"I don't do relationships"

[JoonT]

Over Christmas, I went to a party and got talking to a girl in her early 20s. I asked if her partner was there, and she replied "I don't do relationships." She went on to explain that she had no intention of ever being in a relationship or having kids. She was completely focused on her career and didn't want all the 'hassle' (her word). I also have a cousin who is 38 and lives alone. She has never had a relationship either (she's one of the happiest people I know!). Do you think it is becoming more common? I mean for people to choose not to "do relationships" at all? I'm not judging such people. I'm just curious.

My own feeling is that it is more common. And I suspect it's because of several things. First of all, people live longer, and (if they take care of themselves) do so in better health. That looks set to continue. Pretty soon we may ever have life extension drugs that slow the ageing of the body. So they don't need a partner to care for them as they age. Second, women now have careers. They also have better access to training and education, which enables them to pursue those careers. Finally, lots of women now choose not to have kids. In the past, women (and men) often put up with hellish marriages for the sake of the children.

Something else I've noticed is that young people increasingly choose not to drink alcohol. I wonder if the two are related?

I really think women have been sold down the river when it come to marriage. Back in the days when women were owned by their husbands and expected to be obedient, could be raped and beaten at a whim, and had a good chance of dying in childbirth, why would women enter an arrangement like that? How about passing laws so that anything a woman owns passes to her husband on marriage. Exclude women from higher education and careers so if they dont have family money they can't become rich or successful in their own right. But what if some stubborn women still don't want to marry, well let's make them believe they are worthless if they are single, and a failure if they don't produce children. That ought to do it. And oh yes because men are the ones with the money and power women should be grateful if a man wants them. Its quite romantic really isn't, a man giving up his freedom and agreeing to support a women, isn't she lucky?
This sort of stuff lingers even nowadays, with women waiting around for 'romantic' proposals while working full time, raising children and doing most of the housework. It's astonishing really why any woman would want to be single. 🙄
I read a post on here that said that if all women decided, as a class, not to have relationships with men any more, at some point they would be forced to, and sadly I think it's true.

Why would anyone think having a partner means there’ll be someone to care for them in old age? They could die or leave you, or there’s just as much chance you could end up being the one caring for them. Nothing in life is guaranteed.

I have a lovely single life and just feel like getting involved with anyone would involve opening a can of worms for potential stress/heartbreak/having to give up living alone etc etc

But for the record, I don’t think any teens who don’t show interest in relationships will necessarily stay that way.

Personally if the relationship with my ex, had not broken down, I would of settled in a long term relationship, as she's now married ect, I've been pretty much happy being solo, sometimes I miss the day to day of a normal coupling, but overall cannot complain, as for kids, personally they are a high risk investment, and to be honest I don't have the drive to rush to make babies. If I got with a partner that had already got kids, then I'd help raise them.

I am in my 30s, single and not looking. It just doesn’t really occur to me that I should be finding someone. It was like when friends/acquaintances started getting pregnant and I remembered that, yes, lots of people want children! I have wondered about asexuality but I’m not keen to label myself really.

I so agree with this!

Man in his early 20s here and although I would really love kids eventually but I just dont have any interest in being in a relationship right now, I use to but dating is just exausting and I dont have the time for it. There is also way too much competition for women my age and many younger women are bi/lesbian/pansexual/asexual these days, something like 75 percent of uses on tinder are men and when you do get talking to a woman its like I have to keep the conversation flowing all the time.

But Im just focused on my career at this point and becoming sucsessful, Im in no rush to have kids and when im in my late 30s then I can just find myself a younger woman to have kids with anyway.

I very much desire sex even tho im still a virgin but thats down to my confidence, Im not really into the idea of hookups though

Also I hear many women complaining about thier husbands not doing housework or childcare duties but im defiantly not like that, I want to father kids and I actually like doing housework and cooking anyway lol

I am on a thread right now where the OP's partner is not pulling his weight, and in fact, wasn't pulling his weight even before she got pregnant.

I think some women are deluding themselves that their partner will step up from being a lazy waste of space to being an excellent father when the baby arrives.

Some years ago I casually said to my mother, "I don't know anyone who's ever wished they hadn't had children." She replied, "You're talking to one."😯I never suspected, and none of us was a difficult child, but I wonder if my sisters, in their fifties, married, childfree, and friendly but not devoted aunties to my children, picked up something that I didn't as we were growing up.

