So what are the chances of meeting a life partner at 45 ?

[darlingish]

In a nutshell met ex h at 18 and was married at 19 , had 4 dc and now at 45 I'm single !
Been separated 18 mths and started divorce proceedings.
Was very unhappy for many years and am blessed to be free now .
Met a lovely man in the spring and had my first romance and although I love him to bits and vice versa it cannot last for many reasons .
Wrong time wrong place .
When he leaves which he will early next year we will be friends for life and may well come back together one day but certainly for the next 5 years he will be on the other side of the world .
So ... I have 4 dc, 2 at home still .
I have a a demanding job .
No family support so very busy , ie up at 6 and don't stop until 11 every day as ex rarely sees his dc.
I do know that I need to be happy on my own and not rely on a man to make me happy , so that a future relationship will enhance my life not be the sole making of it iykwim.
Kind of feel like the next ten years is my time to get happy , enjoy life and my dc and do the dating I never did in my youth .
I read on the internet that apparently a woman finding a life partner in her mid forties is more likely to be killed in an accident !
It's made me think OMG .
I know it's ok to be single but after the summer romance I've had with my lovely man friend I would so love to share the rest of my life with the right person ( pref him but hey ho ) .

So what are the odds ?
Is it really that bad out there ?

Maybe the possibly yearned for younger trophy wife is the icing on the cake of the successful career and sorted life. in some cases.

Im a childfree by choice married woman of 42 but will add my opinion anyway.

Because having come down from a size 28 down to a size 14 i have experienced shallow attitudes while out and about generally.
In the last couple of years ive been asked out by a 21 year old and a 59 year old. So seem to attract right across the age spectrum.

Re. the slim thing....men seem to expect that but then also expect you to meet them for a coffee and CAKE and share TAKEAWAYS with them etc. I know this from reading the dating threads on here last year. Now if a woman like me accepted dates like that regularly the weight would soon pile back on. Yet if i started acting like a "picky eater" ( because staying slim doesnt just happen fellas....im not an object or an ornament. I have to work on it) i could just imagine not getting any further dates because they wouldnt want to date someone who "nibbles on lettuce leaves all the time"

Cant have it both ways.

I'm a mid-50's man, divorced three years after long marriage. I'm trim and fit (running and football). Not stereotypically handsome but regularly mistaken for one of several celebs. I have a professional career, a good income, great flat and car. I dress very well, in clothes that actually fit. I'm smart and funny and kind.

I don't deserve a younger woman. Nor do I deserve an overweight, unpleasant woman of my own age.

To catch my interest at all, a woman must have a nice face, figure, and disposition. Age doesn't enter into it directly - I have a first date this week with a slightly older woman. But unattached women of my age with a nice face, figure, and disposition are rare. That's why I date mostly younger women. Without shame or apology.

man .....why do you associate overweight with unpleasant.

I would NEVER EVER online date. And the experiences ive seen on threads on here and some posters just serve to strengthen this resolve.

Helena I don't think he does. I read it that those were traits he found unattractive e.g. overweight, unpleasant. For the record, there are overweight and/or unpleasant men out there.

I'm all for a big bloke but not a fat git. Or a slim git either. (I shouldn't be posting here, I'm married but I've still got an opinion.)

I would NEVER EVER online date. And the experiences ive seen on threads on here and some posters just serve to strengthen this resolve.

I would never date anyone I met via work, and I rarely went to bars. As a single parent working full time OLD was great for me. I would chat on line to guys for ages before deciding whether to meet. (4 months for DH). Never had any bad experiences, met some lovely guys, still in touch with some and went to a wedding last year of one of them.

You do need a thick skin for OLD but it can work. As disheartening as some of the attitudes are, at least they are flagged up quite early. Only want to date a woman 10 years younger than you? Fine, even though I'm 10 years younger, I'm not interested. Happy with an age gap in either direction? OK, that's not a bad start, let's go from there.

"unattached women of my age with a nice face, figure, and disposition are rare. That's why I date mostly younger women. Without shame or apology."

You see, I could say the same thing. I'm much more likely to find a 35 year old who fits my criteria than a 45 year old. (Though nice dispositions are just rare, regardless of age. It's not like you get nastier as you get older, though you do tend to get better at knowing your own mind and not putting up with any shit). And what happens when that nice slim young woman with a good figure and face gets a bit older? Do you just upgrade?

On the whole though I'm more worried about other things than someone's age. I think about whether or not they're ageist, but not so much about their age.

I'm a woman fast approaching 50.
I'm slm, attractive, well dressed. But I would never fancy a man in his 50's. I tend to find men between 30 & 40 the most attractive, but I'd never want a relationship with one because they're just too young & I'd feel ridiculous.
That's why I wouldn't bother at my age.

@helena: @toasted is right, I don't assume those things go together, there are unpleasant thin women and happy heavy ones.

@toasted, @gabilan, @surfer: Yes, there are lots of fat, unpleasant, and old men out there. Attraction can't be negotiated, so women are right to pass on men that don't do it for them.

