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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

...to not want to 'settle' for mr 'right now'...

106 replies

persephonesnape · 26/01/2010 20:28

second best??

apologies if this has been done...

Author Lori Gottlieb maintains that if you haven't met 'mr right' by the age of 30, settle for anyone that will have you so you can have children (I'm paraphrasing slightly here..)

Now, this isn't really pertinent to me - but what do you think? did you 'settle' when the old biological clock was chiming? do you think women do 'make do' in order to have kids? do we have a romanticised view of a perfect DH or DP?

(i think it's a load of misogynist claptrap - but i think that of most things! )

OP posts:

trafficwarden · 27/01/2010 13:15

I started a whole diatrabe on this but decided to confine myself to the basics. There is no Mr Perfect, ever. There is no Ms Perfect, ever. We all have faults, it's just a question of which ones you can accept and live with. But there has to be a bit of zing or it would be like living with a mate. My husband can drive me batty with forgetfulness and untidiness but my tummy still squirms when I hear his key in the door 18 years and many trials and tribulations later.
I know he is my Mr Right though because he found M&S chocolate marshmallows for me in a country with no M&S, Heaven.

nickelbabe · 27/01/2010 13:17

i met my ex at 25, settled with him, but he apparantly didn't think i was perfect for him, so after 7 years of him refusing to buy a house, get married and have kids (always "yet" "not ready"), i left him and found mr perfect.

who seems to think i'm perfect too, silly man!
of course, he has spent all his life thinking that he's not worth having, and, being shy anyway, never went out looking for anyone.
he kind of fell into my lap really!

i'm 33, (as is ex) and OH is 48.
hope it's not too late for children, but if it is, who cares: i wasn't expecting any if i'd stayed with ex, so it won't kill me if i can't have any now; my main thing is that i'm actually happy, not wishing my life away.

Patsy99 · 27/01/2010 13:23

I know too many women who are 40, single, childless (and very unhappy about it) to just dismiss the Lori Gottlieb view as misogynistic claptrap. I completely see that risk btw, but a debate about whether women (and men's) expectations of romantic love are unrealistc is a good thing. Also about whether or not a good-enough marriage will make you happier in the long term than holding out for a dream partner and love.

I have a friend who used to tell me she wanted a man who was good-looking but not arrogant, wealthy but left wing and tall and a professional. She's now missed the chance to have children and I do wonder whether she would have happier now if she'd "settled" for one of her partners from her 30's and just got on with it.

alypaly · 27/01/2010 13:28

I have never looked for mr perfect...i dont want someone staggeringly gorgeous because they inevitably go off with smeone else. I believe i am a good cook ,good mum,good with money,love sport,hols,a GSOH ,not an alcoholic or smoker and i keep wondering why i cant meet someone similar that is a bit romantic and likes to organise a few things...like going out sometimes.

Im not that ugly

mrsruffallo · 27/01/2010 13:30

I think the soulmate myth has been damaging for women.
The women I know who are still single in their forties would be very hard to live with imo- not very flexible in their approach to life at all.
I think it's brave to work hard and have a go at a serious relationship with a man who you are initially attracted to but has a few faults.
It takes a while to really learn the beautiful things about another person.

nickelbabe · 27/01/2010 13:50

alypaly: i think i'm ugly, but the point is that my OH doesn't. he thinks i'm gorgeous.
my ex constantly told me that i was fat and ugly. not nice.

LurcioLovesFrankie · 27/01/2010 13:50

Hmm, a friend waved the headline for an article about this under my nose on Sunday, and I immediately said "so what is she? Unhappily single, divorced...?" 3 paragraphs in, the answer is single mum, thinking the grass is greener. Almost every time one of these books is published (they come round every 2 or 3 years) teh author is projecting their own unhappiness at their own personal situation onto the rest of us.

As for me, single mum by Hobson's choice, well, I look at friends in good marriages and of course I'd like what they've got (not their husbands, clearly, but a partnership like theirs). But I also have a few friends who've "settled" and while some manage a contented life out of sheer bloody determination, most are either unhappy or divorced within a couple of years. So no, not going to settle for Mr will-sort-of-do, much sooner be single thank you. So my personal order of preference is 1) happy parntership, 2) happy single-mum-dom (what I've got), ... 10000) unhappy married 'cos I can't face being alone. But this is my personal order of preference, and I'm not going to write a book telling everyone else it's what should make them happy.

nickelbabe · 27/01/2010 13:51

if it helps, my OH was a friend first, and i've known him for about 7ish years (as long as i've lived in kent): met him through church and never really thought of him, but the worse it got with my ex, the more he was there for me and the closer we got.
(no deliberate act on either side, but it did happen that way)

alypaly · 27/01/2010 14:08

i feel i have so much to give and would love a happy,funny,outgoing caring sharing relationship ,one built on mutual trust...as i had such an unhappy childhood and a violent and broken home.

nickelbabe · 27/01/2010 14:13

mistletoekisses · 27/01/2010 14:17

totally agree with blueshoes post at 21.32 last night!

