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.

Mmm... perhaps men have always been this way and nothing has really changed.

In the 'old days' they played around if they could, otherwise got married and still played around, some ran off if a baby arrived.

Now men don't have to get married to have a sexual relationship, and anyway contraception is better, but they are still really doing the same thing - refusing to commit.

Feminism, contraception, divorce laws, CSA all changed the equation but the basic underlying factors in that equation stayed the same.

Human behaviours, desires, needs, wants and biology didn't change.

On a personal level I really don't understand men who are future fakers because they often come across as unhappy, bitter and unfulfilled in life. Albeit there are I think some women also are also not really looking for a relationship but someone to take care of them, provide them with a lifestyle, etc.

Actually, the majority of men don't run off. The majority of divorces are instigated by women.
What a lot of men do is perpetuate the fear that they will run off, in order to keep a woman compliant. A man who is getting his needs met will not actually leave a relationship without a considerably better offer on the table, but some selfish, manipulative men have found that alternating threats to leave and promises to propose mean that they get their every whim indulged. This is all part of the unending propaganda that women need A Man In Their Lives and must work hard, compromise and submit in order to avoid Being Single, when being single is actually much better for women.

I would rather die than be married to a man called Graham!
Just saying...

I married in my mid twenties, right after turning down Mr Good on Paper Marriage Material. (There may have been an overlap. Ahem)
My husband was attractive, had a great job, we had shared interests, he was family oriented. He also broke my ribs, so, you know. Swings and roundabouts.

You know, I don't actually feel too bad about being alone in my mid thirties. I feel like, if I really wanted a husband, I could find one. I think I maybe just don't want one enough.