@anyone: OD doesn't work well for me either. I think it's even harder online than IRL to find a woman of like age with a nice FF&D, so I'm more focused on the younger ones, but most of them seem to have "hard" age screens (as they have every right to). Plus I'm not terribly photogenic, a huge disadvantage in that medium.

But IRL works great. I try to make sure she's having fun and feeling a range of emotions. I make my attraction very clear but also give the (accurate) impression that rejection - at least by someone I just met - doesn't faze me. A lot of women who would surely age-screen me online are nonetheless intrigued IRL. When they ask my age, I have them guess first. They always guess low, usually five to 15 years. I do look young for my age (all my hair and no grey, great shape, best-dressed man in the room) but I think it's mostly attitude.

I wish you all much happiness.

My stepmother met my dad when she was in her fifties. They seem exceptionally happy many years later.

I'd also note that my dad was single and looking for a woman in her forties or fifties for a little while, as a widowed father of three and I'm a little at the comments saying that you won't meet a decent single man of that age. Sometimes life (or in his case, cancer) happens and anyone can end up alone.

Then something new comes along.

This what a load of rubbish. I am fifty and have dated all age ranges normally younger. An many of these men have been attractive and a catch/

Well it's not rubbish in my experience.

I haven't dismissed other people's experiences, but I don't share them.

My beloved dh was 49 when we met he's late fifties now and gorgeous

I know of 7 people that came out of long term relationships/marriages at the beginning of their 40's, myself included.
We're now mid forties and six out of seven of us are in relationships with lovely men. Two of them met their partners through OLD. The seventh is happily single by choice.
There seemed to be a lot of people of both sexes around that were in the same age group and situation I found when I was dating.

Me too dating in my mind forties was way easier than my thirties. As peasareevil says lots of people coming out of ltr looking for settled stable partners who appreciate them.

Personally I wouldn't be very interested in a man who was a lot older than me (55+) simply as men tend to have slightly shorter lifetimes anyway, and at 46 that makes even more of a difference! But I can't relate to the idea that there are no good lookers at that age. Maybe I am just lucky enough to be turned on by big hefty hairy types rather than skinny, babyfaced youths?

Kind of feel like the next ten years is my time to get happy , enjoy life and my dc and do the dating I never did in my youth
Sounds good to me! Almost a shame to settle down.

What is a life partner, anyway? I had a partner for 20 years who turned out not to be for life.

After I was widowed aged 42 I met up with a previous acquaintance when I was at a mutual friend's party. We married when I was 44 and we have been blissfully happy for 27 years. Our dc were all teenagers when we married and we now share 9 amazing grandchildren. Yes it can happen.

My friend asked her DH for a divorce last year when she turned 50 (he was serial adulterer) and one year later is madly in love with a great man.

Another friend has always been single/dating and meets lots of nice men OLD and has just met someone she is a bit more serious about. But she says there are lots of nice men to meet online in that age group.

I'm 40 and have been living with my DP for the past 8 months. We met 3.5 years ago when I was 36 and he was (very nearly) 40. I'd been separated for a year and he was very newly separated - his XW had left him to go and live with someone else a few weeks before. Neither of us were looking for a long term Relationship but that's what we got . And we're getting married next summer. I accept we've both been lucky but there are good men and women out there.

Lovely to hear all the positives.
People are bound to have bad experiences dating at any age. Leave the shit in the past where it belongs, learn from it, move on.
I think attitude is very important. Protect yourself yes, but be prepared to take a chance.

"What is a life partner, anyway?"

Yeah, unless I live to be about 90 years old, anyone I may meet from now on I would have spent more of my life without them.

It does interest me though how it's always women saying that what men like is confident women and that men like curvy women and men don't really care about age and men are looking for just the same as women...

and men say they want someone young and slim...

marking this for a good read later.

I'm OLDing at the moment and I've set my settings so that only men 7 years older than me can message me. I'm so healthy and I work out and I'm happy. So man older men were messaging me it was so depressing. Now, I don't get as many messages but the ones I do get are from people who read my profile and think, ok, maybe it'd be worth going for a coffee!? I am not inundated with messages, but there's no point being inundated with messages from much older, much fatter men. Seriously, who'd need the help of the internet to ''date down''. OLDing is making me braver in real life too, so I think, I hope, I might end up meeting somebody that way. You know how in RL, men don't know your exact age, but when it's up there like a label, they allow it to turn them off you!!!! As though ageing were something that wasn't applicable to them!

So, develop a thick skin, get a good profile and just don't settle. I have been on about five dates and only one of them was dreadful. He was older than me, boring, and he made me feel like he'd been short changed. He gave out to me that one of my photos I had sun glasses on! But I had other photos up too. He only had one photo and it was a work photo (expertly taken, flattering). He was awful in real life but he didn't see it. He seeped disappointment, in me! bleurgh! But I've a thick skin.