I thought this was a really interesting read, and it made me wonder what I would do if I were facing that decision. Also, many of my girlfriends are in (or close to) this demographic, and I wonder if any of them will make that choice when the time comes.
http://nymag.com/thecut/2015/01/real-reason-women-freeze-their-eggs.html#MLi4w0:psJ
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Good read. I could totally relate. I got married late-ish at 34 and experienced a lot of those same situations. Our generation of men is definitely different. But something to consider. In the past, both men and women got married young because it was expected of them. Society dictated it. In the 60s things began to change. Now men feel like they have choices in the same way women feel they have choices. I think in some way, men feel liberated to choose not to marry if they don't want to. But as the author said, if they were honest about it, that's fine! It's when they string women along who do want commitment that's the issue. Anyway, I'm now 37 and have 1 DS that we had right after we got married but can't seem to get pregnant again due to diminished ovarian reserve.
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Interesting article. I'm not surprised about the key demographic of people freezing their eggs, actually. I kind of assumed that's who it was. I'm still a couple years away from that age but I wonder if any of my single friends will choose this when the time comes.
I already know I probably wouldn't have- I just don't think there is any way I could have afforded it on my own, sadly.
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Yep, that could have been me...relationship that began when I was 24, that should have ended when I was 25, but instead went on until I was 31. NYC is very competitive in terms of the dating pool and it is a fact that as you get older, the pickings are slimmer and you might have to make compromises where you wouldn't have at the age of 25.
Regarding egg freezing, I would have probably done it if at the age of 35, I was not in a relationship.
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This rings so true! Now, when I was single and dating, I was in the South (southwest?) and generally people are still more eager to marry. However, that often means they marry off quite early so if you are 30+ and still unmarried as a women, you are quite a rare bird indeed!
I dated a lot, a lot!, in my 20's but yes the large majority of that was a relationship from 23-29 that ultimately wasn't "going anywhere", not because neither of us wanted to marry but because on some level we just knew we didn't want to marry each other. We each married the next serious person we dated, and had kids the same year too! haah Funny how those things work out.
As far as my other 30+ girlfriends back in Texas, they are all in "serious" relationships now, although two of them are with men 10 years older who have already been married once before. So it does seem that in the south, a 30+ unmarried woman is the same "level" as a 40+ once married man. Interesting.
For other single unmarried, I recommend looking towards other cultures for men. American men these days aren't so keen on settling down, but there are tons of south Asian men in the US who are highly educated, have good jobs, and just haven't gotten around to marriage even though it's very important to them and their families.
Although that wasn't what I was "looking for" when I met my husband, that was what I found. When my girl friends were doing the awkward dance with their American boyfriends of "are we just dating or are we exclusive?" "how can I find out if he's interested in marriage without appearing too eager and scaring him off?"
And that was never an issue with my husband. He was absolutely looking for the right person to marry, wasn't embarrassed of saying so, and he always drove the pace of our relationship-I was never left to wonder what was going on in our relationship, because he was always one step ahead of me on that front. It was a really nice change of pace that I didn't even realize I wanted until I had it!
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@travellingbee: Oh yes, I could DEFINITELY relate to the part about this generation of men being different. Thank goodness my DH wasn't one of them!
@Foodnerd81: @looch: I spent most of my single days in NYC, so I could really relate to the author. I probably wouldn't have been able to afford to do it, assuming I was still in a similar financial situation (in addition to the financial/emotional burden of being a single parent if it ended up that way). But I always wanted to have children, so maybe I would have found a way?
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@Anagram: omg, now that you mention it, I did the same thing. I married a European!
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@Anagram: @looch: Ditto to marrying outside of the US! All the issues I had with American boyfriends were completely out of the picture when I met DH.
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@looch: @lamariniere: twinsies! (or triplets?)
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I enjoyed that read this morning. Thanks!
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@Anagram: This is SO true. The demographic I have of friends from So Cal vs the midwest is so different as far as marriage and kids go. A friend of mine from college (in the midwest) is 29 and just moved to Portland, Oregon, and LOVES that she can be single and free and that people aren't always assuming she wants to be married RIGHT THIS VERY SECOND or harassing her about it.
