To envy women who found good male partners?

I understand you, OP. My husband turned out to be a nightmare, and it does feel unfair. But if it helps, marriage does come with an opportunity cost. You have to spend a lot of time with their family, a lot of time managing their quirks, illnesses, issues, etc., and you could have spent all that time doing productive things or things that benefit you.

In marriage, you are also very subject to their moods, their sex drive - i.e. they can take all intimacy and physical affection away from you - and they can really make you miserable at their whim.

I guess I'm describing my own ex-marriage though.

I idealised marriage before I was married, and being married certainly cured me of all that. Even if my husband had been perfect, his family were an utter PITA, and extremely rude, too.

A happy marriage must be a wonderful thing, but there really is no such thing as a free lunch.

Ultimately, marriage is based on your partner's sexual attraction to you, and who the hell wants their security and stability to be based on that? See my recent thread in AIBU about hanging your stability on sexual attraction in marriage.

You say you're not beautiful, and I'm sure that's not true, but even if so, there's nothing stopping you from having a hot body and from being really stylish! I never thought Jennifer Aniston had a pretty face but she looks incredible in Friends!

Check this out, especially the beginning. This guy (a divorce lawyer) has it real when it comes to marriage. Marriage comes with a lot of sexual pressure for women much of the time, pressure to have sex, pressure to stay slim, pressure to be feminine. I think you should count your blessings.

Happiness comes from within. Why you sitting in on your own on a Saturday night?
You don't need a significant other to go for a meal, or the cinema.

Make him delete them and dump him.

I’m not a prude, I have the same sort of folder but he showed them to anyone else like that it would be unforgivable.

My gorgeous 32 yo friend was bemoaning similarly to me recently. She has a 5 yo and on her own, and I asked her what attracted her to the child’s dad who is no longer in their lives (her choice).

The reply was he was good looking 😧. From what else she has had to say about him, there are no other attractive qualities or any redeeming features that I know of, but there she was with him.

forward to our conversation and I asked her what is she doing now that is any different to when she met him. Apart from being a hands on mum just trying to do her best, she isn’t doing anything to change herself from how she was in her twenties, so she is still meeting the bottom of the barrel types whose behaviour still revolves around speeding in dodgy cars and getting pissed.

my advice to her was to change herself. Get out and look for a better job than hanging around where she does, get some qualifications under her belt so she can aim higher career wise, When heading out with her mates, don’t go to the usual on the prowl venue.

im not sure she will make the change. And I know it’s definitely not easy either. But at the end of the day if you want change in your life, as she does, you are the only one that can bring it about.

there are good people out there. !

This!

Married at 34. Had a ball all through my 20’s and marriage would definitely have been the last thing on my mind!! Glad I waited, I have a great DH, we’re still very much in love decades on!

That's why we personally didn't have kids. We like the people we are together and didn't want that to change.

That's a really good point.

Exactly, it actually chills me to think if it was OLD we’d never had even come in my searches - too young, lives too far away…also even if he had come up in my searches I probably wouldn’t have swiped him because although he’s good looking, he doesn’t take a good photo 🤣 and he’s not my usual type. I only shagged him that night when I met him in the pub because I was really pissed, but over 4 years later we’re still so, so happy, he is definitely my person.

It’s lovely for people who met and married young and have grown together that they feel that has strengthened their marriage. But it’s so irritating when people say that’s the key - divorce rates are higher for people who marry in their early 20s than in their early 30s. In many areas, professions or social circles hardly anyone is married before 30.

Personally, I am glad I met my partner mid 30s and then took a while to settle down because I think both of us needed some wild oat sowing time in our 20s and some growing up time in our early 30s, and as much as I love him I would have got itchy feet if we’d got together a lot younger. He’s someone a lot of women here would write off apparently as he had a difficult childhood and isn’t a high earner. He is a much better partner than any former boyfriends who had fancier jobs and nicer mothers.

Gosh, it wouldn’t occur to me as a top criterion in a friend or a partner. I go for intelligence, observancy and articulateness above everything. I think most people are averagely kind.

It is for me. Kindness is the number one thing I look for.

I could care less if a man is short/has a bit of a belly/bit of a bald patch.

Yes I found that too when I was on dating websites when I was in my early 30s.
Kind of given up now in my 50s!

I think there is something in this. I met my DH of 34 years in a choir. So we were able to get to know one another socially for a while before we started dating.