I am a 30yo, single and childfree woman, have been in two long-term relationships by now, and don't really plan on getting into another, or at least don't plan to go specifically looking for one. I'm fine with more casual romantic relationships, but don't like all this 'other half' nonsense, or the assumption that a single person is incomplete and should be in a constant state of searching or waiting for a partner to come along and fix them.

I ended my last relationship because my lovely partner wanted to have kids and get married, and that sounded like a prison sentence to me.

I have never been comfortable with the amount of "merging" that you're expected to do in romantic relationships, and how that relationship is assumed and expected to trump absolutely everything else in your life - and that if it doesn't, then there must be something wrong with it. I recently came across a term for this, the 'relationship escalator' and it explained so many of the feelings i've had over the years about this narrative that so many people are so committed to about there being only one right way to 'do' romantic relationships, and that we all must 'do' them at all.

I suspect more people, women in particular, would be happier and more fulfilled if they put more of their energy into building solid friendships instead of just romantic relationships that don't seem to usually reap what has been sown.

I genuinely enjoy my own company, have hobbies, a great job, good friends, my own place to live, etc. I know by now that I am a better person when single than I am in a relationship; more ambitious, more engaged, more confident, etc. Don't get me wrong, I feel lucky to have been in my last relationship, as I had 7 great years with my ex, but that I als feel intensely lucky to live in an age where I can be so independent and so I had the choice to leave when the situation no longer worked for us both, rather than needing to desperately cling on to him because of some desire to conform or out of a fear of being alone.

Both my paternal grandfather and maternal grandmother ruined their lives by marrying (and staying with) the wrong person.

I think this is the key. I've never regretted getting married. I wouldn't be the person I am without him, he has supported me in my choices and helped in any way he could. Pick the right person and you can be so much more.

Better however to be on your own than with someone who brings you down.

I think in the future people might live communally and share meals etc. Relationships and having children might lose their appeal in favour of community living or independence. As long as a person has lots of interests and friends, there isn't really any need for a partner anymore.

Pick the right person and you can be so much more.

I’m not sure you can state that as fact @BigFatLiar. that’s just what you want, it doesn’t make it a truth

I’d hate to live in a community.

Nothing about relationships is 'truth' it's all just opinion based on your own experience.
I wouldn't have had my career if he hadn't encouraged tobchsngevjob roles when I was unhappy, he convinced me I was capable of studying and passing exams, worked with me on my studies (would probably passed the exams if he'd sat them). Did most of the child care so I could pursue my career while he was settled in his.
He's always been there supporting and helping, trying to make things easier for me.
When my parents were ill and dying he was supportive. Just made my life so much easier. So I do feel that with the right partner to encourage and support you you can be better off.

None of my 5 children drink. 2 out of 5 have never had a relationship (aged 23 and 30) and have no interest in having one. Of the other 3, one has been with his now wife 14 years and the youngest (20) has been with his partner for almost 4 years, both of them it's been their only relationship.
They are all bar one either at uni or have a degree and a career. There are no grandchildren on the horizon either. I think it's much more acceptable nowadays to be single and/or childless than it was when I was young. I also think that young women, particularly educated ones, are far less willing to put up with bad relationships with unpleasant, useless men than were women of my generation.

I also think that young women, particularly educated ones, are far less willing to put up with bad relationships with unpleasant, useless men than were women of my generation.

Sadly, it seem like the ones who do end up on mumsnet.

I was married for 16 years and when we split I started dating. My ex was pretty awful (after the initial honeymoon period) and the men I dated were a mixture of lazy and entitled, it was only a year down the line that I admitted to myself that relationships are not for me. I’m happy with it just being me and the kids.

I would enter into a casual relationship should a decent situation arise but I’m not going looking for it. I totally see the appeal of living out my dotage with a few cats.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

You aren't "listening" to exactly what I am saying

Of course they said it. All the time. I started work late 80’s. Women were making huge strides in the workplace. Why would they throw it away for children? I didn’t want any then. Don’t assume that previous generations thought any differently even though we didn’t have the internet. We had Cosmopiltan instead. No one had relationships or babies in that magazine, it was about being independent and career driven.

I am not talking about women wanting a career or role modeling for careers or postponing relationships til later. I am talking about frank and open comment that women regret having children after the event. This view is far more accessible to young women today because it still is fairly taboo.

