends thought the only goal was to find someone to marry and have kids with. And I'm talking since teenager. They really struggled to get much interest (and were/are much better looking than me) and as a result they both grabbed onto the first person who suggested they may be interested in something long term.

They're both miserable. They got exactly what they wanted, husband and multiple children. But so many of the threads I read on MN about the run ragged wife who clearly despises her H but would never admit to that, could be them.

I am happily married. One beautiful DD. But even now, I know that to share my life/space with another person they need to be very special. If DH wasn't around, I wouldn't be looking. I'd much rather be single than settle for "mediocre" at best (as a poster after you has mentioned).

People who think that's the only future give off a vibe that they're only after that. And it puts people off. Most people want an interesting, special person to share their lives, not just mediocre for the sake of ticking boxes. And people deserve that. But the cliches are cliches for a reason.

No one would disagree on paper/screen that it's better to be single than in a crap relationship - but plenty of people stay in rubbish relationships for FOG or other reasons. I have friends who've spent about 6 months of their adult lives single- with multiple partners, sometimes overlapping.

We probably don't have full consensus on what people count as good or mediocre- what some people think of as caring and solicitious, others might find smothering. We all have different needs and preferences which change over time - some people adjust to that, others don't. Being single might be better than constant low level disappointment in a relationship that isn't actually wrong, it's just not all hearts and flowers any more, or which is going through a hard patch, like frail parents and exam-taking teenagers alongside menopause. But it might be earthquake riding out till things are easier again. No one can make that decision for someone else.

It would be easier if there were a definitive list: behaviour X always deserves dumping, behaviour Y dump if conditions a,b, c also apply, Z always acceptable unless X applies. But life isn't black and white - when it better to be single will be a different marker for each of us. But I do think there's a lot of societal pressure in favour of relationships and some people would be better off being single.

Of course it's better off being single than in a crap relationship; I don't think anyone would argue differently. But what about the good relationships or even the mediocre sort? The type of relationships the majority enjoy? Is remaining single still best?

it gets my goat when posters offer up the generic 'better off single 'statement, whilst they themselves are hypocritically part of a couple

But you are better off single than being in a shit relationship just for the sake of being in a relationship. People in relationships may recognise that, because they have experienced the downsides of relationships.

One of the most useful pieces of advice I ever had was, "don't compare how you feel on the inside with how others appear on the outside." Most of us probably do that a lot, without remembering that when we meet people, they're often putting on a good show to the outside world, they've parked the argument they were having, hide the disappointment about another birthday being ignored with, "oh, it's daft to make a fuss once you're grown up," etc.

Being single is better than a lot of relationships - but it is easier if you can be in the position of choosing to turn men down, rather than feeling you're forced into singledom by a lack if other options.

(Still single in my 50s, never lived with anyone.)

OP I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you, some people just miss the boat. You haven’t met someone at the right age and not you’re the wrong age to meet someone. Lots of people are just in the right place at the right time and get lucky. Not just in marriage but career, money, opportunities. Life isn’t fair and sometimes it doesn’t make sense but it just is what it is. There are definitely people more fucked up than you who have found a wonderful partner, that doesn’t mean anything. It’s just luck and that’s life.

keep your head up and just plough on. Try and enjoy life and I hope you eventually find someone or if not, you achieve something else that makes you happy.

I think we have crossed wires. I haven't read your post giving advice to the OP, so I can't comment on that and I don't believe that every person in a relationship can't possibly offer any wisdom! That would be daft. I was commenting generally that it gets my goat when posters offer up the generic 'better off single 'statement, whilst they themselves are hypocritically part of a couple. Of course all relationships aren't perfect, nothing in life is but the OP wants the chance to experience that for herself. There's nothing weak or desperate or needy by declaring that you want a partner. It's human nature.

Mate; I’ve seen many of the men other women have chosen and the shit that they seem to put up with: honestly; against many cases, you got the best deal.

I've been single for 16 years and I agree with those posters to be honest. But then I do genuinely like being single.

Shortish, not shortage.

Most people prefer to be with people who are positive. Who put effort into being the best they can. I would run a mile from someone who felt that his 'future depends on whether a woman deems him good enough'.

Most people are getting along in life OK. They have their moments of weakness and are grateful when those around them giving them a helping hand, and most people are willing to do this for people they know well and in the shortage term.