I think your comment “he’s nothing like I thought I wanted” is key here. You were willing to give him a chance. Two many women have a checklist in their heads of what they want and quickly rule out any man who doesn’t meet one of their criteria.

I know a lovely guy. I was his lodger. He is kind, fun and genuinely nice.
The problem is everyone sees him as a 'friend' and not BF. He is always the one a string of girls come to when they need to talk etc. Then they move on to the next more attractive man/loser. Phone him in the middle of the night when it goes wrong.
He is solvent, has a flat, a car and works.
He hides behind his beard.

It's not only men who only look skin deep.

Why haven't I snapped him up?
I met my girlfriend through him.
We are toying with asking him to be our donor.
Maybe we too would be adding to the long string of females who use him?

Keep look OP there must be more nice guys like him out there.

I've been single a good few years. I'm in my 50s.

I have a fabulous group of friends and only one is married.

I own my own home, don't have to answer to anyone, can come and go as I like...I can honestly say that I absolutely do not ever want to be in a relationship again, or share my hard earned home with anyone apart from my DC if they need a roof. Or my dog. My dog is better than any partner!

Why do you feel a partner is important, OP? What can they provide that you feel is missing?

Everyone tells me I am lucky because I have a great husband / dad to my kids. However I honestly believe that this was because of the amazing role model my dad was. He brought me up treating my mum like well. He never thought there were women chores or men chores. And taught me to be independent and not reliant on a man. My husband is my partner we raise the children together, we look after the house together. We both work full time and very hard. But we are a team. Our relationship has definitely had lots of rough patches but we keep working at it and great at the moment.

The other thing I personally think helps, is getting together at a younger age. We got together at 20, and we have grown up: matured together. Some friends meet their partners later in life and whilst it still works I think people can find it harder to change, as you are already set in your ways

Women tend to be more social and value people more. Men are more self absorbed.

Isn't there a saying that women are interested in people, men are interested in things?

OP, if you want to find love, keep looking. I met my fabulous partner at 36. Some lovely 'also rans' along the way but I think I knew all along they weren't quite for me.

I don't subscribe to this 'high quality' stuff but there are loads of nice single professional men in their 30s and 40s who have dedicated their lives to work. I know because they include some of my nicest friends. They're a smallish but genuinely interesting cohort in the dating pool. Bigger jn London. Much more interesting if I'm being honest than the divorced dads where you have to work around their time with kids. As it should be of course, but I didn't want to compromise on that as someone without my own children.

Re the geeky guys. There are geeks and geeks. Those I am a proponent of have a passion for knowledge generally and something outside of/ in addition to football, family, socialising, money, golf etc. Could be anything but it's a love of the topic or activity for its own sake.

The problematic ones' immersion in an area, often a different culture (usually Japan), a pretend universe, games, whatever, seems to be more about escapism and belonging. These seem to be the ones worth avoiding in my experience as it seems to involve negative behaviours.

You’re on your own until you’re not. I finally met my bf at 35. If you keep looking you’re bound to find someone. I’m not beautiful, I’ve never had my looks commented on positively. Me and my bf come from somewhat dysfunctional families and it was very rocky at the start. We’re still working on things but it’s very stable now. We’re both very kind people who want the best for each other which is the main thing.

I feel glad we both had other relationships though so we really appreciate what we have. We both had volatile slightly mentally unstable exes so it was such a relief for us both to build a life with a rational normal person.

It’s luck.

I met my husband at 18 and we have been together over 16 years now. Hes a good guy, great dad, earns well and isn’t tight at all, what’s his is mine kind of thing. We have 2 amazing children. We have been together so long now, there is no childish behaviour you find at the beginning of relationships, no insecurities between us. I know that if I call him at any time of the day or night, he will call me back within 5 mins.

I think we work so well as we met so young, we both have the same kind of values, grew up and our families have similar backgrounds.

but its luck we met when we did.

I’ve been massively extremely lucky. Snapped up Dh we met at work when I was 28 he was 26. His long term gf had just dumped him. She actually realised she had made a massive mistake and tried to get him back but it was too late. What a fool she was. Her loss my gain.

He moved in after 3 months we got married the following year. He is the best Dh ever in every way. Rarely a cross word in 20 years. Still have fun and a brilliant life. High earner. Thoughtful. Incredible father. My greatest wish is that my two dds can marry men like him.

I do… I love them

But I’ve seen enough to know they are men… therefore selfish, entitled and sexual oriented

i also mean men in relationships…