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Original poster

What is wrong with 30-something, single women?

140 replies

Male30something · 03/08/2014 00:33

Hi there,

I hate to generalise, so I want to emphasise that what I am about to share is purely anecdotal and based on my experiences over the last couple of years. I really feel I need a female perspective hence me posting here - sorry to take up your time.

I had a couple of rewarding longterm relationships in my 20s which didn't work out for one reason or another and now aged over 30 I have started to date more seriously once again.

The problem is, single women in their 30s are totally different to 20 somethings.

I have dated semi-seriously four women in this age group over the last couple of years (one after another of course!) and I have been unable to take any of these relationships further because of one problem:

All four women are obsessed with jumping the gun and planning family/children etc. Now I appreciate women have different body pressures as they age and the fertility window is not that large, but it seems to me that all four of these lovely women value an incredible connection with a partner at a lower level than they do having children - possibly even with anyone vaguely suitable!

I haven't decided whether I want children personally, but I'm much more likely to end up wanting to have children with someone I have an amazing connection with I reckon. It is sad that so many women my age don't prioritise a loving relationship before children. All four women shared my interests eg exercise, travel, history, languages etc to varying degrees.

I'm sorry if I'm wrong on this - I'm just feeling a little dejected after a split, where for the fourth time in a row I have felt the same issues arise. I just spoke to the lovely lady in question who was upset that she will now have to wait even longer to have a child - proving my point once again. Different priorities? Where are the romantics?

OP posts:
Original poster
Male30something · 03/08/2014 01:51

Well it has been depressing for me and the woman who I have recently split with. I think it could be more depressing though if someone were to have kids with someone they didn't feel that connection with? There might be regrets later on?

I would need to be 100% sure of the relationship before having children personally.

Maybe I need to start off new relationships with that statement from now on?

PS I have gone on a date with women 10 years younger, but I find that I have had a lot less in common with me -probably because a 22 yr old is quite different to a 31 year old!

OP posts:
PlantsAndFlowers · 03/08/2014 01:51

if my fertility ended at 35, I honestly feel I would let fate decide

That's exactly what I did and met a man and had a child at 34. However I had always been ambivalent/against having children. If I'd have actually really wanted them there's no way I'd have been so cavalier.

PlantsAndFlowers · 03/08/2014 01:53

You're a bit of a numpty of you think you can ever be 100% sure of a relationship.

ElizabethArdenGreenTea · 03/08/2014 01:53

What about a woman who is already a mother? I have a lovely friend who is a single mother to a child of about 12 and she wouldn't go back, she is young enough to have children but she wouldnt go back and do it all again.

Would I be doing you an injustice to ask if you have ruled out single mothers?

ABlandAndDeadlyCourtesy · 03/08/2014 01:53

"If I'd have actually really wanted them there's no way I'd have been so cavalier."

Yy to this.

ElizabethArdenGreenTea · 03/08/2014 01:55

That's true plants and flowers. It's very hard. Sometimes, you can have feelings for somebody and think you want them, then, they reciprocate your feelings and you think, oh shit, what have I done. I find the whole dating thing very hard. Thank God I already have kids. My kids' dad is a numpty but that's another thread.

ABlandAndDeadlyCourtesy · 03/08/2014 01:55

"I think it could be more depressing though if someone were to have kids with someone they didn't feel that connection with?"

I don't get this, it's not like you are feeling the connection but then the kids thing is breaking you up. The kids thing is coming up, as it needs to, before the connection is there or not there.

It's illogical of you to judge that these women aren't looking for the connection and for kids.

GarlicAugustus · 03/08/2014 01:59

ABland, I was just about to YY quote Plants as well!

I know this is mumsnet but I do get mildly offended by the widespread assumption that adults who don't have kids are somehow living in the shadows, absent the only meaningful experience of life. My life's different from yours in numerous ways. But it is not less than yours.

