Commitment-phobic men are often the reason that women 'delay' starting a family

[Petal02]

A lovely friend of mine is in bits because her latest relationship has broken down. She is 41, would love to settle down and start a family, but has been unfortunate to have a string of boyfriends who didn't know what they wanted, or wanted to keep their options open, or didn't want children now but might have wanted them in the future. You get the picture.

She was 'told off' by her GP about 6 months ago (when she mentioned the subject of conception) for 'hanging around too much and not getting on with it.'

Yet you read so much about women who allegedly decide to wait til their 40s before starting a family; I suspect some of them would have started far earlier if only there weren't so many idiotic men about.

Sorry, just wanted to offload. Makes me very sad.

Oh dear imposter - if I was you I would learn from your first mistake, run, and not make the same mistake again. If you describe your relationship as 'going nowhere' after 3 years then why on earth are you sticking with it??

He may be "stupid, not moving in the right direction and wasting your time" yet you are still staying with him. You are making that choice so how much can he really be blamed for the situation you are in?

Have you discussed marriage/children in your past and what was he saying?? If he was making empty promises though then you are well entitled to feel the way you do, but if he has never strung you along or made empty promises then you need to ask why you are still with him if you know it's going nowhere?

I actually think that when you're in a relationship that will last the distance (commitment, children etc) then you know from a very early stage. When I met my now DH we hit it off straight away, I moved in with him 4 months later and 2 years later he proposed. We got married 5 months after he proposed, I was pregnant 3 months later and baby is coming tomorrow I'm 30 and he is 31.

However, in my past I have waste years on absolute wankers who despite knowing deep down that the r'ship was going nowhere, I just buried my head in the sand and tried to kid myself it would work out in the end and that these guys would somehow miraculously change overnight and I'd get the happy ending I wanted. I look back and wonder, "What on earth was I thinking?!"

It's not easy to make the break though because then you're back at square one. It's a difficult position to be in: Do I make the break, start from scratch and hope I meet someone else? Or do I stick it out and hope things change?

"It's not easy to make the break though because then you're back at square one. It's a difficult position to be in: Do I make the break, start from scratch and hope I meet someone else? Or do I stick it out and hope things change?"

I totally agree with this writer. It shouldn't be underestimated how difficult a dilemma this is. You know you can be damned if you do or don't, especially when time is of the essence. The thought of starting back at square 1 can be so overwhelming, frightening and depressing - especially when you're mid-thirties and absolutely worn down from unsuccessful relationships in your past.

If I hadn't found out my ex was cheating on me I'd probably still be with him because I didn't have the strength or esteem to start again :( - I'd done it three or four times over my twenties and thirties and had really had enough. I'm so glad the decision was taken out of my hands. And it really was pure luck I met DP. I had zero intention of putting myself out there again and 'trying' to meet someone.

Imposter I know it's easy to say because I'm not sure I could have done it myself, but get out and don't waste any more time on a relationship that's going nowhere. Find your inner bear strength and move on. There could be much brighter things round the corner - or not. But at least you've taken charge of your future and made it a possibility!

Imposter - has your DP actually said no to DCs and marriage, or does he not want to talk about it? Do you see your relatinship going nowhere because he's not suggesting either of these or because you can't see yourself growing old with him? If you can't see yourself being with him for hte rest of your life, dump now regardless of the test results.

If you would like to spend the rest of your life with him, can you innitiate a conversation about it and be blunt, as in "I'm in my 30s, I've run out of waiting time, so do you want to get married and have children? If so, we should be doing these things in the next year or so. " stalling comments should be taken as "I really don't want these things, but I would like to keep you hanging around for now, so I'll make the right noises without commiting myself to anything"

It is easier to say than do, but it's the truth. There's no easy way to do this other than just say.

Writer what an excellent post. When I met my husband, it became apparent very early on that we both wanted the same things, and that this was going to go the distance. It wasn't forced or awkward - it was just a case, for both of us, of meeting the right person.

But I can't fault your advice to the previous poster - that she should cut her losses, even though it's tough to be back to square one. In fact that must be a very difficult thing to do.