Now i wonder if she'll marry a European
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Yet another reason I am glad I didn't follow the mass migration to NYC after college. Not that it's ONLY an issue there, but it's definitely exaggerated there!
I, too, married someone from outside the U.S. I also was much happier being with someone who was clear about his intentions. I wouldn't say he was marriage-minded from the start, but I never had doubts about whether we were dating/together/etc. It was clear.
That is something I found so lame about so many men I met long the way! I always thought, if I were a man, I would get all the chicks because I would ask them all on dates, for starters. Instead of being lame and trying to "hang out" with them on a nebulous level for years at a time. Yuck.
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I've already started talking to my older daughter about breaking up with people and how it's okay and a normal to not marry the first prince you meet. I feel like I saw so many of my friends and me included to an extent get involved in these long-term relationships that were not going to work but we were hung up on an idea of first love being the only one. Well that's fine to an extent but most of these first love relationships lasted years after one partner had checked out. But it's a tricky balance of knowing when a relationship is worth staying in fighting for and not kicking it to the curb at the first sign of trouble and knowing when it's time to move on.
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When I was dating in NYC it felt so pointless. I met my husband at 31 but he was 5 years younger than me so we waited until I was 34 to try for a babe. The year before I met him I was also thinking of trying to do it on my own if it didn't happen by a certain age and to some degree that did liberate me dating wise although it was scary as hell. I know a NYC woman who got knocked up on the pill and because of her age did it on her own. It was so incredibly hard but now her son is 4 and she just got engaged to a wonderful man. I don't think she will ever regret having him even though she definitely had a very hard time with the initial demands of solo parenting. Articles like this make me so sad because I really do feel like a lot of men just don't want to grow up and it's harder to date these days. Thanks for sharing.
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@lamariniere: Such an interesting read. Thank you for sharing!
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I think it can be dangerous to blame the other gender for dating issues, even if there's a grain of truth.
I remember back in high school, a bunch of my guy friends would bemoan how girls dated bad boys and not nice guys. There was a lot of talk about how women were to blame... meanwhile, a few of my friends figured out that they just lacked confidence. And that if you were nice and confident, things tended to work out a lot better.
Not saying that the answer here is so simple. But I think blaming the opposite gender for issues isn't always productive. And also, the disproportionate impact the recession has had on men is a pretty big factor that wasn't really discussed in this article. I thought this article touched on that more:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/11/all-the-single-ladies/308654/
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@mamimami: YES to everything in your second paragraph. That was totally my experience with DH too. I didn't have to deal with any of this "should I wait until Tuesday afternoon to send a follow-up text" nonsense.
@Maysprout: that's something I really want to instill in my daughter is the feeling of empowerment and not wasting her time with some guy who is just stringing her along. I mean, I don't think every relationship she is in needs to be with marriage/family in mind, but just to generally be on the same page as her SO and know when it's time to let someone go, whatever the reasons.
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@Anagram: Oh yes. And I can attest to the southern part. Where your measure of self-worth is getting married to your high school sweetheart, or, if you were the progressive sort, your college sweetheart. And if you were unmarried after college? Damaged goods, lady.
When DH and I found each other, we both had the same excuse for neglecting to get married before our early 30's...our education and careers. I'm so glad everyone else put him in the friend-zone, lol!
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@mrbee: thanks for posting that article, I printed it out to read later.
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God I hated dating.
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Thanks for sharing this. I kind of want to send it to my mom.
My sister is 30 and single and it freaks my mom out. I got married young ish (24) and had kids young (26). I wouldn't have had kids so early except we thought I might be infertile since I have a lot of health problems and we wanted to start trying. But now my mom thinks that's normal (disregarding I had two kids by age 27, and she wasn't even married at that age!)
