Is no kids and never been married a red flag for an attractive woman? (wives, how to)

[Auraliea]

Originally Posted by magpiehere

These threads bug me - there is nothing wrong with being divorced or divorced mutiple times and/or having kids with random people you don't have a relationship with but GASP! Never married! Childless! Something is seriously wrong with them! OMG!


I just find it weird that failed relationships are acceptable but being unmarried is not. SMH.

Or never having been in a relationship. There's nothing wrong with having preferences but why attach a negative label? People kill me with the cherry picking.

[ThisTown123]

Originally Posted by magpiehere

These threads bug me - there is nothing wrong with being divorced or divorced mutiple times and/or having kids with random people you don't have a relationship with but GASP! Never married! Childless! Something is seriously wrong with them! OMG!


I just find it weird that failed relationships are acceptable but being unmarried is not. SMH.

A hundred x's this!

[SuperDave72]

Originally Posted by spider99

In the world of dating, men chase and women lure for the most part. I can totally see how a even a decent looking guy with his act together could end up never being married and with no kids for these reasons.

However, a woman woman with her act together that is decent looking has had an endless flow of men that would love to wife them up if we're being honest here. I ask this mainly because almost every woman my age (40's) that fits this description is REALLY hard to date from what I have experienced.

Also, this question is for other men.

Women over a certain age who are perpetually single usually don't WANT a LTR/marriage, so if that's your goal, it's probably a fool's errand.

[Lovehound]

Originally Posted by danielj72

I agree with the OP. Most people do not choose to become old maids. Most men do not choose to become permanent bachelors. Either these people don’t want to be married or they are very difficult to deal with in some way. This does not mean you should not date someone like this, but it does show that everyone else for the past 30 years who has dated this person has either been rejected or has rejected them. Not a good sign no doubt.

No, that's not even a sign at all. It is just nothing!

Okay, everybody reading this topic, this is ONLY for those of you who are NOT in a currently successful relationship: You people: tell me that every relationship in your life hasn't been a failure. You are still single, right? This is why it is not a red flag to be single with no children.

My condolences to any widows or widowers who may read this.

Originally Posted by ClaraC

People who get to 40 and still haven't met "the right person" haven't made marriage and children a priority.

That's half of my answer to this issue. I spent a lot of time I my career when I should have been looking for love, more so later in career.

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

I think people should stop looking for red flags of this sort.

Really. Virtually everybody has some sort of failures or baggage in their past.

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

For one thing, many very attractive women are approached mainly by sleazes, egotists who only want them to show them off without caring to get to know them as a person, men with control issues, guys who are insecure and intimidated by their intelligence or even modest accomplishments, and other undesirables. They have a hard time finding the down-to-earth good guys, especially considering that some of those guys are too shy to approach women. They can end up spinning their wheels a lot, dating shallow guys, guys who want to dominate them, etc.

That is a pretty good summary of what I believe women want. That's what I aspire to be, a down-to-earth good guy.

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

For another thing, even "decently-attractive" (whatever that is) women can have a hard time struggling with invisibility on the one hand, and approaches by marginally-employed guys prone to drama or other issues, who consider the "decently-attractive" or average women to be "in their league". And then, there are the petite, or "cute" baby-faced women who only attract the attention of teenagers.

When you get right down to it, it may just be that the worst enemies of we men is other men. They annoy all the women to death with their tricks and by the time a good guy's turn comes around the woman is all jaded by lame men.

The incels and MGTOWs should blame each other, not blame women.

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

There is no endless flow of men wanting to wife women up, except for maybe the top 20% or so of women. Get that out of your head. Banish that thought from your mind. And are you really holding some women's child-free status against them? You're saying that's a red flag, but having a baby-daddy or two somewhere in the wings is not a red flag?

I've heard that extremely attractive women sometimes have problems getting dates because their good looks deter men who are worried about rejection so they don't ask these women out. It would be an interesting theory to test.

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

And let me also remind you, that in order to find out that a woman "has her act together", men need to first talk to her. They need to approach her, or respond if she tries to start up a chat, and follow that up with another conversation or date, and get to know her. She's not wearing a badge that says "I've got my act together". Men need to speak to women (an insurmountable hurdle, for some), and then show an interest in who she is (you'd be surprised how many men's minds this thought never crosses), rather than burying women in an avalanche of non-stop words. Getting to know someone to find out if they have their act together is a process that takes time and willingness to hear what others have to say about themselves. IDK, should women wear badges stating their accomplishments, to make it easier for men to find "together" women? "Homeowner here", "CEO", "Lawyer", etc.? Trust me, some of those women do get overlooked a lot.

I think a man has to have his act together in order to deserve a woman who has her act together.

Originally Posted by ClaraC

There are some who never fall in love, ever.

