@ChochoCrazyCat
While the topic of this thread is clearly idiotic...I've never understood the women claiming no man meets their high standards, they "know their worth etc". I see this a lot on other threads and in real life too. Wondering where all the good men are etc. Well, clearly they're settled down with the good women. So maybe your "worth" isn't quite as high as you think it is.
It's also possible to have a career while married with children, you don't need to spend all your 20s and 30s "focusing" on it and only then entertain the idea of settling down. I mean, you can do that if you want, but it's not necessary - it's not a binary choice between career or family.
As a happily married woman myself, I have to say ime most of the “good men” and indeed the “good women” I know
didn’t end up with “good” spouses. Indeed they’ve often picked absolutely dreadful people to settle down with who take advantage of their goodness and loyalty. “Good” matches within marriages seem pretty rare. By the time my peers and I were getting to 35 a lot of marriages that happened between 27-30 were either pretty unhappy or over. I think many people felt a pressure to settle down just because they were approaching 30 and the “good” people especially felt some sort of an obligation to marry whoever they were with at that time. It definitely seemed to be more about feeling it was “the right time” rather than “the right person”. Some of the happiest marriages and relationships I know of are amidst those who met after 35...some even after 55! DH and I were sweethearts and settled down very young but if we hadn’t have had that fortune I think we might both have struggled to settle down at all. We are both cripplingly shy and both lacked confidence when we met.
I know lots of fabulous single women who are in their later 30s/40s/50s. Attractive physically, intelligent, financially independent, interesting, good people. On the other hand men around their own age are often unfit and unhealthy, addicted to porn, limited interests, not willing to share household duties, chasing after girls young enough to be their daughters, sleeping with anything that moves via apps...it’s slim pickings out there for really decent people. I can see why, if marriage and kids hasn’t happened by a certain age or if a woman never wanted it in the first place they might just choose to stay single rather than saddle themselves with what’s out there.
I do know people who have had affairs but this “phenomenon” the OP mentions hasn’t happened in my own circles. Rather it’s been two married/coupled up people or a man in his forties with an 18-25 year old junior at work.
I don’t think it’s always that women prioritise a career or “forget” to have children or really intentionally delay them. Some women genuinely don’t want anything to do with parenthood, or relationships. Other women dream of it all their lives and are sadly disappointed when no one actually steps up and wants all of that with them. My niece is almost 37 and in that exact boat. She’s genuinely gorgeous, well spoken, PhD, incredibly accomplished and the kindest most empathetic human being I’ve ever met. She would have been an incredible mother, and wife. Most men run a mile from her without giving her a chance. She’s the epitome of “scares men off” and sadly, as a result she’s been left on the shelf. She didn’t delay marriage or kids - she never had the opportunity. But most, I have to say women, see the fact that she’s got all these fancy letters after her name, her own home, decent car, excellent job etc and decide she’s must have put money/career first and was too selfish to ever have kids. Yet she’s told me she’d have given that all up in a heartbeat if it had meant she could have had a child of her own.
We can judge away but the truth is we don’t know what goes on behind closed doors.