Show me an article in Cosmopolitan from that era that was as frank and open as some of the threads you get her or media articles that build on what was a taboo. Here are a few in two seconds of research

www.mumsnet.com/talk/parenting/4583098-regret

This is a fairly typical comment of the sort I mean. Note the poster again says they love their own children.

I feel awful saying this but does anyone ever regret having children?, if I could have my time again no way would I have ever had children, people say you can never regret having a child but it just isn’t true.
Also to add I of course love my children but I wish I could have my life over again without children.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/feeling_depressed/1146040--deep-breath-I-regret-having-children

www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3788932-Regret-having-children

www.mumsnet.com/talk/relationships/4667490-regret-having-children (husband regretting it)

So, myself and my friends love our children. No one regrets them. No one, And it’s nothing to do with ‘age’ or the ‘internet’

I repeat what I said. Loving your children is not the same as regretting having them or thinking that if you had the opportunity to have your life again, you would choose to not have children.

& anyway you simply cannot know this because you do not see into the private thoughts of all of your friends. It remains (especially for your pre-internet in the formative years generation) a fairly taboo subject - but just look at the amount of similar comments on the internet published anonymously. Probability is that you will have one or two friends who feel like this even if they wouldn't necessarily ever tell you.

How you feel about it though isn't the point. The issue here is why young women are shunning relationships - and my opinion is that a part of it is that there is easy accessibility to the views of women who articulate the down side of having children and actively say (Even anonymously) they regret having children.

I was ‘listening’ l don’t agree. You weren’t there, how do you know what me or my generation though?

I've had normal relationships before, including a very long co-habiting one that broke down because he became an alcoholic and had an affair.

I don't want another relationship. Possibly not ever.

I put up with so much crap when I was younger, and I acknowledge that now. I let men erode my boundaries because we were in relationships. Each individual thing wasn't a big deal, but when you add them all up, you have to ask, wasn't that relationship, on balance, harmful to me? Why, with the wisdom of age, would I let myself suffer like that again?

And sure, maybe there are some good guys out there. At my age, they're all taken. And the married ones hitting on me are not good guys. I get the ick. It also makes me double down on my view of not wanting a relationship, because it would break my heart if I had a partner who was casually hitting on women the way these men try with me. I would feel ugly and worthless - whereas if I stay single, and I don't let my sense of self-worth hinge on what some man thinks of me, I'll keep my confidence up.

I can see how I could improve a man's life, but I can't see how one could improve mine. I'm done with propping up a man in the name of equality.

Also, the older I get, the angrier I feel about contraception and abortion. Let's face it, avoiding unplanned pregnancy falls entirely on the woman. The most a man might do is buy a pack of pack of condoms - wow, so much effort. When you consider what our bodies go through, how much monitoring we carry out (who hasn't panicked when their regular period has suddenly been the tiniest bit irregular?), the side effects of planned hormonal contraception, emergency contraception and abortions and the societal judgement we get whatever happens... Really, we're the ones doing all the heavy lifting and dealing with all the worry.

Men can be nice to look at, but I no longer think they're worth the effort or expense. I'm going to be an old spinster, and bloody well enjoy it.

Agree, this is already going badly for China....
amp.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/20/the-last-generation-young-chinese-people-vow-not-to-have-children
Fearing the adverse effects of an ageing population coupled with a shortage of working-age people, the Chinese government allowed couples to have two children in 2015 and further eased the birth limit to three in 2021.

For years, studies have found the rising costs of bringing up children and the lack of welfare provisions to be the main reasons behind China’s low fertility rate. In recent years, the government has begun to offer incentives such as tax breaks, subsidies for childcare and longer parental leave while discouraging abortions. An academic even controversially suggested that social welfare and pensions should be linked to the number of children people have. But these measures have failed to trigger a baby boom.

My dad said something similar when he first met my mum. They've now been together over 50 years.

I’m envious of people like that.

I would love to have been that strong and self assured. Confident enough in myself to know I could go it alone in life.

I got married and had a child as soon as I could as I wanted to be loved, have people to love and to ultimately, have someone to hide behind and support me so I could stay at home and not have to face the world after a childhood/adolescence of hell and bullying.

I know someone who's 59 and is deliberately looking for women in their late 20s/early 30s so that they can look after him when he's elderly, like proper elderly
@JackieDaws
Does he genuinely believe that women 30 or 40 years his junior would be interested??
It just beggars belief....how deluded can he be 🤣