I sure hope I'm not one of them. I was engaged and we broke up over her infidelity, and I just have never met anybody since then who I loved as much as her. I'm hoping I can add "yet" to that. I have every expectation that I will find my LTR.

This is the other half of why I'm single. I just haven't met anybody since then who I want to spend my life with.

Originally Posted by gazzaa2

Part of the reason the divorce law is stupidly high is because people jump into marriage without everything aligning and then find out they're incompatible when the infatuation phase wears off, or they get bored.

I think we have such horrible divorce rates and broken families because too many get married too soon for the wrong reasons. Young people must be immature to get married at that age. Probably the explanation of why some childhood lovers stay together for life is just luck.

[Formerly Known As Twenty]

Originally Posted by ClaraC

From your perspective, yes.

People who get to 40 and still haven't met "the right person" haven't made marriage and children a priority.

Nothing at all wrong with that, everyone gets to decide their own life path.

But you do have to realize that someone who hasn't met "the right person" by the time they're in their 40's has decided not to.

The above is just another variation on settling for "Mr./Mrs. Good Enough." That's utter nonsense, in my opinion.

Some people live in areas and/or work in professions where meeting single people of a similar mindset and educational level are hard to come by.

More than a few people fall into the "perma-fiance(e) trap while they wait for their significant other to finally fulfill the promise represented by that piece of jewelry or by mere intentions to marry "someday." Dating two or three "serial monogamists" can spell doom for a person's chance for marriage prior to the "magic age" of forty.

Several of my life-long friends who are over the age of forty who have limited emotional baggage, are homeowners, well-educated, good with children, and gainfully employed have been seeking a life partner for years, yet have failed to find partners for multiple reasons ranging from death, infidelity of the part of the woman or man they're dating , distance, caregiving duties, and just garden variety lack of long-term compatibility. They keep getting themselves out there in the dating world, though they're becoming a bit weary at times. It would be a shame if they were rejected out of hand by a stranger simply because they'd never been married.

My question is this: does a person (in particular, a woman) who's never been married raise red flags in the mind of potential suitors even if they've been in a long-term relationship or two, with or without co-habitation?

[Auraliea]

Originally Posted by Formerly Known As Twenty

The above is just another variation on settling for "Mr./Mrs. Good Enough." That's utter nonsense, in my opinion.

Some people live in areas and/or work in professions where meeting single people of a similar mindset and educational level are hard to come by.

More than a few people fall into the "perma-fiance(e) trap while they wait for their significant other to finally fulfill the promise represented by that piece of jewelry or by mere intentions to marry "someday." Dating two or three "serial monogamists" can spell doom for a person's chance for marriage prior to the "magic age" of forty.

Several of my life-long friends who are over the age of forty who have limited emotional baggage, are homeowners, well-educated, good with children, and gainfully employed have been seeking a life partner for years, yet have failed to find partners for multiple reasons ranging from death, infidelity of the part of the woman or man they're dating , distance, caregiving duties, and just garden variety lack of long-term compatibility. They keep getting themselves out there in the dating world, though they're becoming a bit weary at times. It would be a shame if they were rejected out of hand by a stranger simply because they'd never been married.

My question is this: does a person (in particular, a woman) who's never been married raise red flags in the mind of potential suitors even if they've been in a long-term relationship or two, with or without co-habitation?

Another thing is that people keep viewing relationships as happening on a timeline, that's indirectly reinforced by outside sources in society. The problem I have with this is that people love the argument, "Well by normal standards or typically people do xxx...by this time..." without realizing how unnatural that sounds. They also don't take into account the factors that made the people do "abc" by this time.

For example: Marriage and relationships. It's a common theme around here that it's normal to start building relationships around a certain age and get married or meet the right person by a certain age. Okay fine. However, what are the circumstances surrounding that particular relationship? Did they make a genuine connection? Was it out of desperation to get out of mom and dads house? Military benefits? Financial gain? Love? Etc.

I think its important to consider the reasons why someone made the choices they made, before jumping to conclusions and automatically thinking a person who has never done any of these things is some how defunct. Theres no "right time" to form connections or fall for someone, it happens out of our control. For some it takes longer, while for others it doesn't.

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by Formerly Known As Twenty

The above is just another variation on settling for "Mr./Mrs. Good Enough." That's utter nonsense, in my opinion.

Some people live in areas and/or work in professions where meeting single people of a similar mindset and educational level are hard to come by.

More than a few people fall into the "perma-fiance(e) trap while they wait for their significant other to finally fulfill the promise represented by that piece of jewelry or by mere intentions to marry "someday." Dating two or three "serial monogamists" can spell doom for a person's chance for marriage prior to the "magic age" of forty.