From reading this thread is seems to me the big winners out of feminism seem to be men (not that I'd want to turn the clock back).

Men get to have no strings sex with a variety of women (ok, so do we). Can move in with a partner (without marrying them) who will still take on most of the domestic chores plus will be entirely financially self supporting so he now only has to pay half of the bills and gets his washing done. If they have children she will do most of the childcare and will still go to work so that she can pay her full 50% share of household costs. If it all goes tits up he can just walk away, no stigma and if they get any child support out of him, then they're lucky. He can have a massively extended adolescence doing loads of shagging and if he does want children he CAN do it in his 40s (ok, that bit's biology, nothing we can do about that).

Of course not all men are like this but we have made it very easy for them to chose this path if they want. If I were a man it looks a very appealing road to go down.

I wonder if one reason women had children younger in the past was because to have sex men had to get married, so they married young. Maybe if is actually easier to find a life partner when you're 18 because teenagers are just more emotional than older women/men, maybe they just fell in love more easily?

Imposter said "I will indeed be very angry that the choice has been removed from me by stupid men who can't move in the right direction and have wasted my time."

Actually, sorry, but no. YOU are responsible for how you spend your time (at least out of work hours) not these men. They have not forced you to spend these years with them. If they are arseholes, they are arseholes, but YOU have decided to waste your time with them. If they are not arseholes but are not on the same page as you, or think the time is not right for child (which they are perfectly entitled to) then it is up to YOU whether you wait around or not.

If men don't want children in their 20s or even their 30s (but women do) it seems women have two options:

1. Go for an older man, and accept that you'll probably outlive him
2. Somehow change society so that becoming a father is more appealing for younger men.

Or I guess a third option that some posters have suggested which to make the free and single life less appealing for men by refusing to stay in casual relationships with a man past the age of about 25 unless they agree to having children.

Kenn - the big winners out of the sexual revolution, perhaps, might be a better way of putting it. (We had a thread about that in FWR a few months back discussing the fact that separating sex from automatic pregnancy, though overall a brilliant thing, had opened up another route to dumping shit on women - once having children becomes a choice, then it becomes "women's choice" and some - not all, mercifully - men use this as an excuse to absolve themselves of any responsibility on that front).

Which I guess brings us back to SGB's earlier point - maybe the answer is that for more women to turn round and said to the loser men (or the fundamentally selfish men) "okay, you want the good bits of a relationship - the shagging, the housekeeper, etc - without any meaningful input yourself: you know what, I think I could live just as happily if not more so being single." The trouble is because there are also men out there who are lovely, and who one would be very happy to be with, most of us don't want to commit to the go-it-alone route because we keep hoping that next time we might strike lucky...

And we get so many conflicting messages. Quite a few people on here have said "when I finally met my DH, we knew very early on we were on the same page and we just got on with it...", which I think (going off watching friends who've got it right) does seem to be the case quite a lot of the time. Yet on this board we also get a lot of women saying (again with good reason, because often they've been burned by bad relationships) "take your time, a year is way too soon to move in, three years is way too soon to decide on having children."

(Actually, I've just had a funny thought, which I offer up somewhat tongue in cheek - there's a joke recommendation in computer programming, based on the old American political joke: "fail early, fail often" - i.e. design your programs so that if they've got bugs, they fall over early during the test procedure so you don't waste too much time. Maybe this is what the "lay your cards on the table" advice does - you might lose the odd nice bloke who's a bit indecisive that way, but you'll also weed out all the time-wasters - unless they're timewasters and pathological liars - no system is perfect).

Lostandconfused33 I am very sorry my extension of the "before you judge someone, walk a mile in their shoes" proverb upset you. It wasn't my intention, and evidently I should have tried harder to be gentler and clearer in my post.

But (I'm sorry there's always a but, isn't there) I think your partner is fobbing you off. He's 29. He's old enough to be able to tell you whether he would rather risk not having children at all, or have them slightly earlier than he'd imagined. You were undecided at 29, but you knew that you didn't want to rule it out completely,and you acted on that. So you split up with your child-free partner. What will magically have changed for him in 6 months? You are entitled to have this discussion.