Any time she hear's of someone 25+ who is single she asks, "why?" It drives me crazy. DH's aunt for married at 41 and had a kid at 42. My mom asked why she hadn't gotten married earlier. I told her because she hadn't met her husband earlier. She got kind of huffy about that, haha. She always asks me if I think there is something "wrong" with her. Umm...no! She always has a date or a boyfriend. But it's a lot of married to their career types. And a lot of those careers involve travel.
Anyway my sister is thinking about freezing her eggs. She isn't sure if she wants the marriage and kids thing in the first place.
Sorry this is kind of rambling. It causes a lot of stress in the family. (My mom stressing about it to everyone, that is!)
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@Maysprout: gah I did that. Dragged a relationship out two years after it had died.
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@lamariniere: such a good read! Thanks for sharing! I totally feel the same about raising my daughter. I want her to be confident and comfortable being single and be surrounded by really great friends (both guys and girls) so that she doesn't waste her time being caught up in a relationship that doesn't make her happy
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@lamariniere: really good article. thank you for sharing.
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@lamariniere: Thanks for sharing this! A very interesting read. I have too many friends like this, and my heart aches for them. I was there too. Dating was a horrible, dark time in my life and I hope that somehow, my kids will not have to go through that before they meet their loves.
@mrbee: that is also a very good point! I'm sure that it is also a huge factor. DH and I went from feeling well off as singles, and then a couple with no kids, to feeling pretty poor now that we realize we can't quite afford to give our kids more of our time, or a nice place to live, or a good school district. I'm sure guys who look ahead and see that coming think many times before deciding to have kids.
I hope my son doesn't decide that being single is so great... lol. Maybe I'm just hormonal and sensitive right now, but I keep thinking about what will happen when all my single friends are old and there is no one to make the indignities of old age easier
I spent some time in the ER this spring and can't shake the memory of some of the people I saw there all alone.
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I see so many of my friends going through this. Dating is hard, dating in NYC (and other big cities) seems to be super hard. Seems like everyone is waiting for the next best thing. And none of my friends have the money to freeze their eggs, some of them have resigned themselves to never having children, while others are hopeful it will still happen in the next couple of years.
Since I'm a hetero woman, I can only speak to my dating experience with men and I found it to be like pulling teeth. It finally got better for me when I stayed true to what I wanted which was a long-term partner (not necessarily marriage) and children. I stopped dating just to date, even if the guy was gorgeous
I ended things quickly, I told the guys what I was looking for early on and if we weren't on the same page then he was gone. I think both men and women need to be honest with each other, it's okay if you just want to have fun, just go do that with someone else! It's sad to watch my friends go through this lather, rinse, repeat cycle of wanting to find someone long-term and trying to reshape themselves and play a game of Tetris to fit into the guy's life in the hopes that he is the one only to be strung along.I met my husband at 28 and we married at 31, had our LO right before my 33rd birthday. I'll be 37 soon and we want another but I'm not ready yet.
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@Anagram: @looch: @lamariniere: @mamimami: Quintuplets! I just got the chance to read the replies
I also married outside of the U.S. I'm from the west coast and I remember feeling the same way. There was a point when my friends got together and talked about just getting pregnant (and not wait for a man). At the time, I wasn't interested in having children, but a few of my girlfriends were serious. It's interesting to know that our conversion back then is apparently a topic every single female in her mid-late 20's talk about.
Btw, I told my DH about this article while cooking dinner and his initial response was, "maybe the guys they'd be interested in don't live in NYC". I know that's a sweeping generalization, because there are prefectly decent guys that want to settle down in NYC, but I think he has a point. But then again, I ended up with a European
I spent some time in the ER this spring and can't shake the memory of some of the people I saw there all alone.
I ended things quickly, I told the guys what I was looking for early on and if we weren't on the same page then he was gone. I think both men and women need to be honest with each other, it's okay if you just want to have fun, just go do that with someone else! It's sad to watch my friends go through this lather, rinse, repeat cycle of wanting to find someone long-term and trying to reshape themselves and play a game of Tetris to fit into the guy's life in the hopes that he is the one only to be strung along.
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