Is it true most men would rather be with women under 35?

[adjani77]

Unfortunately for me I have been reading a lot online on the "manosphere" recently and a lot about what men think about women ( or a certain kind of man). Talk about "Sexual market Value" which basically amount to women of 30+ are basically hideous monsters to men their own age and older. I see this to on dating websites where men mostly are prepared to date women 10 - 15 years younger but will often not even want to date women the same age as them!

In the press recently 2 high profile men Stephen Hendry and Rowan Atkinson have both left their wives for women half their age (both women are also dead ringers for the 1st wives!).

I find it really depressing. I understand that we can get attracted to other people but if you have a good marriage, if your man is getting love, sex, affection and friendship surely he will have no reason to stray right?

I just don't know. Perhaps I am just worried about getting older 40 in a few years and how will that affect my partners satisfaction with me?

It seems that even men who are happy and love their wives / partners can fall in love with someone else, someone younger and transfer their love and affection to another. I guess I just need to accept that nothing is ever certain in life.

Has anyone else read any of that manosphere stuff about women and SMV etc what do you think?

[worsestershiresauce]

Neil

However.... the younger second wives to the wealthy banker types I have come across are middle class, educated, university graduates, in naice jobs but not talented enough to be going anywhere career wise. Not a barbie among them... and the men tend to be charming well preserved 40 somethings not old scrotes.

I very much doubt these women would be half so enthusiastic about similar looking men on salaries comparable to what they earn themselves. I also very much doubt they'd hang around if the money miraculously vanished.

Just my observations on the group of people I know, not a hard and fast rule before someone jumps on me and declares everything I have said to be absolute fiction!

[neiljames77]

I can understand the wealthy banker or pilot that looks like George Clooney being attractive to women under 35 (or any age for that matter).

I'm talking about blokes so old that they need to put their balls on roller skates to stop them chaffing on the floor.

[worsestershiresauce]

Ah yes the Hefners of the world. Lovely blokes.

[stephaniethehiker]

DavidF

Interestingly enough, I don't think it was actually about nice things and sex in my case.

Trust me, the 'pleasure' of going to a luxury boutique hotel, or a posh restaurant, with the staff snickering at you, and other middle aged men leering and laughing at you, because they think you're being paid to be there, isn't really all that.

It was creepy the way the older men were often were desperately keen - like Komarovsky and Lara in Dr Zhivago - for me to be publicly seen out with them. So they being socially inept and mistaking any attention for good attention got what they thought of as an ego boost, and I got the sniggers and the nudges. Or they'd try to manipulate social situations so they could 'accidentally' show me to their colleagues in a very see what I can pull way. It was really, really, fucking horrible.

Allegedly, you're meant to be benefiting from the older man's worldliness and life experience. But their worldliness wasn't all it seemed? They were relying on me not being experienced enough to call them on it?

So my 'friend' the copper was actually thought of in CID as a bit of a weirdo and wasn't progressing in his career, or my 'boyfriend' the businessman was up to his eyeballs in debt and dodgy deals.

Thinking back, I was actually not used to going out socially and just looking like and being treated like a normal person:

From my parents behaviour, I'd been socialised into thinking that every time I went out I had to 'cover' for someone behaving in an odd way, and the experience of, y'know ... just being out with a friend or a date your own age, and relaxing, and not having everyone smirking at you, was alien to me. I always thought I had to be the social caretaker of any situation, which is something I'm still working on.

And also being brought up in a very sexist family: men were entitled to get something they wanted, whereas women were lucky to get someone who was 'nice' to them and wanted them.

[Twinklestein]

worcestershiresauce

Most of my old city colleagues are married to people around their age. My husband still works in the city, the colleagues of his that I know are married to spouses of similar ages. He has one who is married to a younger woman, but then he also has one (female) who is married to a younger man. I don't know that you can generalise on your immediate circle.

I do know a woman who will not date a man who earns under 100 grand, and my brother in law has just been dumped by his wife because he doesn't earn enough to keep a £3million townhouse, 4 children at boarding school, and a house abroad. She thinks she can do better...

Some women want money the way some men want looks or youth, but I don't think they're representative of the population as a whole, and in either scenario how many actually get what they want?

[olathelawyer05]

Darkesteyes - I think you've misunderstood the chronology. I am the one arguing that an older man/younger woman relationships CAN be perfectly genuine. Others are hinting that there must be something wrong with these older men (and by extension I suppose, the young women).

It was said that these younger women must surely only be with the older men for their money (ie. that they wouldn't be with the men if they were on a basic state pension etc.).

I countered this generalisation by explaining that no woman - regardless of her age - goes 'looking' for a poor man, and so this could not be used as a stick with which to beat older men/younger women relationships with. I was actually defending you as the 'younger' woman as well as defending the older men. I hope that makes sense.

[DavidFlattenborough]

Stephanie

Onwards and upwards, eh?

[neiljames77]

If they were confident that it was true love and money wasn't the issue, why would there be a need for pre-nup agreements?

[olathelawyer05]

Neil - Because being in love (and under the influence) is no excuse for being naive!!

Anyway, if the younger women is quite happy to waive her claims against the older man's assets (assuming the agreement is enforceable), that may actually tend to suggest that she honestly isn't in it for the money IYSWIM.