In England, people reach the age of criminal responsibility at 10,
pick their GCSEs (closing off options) at 15/16
pick their A-levels at 16
go to university at 18/19.

He's 29!

Good luck for the future. I truly wish you happiness and self-fulfilment.

In England, people reach the age of criminal responsibility at 10,
pick their GCSEs (closing off options) at 15/16
pick their A-levels at 16
go to university at 18/19

They actually choose GCSE options at 13/14 and apply to universities at 17 (or leave school, join the army, etc at 16).

But you're absolutely right - big decisions over other aspects of life are made in the teenage yeras. Yet it's somehow become acceptable to not even start to think about whether you want children or not, yet alone start looking for the right parter until 15 years after we're legally old enough to marry and have children and about 2/3 way through a women's reproductive years. If you don't start thinking about it til 30 that's a very tight window for deciding, finding a potential partner, taking at least a little bit of time to get to know them, maybe getting married, and then trying to conceive. My early teen DC have quite clear ideas on whether they'd like to get married and have kids someday - as do many of their friends - but somehow in the early 20s that gets lost and doesn't translate into actual life plans.

You're totally right. I can't think why I put 15/16. They pick in year 9, don't they? Maybe I was thinking of when you actually sit the exams?

I'll add these instead:
people can get married with parental permission at 16 (England and Wales),
people can get married without parental permission at 18 in England and Wales (16 in Scotland),
people get the vote at 18, and
people can get tattoos at 18.

I must agree with the posters replying to Imposter. We are living in a country where you can date who you like. It is up to YOU to decide who you stay with and who you dont. You cannot blame these men for leading you on and such like.

You have decided to stay with them. That is YOUR choice. No one else's.

I know it harsh, it is so much easier to blame others for the decisions one makes in life but ulitmately you are to blame for staying with them. What are you going to do - sue them for wasting your time....

From reading this thread it seems to me the big winners out of feminism seem to be men

I agree. We talk about this a lot at work (there are 5 of us, age 29-53). Men can now have all the perks of marriage (partner, home, children) without any of the legal commitment, making it far easier to walk away if he gets bored. Whereas in previous generations, a man would never have got any of that without putting a ring on someone’s finger. And the other big difference is that the woman generally goes out to work these days, even if she has several children. Men seem to get more and more, and have to give less and less.

And we're supposed to pretend to be cool about this.

And it really is that simple: either your need for a child is greater than the relationship or it's not. The choice is yours and yours alone.

Again, I say this as someone who divorced. Left an othersie good marriage, or own home, car, job, etc. and moved here with two boxes and a rucksack.

I wanted to try for a child, and he was still playing in the sandpit (still is, and nearly 50).

If men don't want children in their 20s or even their 30s (but women do) it seems women have two options:

1. Go for an older man, and accept that you'll probably outlive him

^^ the age of first marriage is getting higher and the age gap at marriage is getting smaller. Xenia would have us believe that women marry older men to be providers but frankly I think biological clock is a huge part.

Re. older men - a big reason why I have to accept it's not likely I'll find anyone - because realistically, at 48, I'd have to be looking for someone in his 60s, and I'd get, what, 10 years of being a wife before I turned into a nursemaid. And I don't want to end up as someone's nursemaid for the last active decade of my own life.

Personally, I think the answer is more feminism, not less, though . Get women to realise that romantic relationships aren't the be all and end all - accept that while nice ones are very good, useless ones are not worth having, and that actually, being on your own is okay. And also that as my mother used to say "you're a long time dead" - why put up with a sort of almost good enough situation just because society expects it of you? (I seem to see thread after thread of women putting up with slightly rubbish behaviour on the basis that it's not actually abusive, always with some sort of proviso of "well, I'm not exactly happy, but I've been brought up to be self-sacrificing, so my own happiness is less important than..." - where the than is "what society/the inlaws/ conventional social mores dictate"). Why not ask "what's the best life I could organise for myself?" You ought to be self-sacrificing for your children, because they are only children, and didn't ask to be put into the world... but endlessly self-sacrificing for another adult, getting nothing back in return? I think not!