SteveBackshallisMyLove · 03/08/2014 02:01

Yy to Abland and Plants

SteveBackshallisMyLove · 03/08/2014 02:04

I don't think anyone is disputing that, Garlic? What we are saying is that for women who want children as a matter of urgency are not going to have time to wait around to see of the OP has found The One or not, so relationships between the OP and those women won't be successful. And they are not "wrong" for prioritising having children over finding the connection, just as no one is "wrong" for not wanting any!
That's what I'm saying anyway! Smile

ABlandAndDeadlyCourtesy · 03/08/2014 02:05

I agree, garlic - I was more "ah, probably one day " whilst DH was more "yes, definitely". But we got together in our 20s so I don't know where I'd've been at 30 something if I wasn't with him - maybe I'd've been a " definitely - let's date men who feel the same" woman as well. And I know if I'd stayed a "maybe" into my 30s, it's pretty likely DH would have left, as we discussed that.

ElizabethArdenGreenTea · 03/08/2014 02:06

True.

I don't think I've ever gone out with somebody that I didn't feel a connection with, at the start anyway. Is the OP going out with women even though there's no connection!? How connected does the connection have to be?

BOFster · 03/08/2014 02:11

I really don't think it's a case of women who are clear they want children being happy to jump onto any vaguely pleasant passing cock: it's rather that they don't want want to waste time falling in love with a guy who doesn't share their view of the next few years. Hence they cut to the chase and make sure they don't scupper themselves by cultivating this "connection" with blokes who aren't interested in having kids in the foreseeable future. I really don't see the problem.

PlantsAndFlowers · 03/08/2014 02:15

I think we're all agreed - There is nothing wrong with 30-something, single women. Grin

WellWhoKnew · 03/08/2014 02:22

A woman has a yearning for kids.

Another woman has a yearning for partying hard.

And yet another woman wants to work on her career, forego children, and maximise her income. She works a 90 hour week. Or 60 when it suits.

And yet another woman (Gosh, there's so many of us) wishes to adopt because she has fertility issues but would prefer to bring a child up in a two-parent family.

Another woman has just realised that the clock is ticking so tries to settle down.

Another woman works out that there's no such thing as Mr. Right but trots off to a sperm bank.

Another woman abandons birth control, believing like you do 'que sera sera'.

Take your pick of these women OP. I assume you initially select a woman because she is 30+. Then you may well make assumptions regarding her appearance, her personal statements/interests (assuming you're online dating), then you'll check her out for how well the time may pass when you're meeting up, and then eventually as you get close, she'll tell you what's on her mind.

At which point you deem her unreasonable and then come to MN to whinge that 'she's just not on the same wavelength as you'.

And then you'll tell us being 30+ is means our mentality is 'wrong'.

Get.over.yourself.

wigglylines · 03/08/2014 02:23

"Again anecdotal, but none of my male friends have made a lifelong decision either way as to whether they want children or not"

That's because they have the luxury of having decades it becomes an impossibility for them.

If all your male friends were told by the doctor, that they had a biological condition which meant that they had to have kids in the next few years or it would become impossible, I guarantee you many of them would form stronger views on whether they wanted kids or not.

Bisou88 · 03/08/2014 02:35

Im 26 and this thread has only given me concern for my fertility!! lol. Im lucky i have 2 children and a loving partner.

Good luck in your endeavors OP.

LOL.

AppleAndMelon · 03/08/2014 02:42

So hang on - you want someone to throw themselves into a relationship with you wholeheartedly, emotionally, without knowing if you want a child, but you are not able to tell them whether or not you will commit to something that for a lot of people is quite important.

That doesn't sound too balanced to me.

I also think you need to redo whatever biology you did at school if you don't understand why women are in a hurry in their 30s.

alphabook · 03/08/2014 02:44

I don't understand why you expect everyone else to have exactly the same priorities as you?

For some people the most important thing is finding a life partner. Others don't care about ever getting married or settling down.