I don't think many people of either sex would be ready to get involved with someone they don't already know whose 'mental health is shot to pieces'. That sound like someone who wants a crutch and is unlikely to have much mental positivity to give in return. But we all need mental positivity from others from time to time and we don't necessarily have the mental positivity to give and give until the other person feels better, whenever that is.

So I suppose, what I am saying is, what are you offering? What's in it for the other person? Why should he want to get involved with you? Relationships are a two-way street.

@Iwilldrawjapan

OP

Is this the service you are waiting for an appointment with? Could it be an alternative to the one you are already in touch with if not?

https://www.merseycare.nhs.uk/our-services/liverpool/talking-therapies

Your post seemed to suggest that people in a relationship commenting on this thread didn't have the requisite lived experience of singledom and I was pointing out that wasn't necessarily the case. Maybe I got the wrong end of the stick.

Me being 'privileged' now doesn't suddenly erase and negate any experience I had as a single person previously.

I can't possibly know with certainty what I would have felt/done if I hadn't met my partner and I didn't attempt to tell her that. But I do know what I felt/did right up to the OPs age and for a good 5 years after. If she was a single person in her late 50s then I might not offer the same perspectives as I wouldn't feel as well placed to comment.

Have you read the thread?! As I said, some have given very good advice imo but many have gone off on the ' better off single ' or ' get a cat'track which is an entirely patronising viewpoint when the OP already feels crap. It's great that things panned out for you and you're now in the privileged position to see the issue through a different lens, but could you say with any certainty, that if you hadn't have met a partner and reaching the age where the biological clock is ticking ever quicker, it wouldn't have been you posting on here instead of the OP? How do you think you would have responded to some of the ' helpful'suggestions?

This is it, it would be easy to get into a relationship if you had low standards and accepted poor behaviour. Some women are always in relationships, one to the next but the men are not good.
Once you recognise red flags and get self respect then it's harder to meet anyone as not many men are up to standard. But not impossible

OK OP. I don't know if you're still on the thread, but having read the thread it could have been me writing it two years ago. I'm even two years older than you.

I would ask myself constantly why I wasn't good enough, why no-one chose me, why I'd meet lots of men who'd say all the right things and then "but...". I'd always compare myself to coupled up friends and panic that I was behind. I lamented coming home to an empty flat and shopping for one all the time. I hated losing friends to their children and having no-one to do things with at the weekend, no-one to go on holiday with, no-one just to sit with in the evening.

My honest answer to all this, is therapy. Take it from someone who used to be you. Your self esteem is in the toilet. You will be coming across as needy and unstable and men will be sensing this.

You don't think you need to work on yourself, but I'm telling you that your mindset is shot to pieces. So please, if you do anything, try to see a therapist ASAP. I know you said you're on a waiting list, but I would recommend taking yourself off that and finding a private practitioner.

Well those are a lot of unkind assumptions about many of the posters on here.

I'm in a long-term relationship but was single until my late 30s, so have more 'lived experience' of being single than the OP currently does, with the added benefit of also now having 'lived experience' of the other side so think I can give a fairly balanced view of relationships vs singledom.

Has anyone actually told her she's better off single? Or have they just tried to offer a slightly more balanced perspective that life doesn't just become rosy and golden because you're in a relationship/have kids.

Well this thread has gone exactly how I expected it to. If the OP is still around, please focus on the comments from people who have actual lived experience and can give some useful advice from which there are a fair few. It's so unhelpful and dismissive to hear echoes of ' your better off being single 'or ' you have to learn to love yourself first 'or ' no one needs a man - get a cat instead...'; Nonsensically often uttered by those in decades long relationships who strangely don't heed their own advice and ditch their partners/ husbands/kids because life would be so much greater on their own with only a pet for company and their social entertainment is an occasional Sunday afternoon out when one of their coupled up friends can free up an hour for a quick coffee, but will then spend the entire time moaning to you about said husband/ partner/ child whilst completely overlooking the fact you have no one and feel lonely, depressed and hopeless . I've been there and it's dire.

I’m surprised at some of these comments, from single people, that they know all these folks who got married as everyone else was, or didn’t think their spouse was good enough but married them anyway, all resentful and miserable.

I don’t know anyone like that. People marry for love in my experience, in my friendship group only one divorce , but they were together a long time and did love each other, till they didn’t, and bore kids as well.

or that being single allows you to do things, like hobbies, like folks in relationships are unable to do this, surely they know married folks doing hobbies, it’s not just singles in the group?