I also suggest we stop laying into Imposter... I'm sure there are some people on this thread who are perfect, but many of us will have made stupid decisions, perhaps because life is never black and white, and it can be very difficult, especially when you genuinely love someone, to step back and say "well, love is nice, but it's not enough and objectively this situation isn't working for me." Also, there's the kind of fallacy of committed resources - "throwing good money after bad." That feeling that it is somehow worse to waste the X years you've already committed to a strategy than to then commit a further Y years in the hope that something will change and it'll start to work (it's a well documented psychological decision making strategy - the "sunk cost fallacy", and the fact that it's irrational does not stop most human beings doing it in a whole range of situations, not just re. relationships).

Lurcio, I agree, feminism, as with other forms of social progress is a work in progress.
We need better solutions for raising children which dont leave women vulnerable to men who dont do their share.

More Beta wrote
This really is a cold hard economic decision for many young men. They get to share a home with a woman, she pays half the costs, you get the other benefits of a relationship, none of the downside if it goes wrong and the option to have kids later if you change your mind.

V true.
My DP gets companionship, half bills paid, gets to live in a nice area with a live-in housekeeper/cook and gets ferried about by muggins.
Wouldn't surprise me a bit if he jumped ship for a younger model if the figures added up.

Pisstakers need enablers to do what they do.

is it not the case that most divorces are initiated by women?
Plenty of us do weigh it up and decide that we're not getting a fair deal.

I'm hopeful that my daughters generation (now mid 20's and very career minded) will be less willing to tolerate unequal partnerships...or am I over optimistic?

It wouldn't surprise me if divorces are more often initiated by women, but I suspect in a great deal of cases (obviously not all), it is because the man is cheating or otherwise not pulling his weight. So he probably gets to go off and be single, while the woman he's left behind, if they had children, gets to do the majority of the childcare and have to pay for a home that can support them as well. We live in interesting times.

But what if you can't find a partner at all at 37, let alone a decent man who wants to have babies? (wail)

I don't want to go it alone (well I can't afford to) so what am I supposed to do?

(The last 2 men I was messaging have disappeared without arranging a date - I did nothing to act desperate or strange or off-putting.)

I'm just looking for a boyfriend to start with and just that is proving impossible!

Maybe I will just get eaten by my cat (not just yet though hopefully, I'm too busy enjoying life and I've got a holiday to look forward too etc etc.)

If I can get nerdy for a moment, the problem is probably a small mismatch in percentages (NB all stats made up for the sake of argument!) Suppose, say, 80% of men want children, and 85% of women do - that just makes a 5% discrepancy and most people will manage to "get it right" (or more accurately, get lucky) - but it's going to hurt like hell for that 5%. Add into the mix the fact that most of us like sex, most of us have the capacity to fall in love (which as a cursory glance at world literature will tell you, can go horribly wrong as well as gloriously right). Now add in the fact that all of us will know couples where one partner was initially reluctant to have children, then changed their mind and is now very happy being a parent (I have known this happen with both sexes, by the way), or situations where someone watches their "I don't believe in marriage and don't ever want to have kids" ex go on to get married and have a kid within a tear of splitting up, as well as the eternal child types who still want to be clubbing and sleeping in till lunchtime on a Sunday with no responsibilities in their 40s. The trouble is, without a crystal ball, you can't always tell which is which, so saying "every piss-taker needs an enabler" is over-simplifying.

Of course I'd advise people to listen to their friends, 'cos often friends see the situation more clearly, and be prepared to cut their losses rather than waste more time on relationships that are going nowhere, or lay their cards on the table early on. But that really is a counsel of perfection - many people just can't be that hard-nosed about life once their hormones kick in, especially when they're subject to a combined onslaught from hormones and enormous social pressure, and a mythology that women should be sufficiently self-sacrificing, at which point the man will realise what a gem he has (the "Beauty and the Beast" myth), or that love conquers all (just about every other fairy tale ever).

Actually I'd better give my cat her food now, just to make sure she doesn't eat me.... then I'm off to the gym (and there are some fit men there! They just don't make conversation unless it concerns weights and reps).