I dated/ wined/ dined in my early/ mid twenties....gave me a proper sense of what was important (and realistic) in a life partner....when i met DH, knew by the second date that he was a 'keeper'.

I didn't settle by any stretch of the imagination - DH is wonderful, but I equally wasnt trying to measure him against a long list of expectations...think i only had a few 'deal breakers'.

SerenityNowAKABleh · 27/01/2010 14:21

I agree that women have been greatly misled by the whole soul-mate malarky. I have friends who are quickly heading towards 30, have been single for years, and are completely freaking out. For one of them, her best friend has been in love with her for years, and we can all see that he's perfect for her; he's one of the best men I've ever met. But she wants a tall, dark and handsome arrogant twat man to come along on a horse and sweep her off her feet.

I don't agree with settling for someone just because they're there, and having DCs with them, because it's not fair on anyone. Imagine realising that the person you married married you because they had given up and you were there, rather than because they wanted you?

Finally, you never know when the right person for you will come along. Friends of my parents have just gotten married - he's in his 70s, widowed, she's in her 60s, never married, and they are now incredibly happy together. I bet both of them never thought they'd meet someone that late in life.

LeninGrad · 27/01/2010 14:31

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

LurcioLovesFrankie · 27/01/2010 14:34

Serenity - maybe it's not that your friend is waiting for an arrogant twat, maybe she just doesn't fancy him. I have an absolutely lovely male friend, we have loads in common, he's funny, kind and adores DS, in all respects he would be ideal... except that I couldn't go to bed with him. And trying to and lying back and thinking of England would be unfair to both of us.

I think a lot of people here are maybe confusing having some sort of ludicrous romantic ideal that no real person could live up to with realising that some sort of sexual desire is a necessary (though not for a moment a sufficient) condition for a successful relationship.

LadyintheRadiator · 27/01/2010 14:39

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

mistletoekisses · 27/01/2010 14:44

Lurcio - interesting about your friend.

In my early twenties, I dated a fantastic guy. But ended it after 18 months because the chemistry had gone. You know why? Because he was too nice. The excitement had gone and I wanted someone more exciting. I thought surely this isn't it??

Fast forward 3 months...I met that exciting person. He was charismatic, charming etc etc and as a result the chemistry was amazing. He swept me off my feet. I dated him for 12 months and during that time, he eroded my self esteem and confidence. He was an arrogant nasty piece of work. It was only then that I realised that I had a warped sense of what I found 'sexy and exciting'.

I stayed single for quite some time after that and worked on figuring me out. Sounds obvious, but I totally realised that nice = sexy. Not nice = boring. Then I met DH. Top bloke - thoroughly decent and reliable. In my books now, those qualities are what make him uber sexy....

I guess I just wonder whether there is unrealistic image of longer term relationships and romance. I know I had it in my twenties...then I grew up.

LurcioLovesFrankie · 27/01/2010 15:05

Misteltoe - I wasn't for a moment suggesting sexy equals "mad, bad and dangerous to know" - nice men (I know from experience) can be great in bed. Just suggesting that neither should one make the opposite mistake of thinking nice on its own is enough.

MmeLindt · 27/01/2010 17:02

posting to mark my place

alypaly · 27/01/2010 17:33

why is it when you get to my age ,its all the weirdos that are left or is it me

MorrisZapp · 27/01/2010 17:41

Ooh Tim Minchin, is that the one 'if I hadn't met you.... somebody else would do'? Bloody brilliant. Absolutely agonisingly truthful.

I'm lol'ing a bit at the 'heading towards 30' stuff. In my circle, we're all heading towards 40 and none of us have had easy answers to the soulmate question.

I've settled, but overall I'm happy. My best friend has settled too, I think she's happy.

And my other friend is frantically hunting down every man between the ages of 18 - 70 in a ten mile radius to see if any of them want to have kids with her before her uterus slams shut.

There is no one size fits all - on one hand, you don;t want to be in a crap relationship just for the sake of having a partner. But on the other, you may be lonely for a very long time if you're seeking out an ideal partner.

BrahmsThirdRacket · 27/01/2010 17:41

What about when you reach the age of 40 and, though you have been married 15 years and have two DC, you just find out that your DH has been having a longterm affair since just after the first was born? Happened to someone I know. Suddenly single doesn't sound so bad...

scottishmummy · 27/01/2010 17:45

hate phrase settle dont sounds like going to knackers yard,clapped out,thrown to settle

i never have and never will settle

MorrisZapp · 27/01/2010 17:47

'Made a rational decision based upon experience and current options' - does that sound any better?

scottishmummy · 27/01/2010 17:48

hate phrase settle down evocative of it is formaldehyde time already

BrahmsThirdRacket · 27/01/2010 17:50

I love that Tim Minchin song:

'I'm not undervaluing what we have when I say, that given the role chance inevitably plays, and the inherently flawed notion of fate, it's abstruse to deduce that I found my soulmate at the age of 17. It's just mathematically unlikely that at a university in Perth I happened to stumble on the one girl on earth specifically designed for me.'

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