Several of my life-long friends who are over the age of forty who have limited emotional baggage, are homeowners, well-educated, good with children, and gainfully employed have been seeking a life partner for years, yet have failed to find partners for multiple reasons ranging from death, infidelity of the part of the woman or man they're dating , distance, caregiving duties, and just garden variety lack of long-term compatibility. They keep getting themselves out there in the dating world, though they're becoming a bit weary at times. It would be a shame if they were rejected out of hand by a stranger simply because they'd never been married.

My question is this: does a person (in particular, a woman) who's never been married raise red flags in the mind of potential suitors even if they've been in a long-term relationship or two, with or without co-habitation?

This. If society were to decide that everyone who's still single after they pass 40 is suspicious, probably inherently flawed, and should be avoided, that would doom some great people and wonderful personalities to a lonely life, completely unnecessarily. If the clock were to strike "time's up" at 40, that would mean that some people would be stuck with no hope potentially for another45-55 years.

What would be the point of that? People who may have married in their 20's and divorced in their 30's or at 40, would deprive themselves of some potential matches. Child-free matches with no divorce emotional baggage, at that.

[That_One_Girl]

The very nature of the question OP is asking assumes that marriage is a goal for all women, and that if they haven't accomplished this goal, they are somehow failures.

That's flawed because marriage and kids are not "goals" for many of us.

I've been alone for years, and I feel that I'm becoming a better person and better partner to someone in the future because of it. I've had time now to really think about what I want in another person as well as what I have to offer back. I'm in no rush to find love, and since I'm comfortable on my own, my future partners won't have to worry about any neediness or clingy behavior from me. And since I was wise enough to avoid unwanted pregnancies or enter into marriages that never would've worked out anyway, I don't have a divorce on my record and won't bring any baggage (emotional or otherwise) into my future relationships.

These seem like great qualities and the opposite of a "red flag" if you ask me. Also, just because a woman chooses to be dedicated to her career for a period of adulthood, that doesn't mean she won't be willing to focus more on love and family in the future. I'm currently working long hours and putting money in savings. I don't necessarily want to grind this way my entire life, and I hope the hard work I am putting in now will amount to more security, free time and fun to share with future partners.

[Lovehound]

Originally Posted by That_One_Girl

The very nature of the question OP is asking assumes that marriage is a goal for all women, and that if they haven't accomplished this goal, they are somehow failures.

Even more, the OP is assuming that having been married and had children somehow equates to a measure indicating that person is superior to a single person with no children.

Originally Posted by That_One_Girl

I've been alone for years, and I feel that I'm becoming a better person and better partner to someone in the future because of it. I've had time now to really think about what I want in another person as well as what I have to offer back. I'm in no rush to find love, and since I'm comfortable on my own, my future partners won't have to worry about any neediness or clingy behavior from me. And since I was wise enough to avoid unwanted pregnancies or enter into marriages that never would've worked out anyway, I don't have a divorce on my record and won't bring any baggage (emotional or otherwise) into my future relationships.

You are doing what I did for a period of my life, particularly avoiding unwanted pregnancies and failed marriages. (If a woman gets pregnant the man has a problem too. Men are not exempt.)

I wonder how the OP would compare you or I to a divorced person, perhaps with a few neglected kids or alienated adult children?

I guess the OP would say that having baggage is is superior to not having baggage! That is of course patently ridiculous! I think we are just about reaching the time for /thread or /topic

Originally Posted by That_One_Girl

These seem like great qualities and the opposite of a "red flag" if you ask me. Also, just because a woman chooses to be dedicated to her career for a period of adulthood, that doesn't mean she won't be willing to focus more on love and family in the future. I'm currently working long hours and putting money in savings. I don't necessarily want to grind this way my entire life, and I hope the hard work I am putting in now will amount to more security, free time and fun to share with future partners.

Trust me, it's worth it! Just don't over-do it.

[That_One_Girl]

Originally Posted by ClaraC

You're completely misunderstanding me.

I'm responding to the OP about whether a woman who is single and never had kids would be "a red flag". Well, it is a red flag. It's a red flag telling you it's unlikely she's interested in being married and having kids. If the OP isn't interested in that himself, well, that works!

This is so very untrue though.... I wanted to get married and have kids my entire 20s. Never happened.

Originally Posted by ClaraC

The OP states the woman is in her 40's.

Yeah but the 40s is young. The 40s only is "old" in relation to having children, not marriage. If you marry at 50, you could probably still enjoy a good 20 years together or more. The only reason to focus on marrying younger than 40 is wanting kids or being in love.

That said, plenty of 40+ women wanted to marry and have kids and simply didn't meet anyone in time. It's not like you can just custom build your ideal man and have him shipped to your house (I wish!).

Originally Posted by Lovehound

Trust me, it's worth it! Just don't over-do it.

Yeah, I won't. If the right person came along tomorrow, I'd be willing to adjust my plan. I just don't really feel quite ready to venture into the dating world just yet. One day soon though!