Have I missed the boat at 36?

[UnderTheLilacTree]

I turned 36 last week and I’m having a bit of a wobble. I’ve been divorced three years (no children) and have spent most of that time in therapy, working on myself (exH was physically and mentally abusive) and enjoying being single.

I dipped my toe into dating earlier this year and started dating a guy four years younger than me. I broke things off quickly after he started making some unkind comments about my age. Namely: “there’s got to be something wrong with you to be left on the shelf” and “I’ve told my friends you’re my age. I’m too embarrassed to admit I’m with an old woman.” He also questioned whether I was still fertile and wanted to know if my eggs had ‘dried up.’

While the man is long gone, I can’t get his words out of my head. I’ve started therapy again but I can’t help but feel he’s got a point and I’ve missed the boat for meeting someone and potentially having children.

Could I have some honest opinions on whether it is too late for me?

This topic comes up a lot in here.

There are some women who also subscribe to the cliched "35 cliff" belief and I was actually told by a poster I was embarrassing myself when I said I thought most women were ok til 40. I then had a Google and found the NHS fertility main page state that 90% of women under 40 fall pregnant within two yrs of trying. I quoted and oddly there was little response from that poster.

In my real life experience & observation the NHS figures would appear to be pretty accurate.
It seems like the real cliff for many women is 41/42 a f research seems to be corroborating that. Of course there are women who.go on beyond that - when I was growing up two women I knew (neighbour a d school mate's mum) fell.pregnant unplanned at 45. I think.skne people start taking risks then, thinking they're past it and find out they're not. There are also shocked, freaked out forty something's on the pregnancy choices board on here nearly every day.

This all does vary by person of course.sonif you are really concerned I'd have a fertility check done - there are clinics that do it fir not a huge amount of money. It's not definitive/perfect but certainly better than nothing.

There are also basic fertility tests OTC, and of course you can use ovulation trackers to do a basic check on ovulation.

Man's a twat!
Well done for working that out early on.
You are in your prime, nowhere near missing the boat
you have another 20+ years of your prime

3 years ago I met up with a group of old school friends - we were all 38/39.
One of my old friends was really down because she was still single and desperately wanted a family. Now she is happily married and expecting her first baby!

I'm 53 years young and still laughing at daft jokes, farting, and all kinds of daft! 36 is positively a prime age. You've got so much ahead of you, just grab on to it and enjoy your days.

As to your ex's comments; what an absolute fkg twat.

First off you're four yrs older than him, not fourteen. That's not much of a gap.

Secondly, like many men (and some women) he's really ignorant about fertility. I've heard similarly laughable things from men "menopause is at 35" - I had to tell him that the average age for menopause is about 51/52 .. an ex colleague (who is a space cadet to be fair) said Kate Middleton had had to rush having kids urgently because she was "old" to have kids (I think he was 30/31 when she had her first and had obviously since had two more).

What makes me laugh, coming from the border of NI and the ROI is that, until.recently, the churches had such a grip of people's behaviour and contraception that many many women had kids from when they married til peri menopause (usually early to mid 40s) and noone gave it a second thought. It was not uncommon at all for people's later kids to be around the same age as their eldest grandkids.

In summary; he's a stupid wanker.

You're probably fine but if you're worried you could have done checks done and depending on the conclusions and/of if you're really motivated abd have the money, you could also have some eggs frozen (,this is not perfect either I believe but might be worth looking into).

I agree with everyone else. He is a twat and you’re well rid.

I’m 36, I was married but I’m widowed now and have been since I was 33. I don’t believe for one second that I’m too old to ever meet another man and won’t resign myself to settling for singledom or dating asseholes!!

36 is still young OP. Most of the women I know start having families at that age. My cousin is 42 and pregnant with her first now. If it bothers you that much, could you freeze some eggs? Just to take the pressure off so you can concentrate on yourself for a bit.

Well he is a charmer isnt he?! Well shot of him .You dodged a bullet there I think .Whether you want children or not ,or can have them is nothing to do with him ,he should love you not a potential baby making machine FFS!

What a tosser. Well done for ditching him as quickly as you did.