I was divorced at 48 and remarried at 57. Told my middle-aged women friends who were interested in 40-50ish men who had never been married that they were wasting their time. A guy who’s not married by 35-40; there’s a reason. Outwardly, some of theses guys seemed normal; but it is not normal for a guy not to be married by then.
I was pretty set in my ways when i got married...it took some adjusting...but i can honestly say that i am glad that i waited till i was out of my 20’s before marriage....for me at least.
Some men and women have careers that require a lot of internation travel and large blocks of time away from home.
Not every potential mate wants that live style so one may have to wait until late 30’s or even early 40’s to find a spouse.
For me, at least, there is very little benefit to being married. I’d be competing with a lifetime of memories, to which I couldn’t measure up and having kids of my own isn’t really a possibility at this point.
As far as relationship skills go, all things can be learned by the willing.
And I used to be willing.
Eh, I don’t know. I married at 27 and my gorgeous, adorable younger brother stayed single. He was living in the country, where there are few single women, and working in a guy-dominated field while he took care of our aging parents. He finally got married at 43 when the folks had passed. He and his wife have been SO HAPPY. Fortunately she knows that she is the luckiest woman in the world, he worships her, and they have a wonderful life together. She’s God’s reward to him for being so good and faithful. It’s only a disappointment to them that they were too old to start a family. But they were not freaks, and their marriage is a lot happier than mine was. They just didn’t meet the right people.
Sez you . . I was married at 30 and divorced at 36. If you are, like me, a successful businessman with a lot to lose in another divorce, there is absolutely zero reason to marry. I am 53 and just fine, fine, fine, fine fine with being single. I would rather cut off my arm than be married again.
Definitely not normal but not necessarily a freak. I've known men who not being in an environment where many eligible women were available, simply looked at others around them, looked at the statistics and said, odd's are if I marry, I'll also divorce. If their life is basically ok, remaining single and more, or less content is better for them than marrying and running a good chance of becoming miserable.
I am 42, never married, go to church 75% of the Sundays, cook, clean, great job, advanced degrees, and single.
I wasted time on women that ended up as bad relationships. They ended before marriage, and I consider myself lucky to have had friends wake me up to a bad decision before it happened.
Dating now seems harder because women do think there is something wrong if you have not been married. It mostly seems that the single women have all the baggage. They run backround checks on you and check your credit report. You can tell by the questions they ask on a first date when they are trying to confirm details from the credit report.
The truth is that the current crop of “single” women are a bit narcissistic. A man that wants to get married and have kids is turned off by this behavior. I will eventually run into a woman that is a good fit and has the potential to be my partner in everything. Women that say there is something wrong with a guy over 40 that is single should ask herself why she is turning them off.