[neiljames77]

I don't see it as naivety. I see it as a complete lack of trust right from day 1. Hardly the ideal platform to start a committed relationship.
I think love is being confused with a mutually beneficial agreement here.

[Suzannewithaplan]

[Xmasbaby11]

If you're talking about men looking for a new partner, yes they often want a younger woman.

[olathelawyer05]

Well Neil, if that is your view of pre-nups in general, then OK. However, the use of pre-nups is not exclusive to 'lecherous' older rich men looking to protect themselves in marriages with 'gold-digger' younger women. They they could just save themselves a lot of hassle by not getting married at all.

If we're going to be sceptical about age-gap marriages simply because there is a pre-nup, then logic dictates that we should also be sceptical about ALL marriages where there is a pre-nup, most of which don't feature any particular age-gap at all.

[neiljames77]

I was thinking more along the lines of Elizabeth Taylor marrying that builder. It just strikes me as a bit hypocritical to sign one piece of paper after saying 'til death us do part....and another that says if we split, you can't have my money.

[worsestershiresauce]

Twinkle and how many of those have a bit on the side ? Seriously though, every single senior exec (and I'm talking proper senior exec not middle management) at one place I know of was either on their second wife, or shagging someone from the office.
However, as I made clear before:

'Just my observations on the group of people I know, not a hard and fast rule before someone jumps on me and declares everything I have said to be absolute fiction!'

However I am prepared to stand by the assertion that money and power have a magnetic pull on knicker elastic.

[Fairyliz]

My husband is 50 and works at a university. I asked him after an open day last year if he and his colleagues check out the young students. His answer ' urgh no that would be pervy; however we did see some nice mums!'
So no to answer the original question I think most men like to look at attractive women but in their own age group.

[Twinklestein]

I find generalisations about the city quite tiresome tbh. 'One place I know of' - did you ever actually work there? How do you come to know the love lives of an entire firm?

I agree some women want money, desperately from what I've seen, just as some men are looking for beauty or youth, I said so above.

[worsestershiresauce]

FFS Twinkle I'm usually nice on here, but would you lay off me. How many times do I have to say it:

'Just my observations on the group of people I know, not a hard and fast rule before someone jumps on me and declares everything I have said to be absolute fiction!'

I'm not generalising. I'm NOT giving a hard and fast rule. I am talking about people I know directly.

Yes I did work in the City. Yes I am still very much in that world. Yes I did know the love lives of the entire executive Board as that's the level I socialise in, but not the entire firm. Obviously. God only knows what the rest of the firm got up to, but I suspect they were a little more grounded.

I will return to being nice now

[neiljames77]

It all depends what we're talking about. Of course most men will look at women in their 20's etc, that's natural. Are we talking about just sex, a relationship or a marriage of convenience?

[Twinklestein]

Have you been at the sauce, worcester? Total over-reaction.

First you say "awful lot of 40something men", subsequently a "group of people [you] know", then you bite my head off because what you're saying is not clear.

[Suzannewithaplan]

well he would say that wouldnt he, Fairyliz...

[Nestabee]

I have a few lovely single male friends (late 30s/early 40s) and they wouldn't consider a woman older than early 30s, mid 30s was the absolute max. Whereas when they were younger they were fine with women being the same age or older than them. So there is something about a mid 30s limit sadly.

The reason being is that they want a family but they don't want to have to race the relationship 'down the aisle and into the nursery' due to the woman's biological clock. I think that is sad but understandable. They want the relationship to unfold naturally and have a few years before having to make decisions relating to having a family.

[RyvitaSesame]

I haven't read manosphere (it sounds terrible) but I did find, on my brief attempt to do online dating that I was getting no hits. Despite being in my early forties and in good nic, men even TEN years older than I am were not selecting women in my age group.

So in a way I agree with the OP that men who do OLD are often delusional. If they were that charismatic or handsome they wouldn't be online.

I think I've gone past being sad or upset about it. I just accept now that I'm too old to get a date. (It is lonely, but I don't want to date wankers, and i certainly don't want to date wankers 15 years older than I am.)

[neiljames77]

You are NOT too old to get a date in your 40's ffs.
Don't bother with online dating. People set parameters because they get visions in their head.

[RyvitaSesame]

Well, I know that neiljames77, you don't have to tell me! But...... oh, I don't know. I never meet anybody in real life. But yet, I got no 'hits' on on line dating. I can say this because it's anonymous but I look pretty/attractive in a non-threatening kind of way. I'm no carmen electra, more of a kate silverton :-p so, it's not that I'm UNattractive, I'm good company I think, I'm good humoured, I can find humour in most things, I'm interested in what's going on around me, I can get on with men easily, but I think it's that no man goes on to do internet dating and selects a woman of *43. Ykwim. So, I don't know, maybe I need to go salsa dancing,.......... and meet loads of other women. And tbh, I wouldn't mind, I'd have a laugh. I like other women. Maybe if I had fewer female friends, and didn't enjoy the company of women, I'd have been more motivated to get off my ass and sort out a boyfriend for myself! Gosh. That was an exhausting little vent there.