For some people the most important thing is having children, and even if they don't find their soulmate they feel complete because they have children. Others don't care about having children at all.

Why do you think others have something wrong with them because they're not exactly like you?

MorphineDreams · 03/08/2014 02:44

In fairness you really need to be making your mind up, because at the end of the day women your own age haven't got all the time in the world to create babies.

WhereYouLeftIt · 03/08/2014 02:46

OP, as a woman in her 50s, let me offer you my perspective.

What is wrong with 30-something single women? Not a thing, unless they are restricting their dating pool to 30-something single men who complain "Where are the romantics?" and witter on about how they value an "incredible connection" or an "amazing connection". I mean, really, were you raised on Mills & Boon with a side order of Love Story? (Oh, and I get just as exasperated with women who spout this crap as well, so don't feel I'm singling you out because your male. I'm not.)

"Now I appreciate women have different body pressures as they age and the fertility window is not that large" - exactly, so why are you so surprised that your anecdotal four also appreciate this fact, and are doing something about it (i.e. making it clear to potential life-partners that they consider they need to get on with it before the window closes)?

Frankly, you sound a bit - young for your age. Really, this wandering about like a fart in a trance looking for an amazing/incredible connection sounds like teenager crap. This is real life, not some floaty film. "I'm just feeling a little dejected after a split, where for the fourth time in a row I have felt the same issues arise." Well then, take the hint. Think about the issues. Stop wasting these women's time. Stop saying you appreciate their pressures, then adding to them. And FFS, get over 'romance'. It's something that has been used to diddle people for centuries, making them wistful for something unreal to the point that real life passes them by. Or, wait another 40 years for an amazing/incredible connection to come along, pining; that's your classic 'romance'.

Chiana · 03/08/2014 02:54

OP, have you considered only dating 30 something women who share your "maybe maybe" attitude to babies? It would save a lot of time for everybody if the ambivalent people just dated each other.

Morloth · 03/08/2014 03:01

So you need to find someone who is also ambivalent about having children.

There is nothing wrong with women in their 30s looking for someone to have children with.

Just as there is nothing wrong with you looking for someone who suits you.

Just in different places.

AppleAndMelon · 03/08/2014 03:15

Also, a very strong statement to make when you are talking only about four women. Take it you're not a scientist!

thestamp · 03/08/2014 03:28

Where are the romantics? is this for real? to be blunt you sound about 12???

Romance is lovely. It also lasts oooooo, about two years, three if you're lucky. then you have to have a life.

for many, MANY people, the life they want includes children.

there are millions of women out there who do not want to have children, and even more who are not sure. put that on your dating profile and, out of decency, don't pursue women who don't actively want to be childfree, or who are as ambivalent as you. it's cruel and shitty.

please just bear in mind that the vast majority of women are mercilessly pressured by society in general (and sometimes by their own family) to have children. they are told from childhood that they will be miserable, "not real women", until they do. etc. etc.

also please understand that there is a STRONG biological urge for, I would say, MOST women, to reproduce. Many of my friends had the urge peak, sometimes painfully so, in the mid thirties. It's lovely for you that you feel no urge to have children and that it is apparently an intellectual exercise for you to think about the possibility. for MANY people, it is an urge so strong and desperate that they lie awake at night obsessing about it. that's what it was like for me and i am an educated woman with plenty going for me; my body however was beyond desperate to have a baby and i would have wanted to cry with frustration if the knobber i was dating told me he would "wait and see" how he felt about having a baby. when i was mere years off from losing the opportunity to fulfill the central biological imperative of my life...

also there is no mills and boon. there is no relationship that you can be sure of. people change their minds, great loves fade to boredom, spouses die or have affairs. but for many people, children represent the true constant in life. maybe that is offensive to those with a narcissistic streak, but it is still what many people truly feel in their hearts.

why do you think human beings have a drive to have sexual relationships in the first place?
do you think it's just so we can amuse each other until we die?
get with it son... we are animals... as a species, we long to have babies...