I've thought about not being married a lot, and I think a large part has to do with my Sex and the City obsession. :D It may sound petty, but it's one of my biggest fears to be in my late 30s and not married. I want to be happily married with two kids under my belt by that point!

Now ladies, do men really fret about getting married as much as us women do? I don't think so...

Hopefully I am going to be at the point in my life that I want to be at if I ever meet the right guy. I want to know that I enjoyed my life being single, I did want I wanted to do, accomplished my goals, and have the world dangling at my finger tips.

If I ever meet the right guy for me, I think i will be a better and more well rounded individual for taking care of myself during my "finding out who I really am" stage.

One of my really good friends from hs has been married for almost 3 years. He is 9 years older than her. She has put all her dreams and goals on hold for him, for him to accomplish his goals and such. She dropped out of college, stopped being involved in what she liked, and she got really depressed. I AM NOT SAYING THAT ALL YOUNG MARRAGES TURN OUT LIKE THIS.

I guess the best advice is that is YOUR life. When you look back at your life, don't be like "I wish I would have done this, or I wish I would have done that". Life is so precious.
And having a man or someone to share your life with doesn't make you anymore or any less of a person. Be yourself and don't lessen what you want.

(steppin' off the soap box)

If I'm not married by the time I'm 40, I'm going to adopt a baby. At that age, it'll be difficult for me to get pregnant, and I don't want to go through fertility treatment and then use donated sperm just to have a baby. I'd like to have a family, and adopting would be the only way. I know that some places want couples, but maybe in 15 years things will change a bit.

I think most men go through their lives thinking they're going to get married some day... I just don't think its in human nature to believe that we're all going to be alone, not part of a pair.

I asked my dad and my friend and they both said it was never directly in their minds but that they always wanted to be dads in their lives.

I want to be a mom and have a husband who will share my life with me. I am a hopeful romantic, an eternal optimist who just doesn't like cats.
:D <3

I don't think I''ll get married.

I don't think I'll be alone.

I know quite a few men who don't want to get married so you definitely won't be alone.

When I was younger, I was kind of skeptical about marriage and it didn't sound all that appealing to me. Truth be told, now as I get older, I seem to get more and more scared of having to settle down and raise a family and all that. I don't know if I'll ever get married, but even if I do, I only want one child, a girl, and I've decided that I don't want to have my own child, I'd rather adopt. I wanted to have a kid at around 35, so if I'm not married by the time I'm like 35-40, I'd probably just adopt the little girl anyway. :)

I totally want to get married someday. I will be VERY disappointed with my life if i dont meet anyone I love well enough to marry, get to plan a wedding, have kids, a marriage, other married couples as friends, family vacations, etc! I guess getting married isnt a necessity to a fulfilling life, but maybe to me it is. A great career would be wonderful, friends and blood relatives are super, but I dont think I'll be completely happy without also starting my OWN family!

I also think that if I'm not married by the time I'm in my 40's, I would be willing to settle for someone who I love, but I'm not "in love" with.

I just know I don't want to get divorced. So if it means waiting till I find the perfect match and possibly never finding her, so be it. I notice that more women obsess about the marriage subject than guys. It's just not a big deal to some of us...

RUgreek

my thoughts
 

Adoption is such a wonderful choice... there are so many kids out there who need a loving home. :)

I hope I get married. I will probably get married soon after undergraduate school. I don't know when/if I will have kids but probably soon after that, since I am Catholic.

I would be so sad if I never get married... there are just so many things I want to share with my future husband. :(

You won't.

ha!

Valkyrie--

While many of the post by my younger colleagues dishearten me immensely, i.e. "I wannabe married by 2 and have 50 boys at 10", I think that your question is very profound. What if it NEVER happens...

Well, I was one to accept the "NEVER"... I wanted to meet a man that I loved and he loved me, too and we just get married and have a family... And my age just crept up and up... Sure I met plenty of suitors, I loved them, but they didn't love me or vice versa...

So in betwixted my 30's, after my illness, I was like, the next guy that I love and he loves me, I am gonna be straight up with him and put him on a "heartbreaker--dealbreaker, time schedule of 3 months". My logic being that after 3 months of serious dating, then having to break up because of lack of commitment issues won't hurt as bad as in my "old 30-something" age creeps upto 40ish and 50ish or beyond and a nowhere going relationship keeps on for umpteen years...

Well, my now husband called my bluff--within the 3 month time limit... :eek:

The fact is I think most young ladies here are putting up with stuff and settling for less with the men in their lives...

However, there are those young ladies that like the glamorous life... And a husband can't fit into that schema...

But what bothers me most is that some young ladies here have a "jaded" view about life and it will bite them in the azz... Not everything is gonna wind up as a rose garden, sweetheart... And there are plenty of men on GC that are telling them this skrait up and personal...

I may be unable to have children. My husband does not want children. I am nearing 40... I personally do not want to become pregnant at 40 and I will not have any biotechnology affecting my uterus... But, hey, you just deal with those facts and realities. One can be a mother to the motherless... Adoption, esepecially for children of color and African American children are strongly needed... So the lack of available children out there isn't the issue for me...

I just think my genomic DNA is of superior quality to influence the gene pool... :rolleyes:

I feel like I have been really lucky. I worked hard and had a great time in college, moved 3,000 miles away from my family and friends post-graduation and had a crazy adventure for 2.5 years. I dated a lot, traveled, volunteered, worked mad hours... and then I decided to switch coasts again.

Now, I'm about 1,000 miles from my loved ones, and living out a different sort of adventure-- but starting over, making new friends, etc. I'm getting re-settled, I'm seeing that dating is a little harder than it was before and that I'm settling into bigger responsibilities. I'll be 26 next week, and as I creep closer to 30 (ok, I have a few more years before that!), I realize that I do want a husband and children... in the near future. I hope it happens, but I also know that I'm my best source of happiness and I'm going to continue living for me and today-- not that I don't look forward to the future, but I think it's best not to get too caught up in things outside our own control.

Still, it's easy to get wistful. The grass is always greener on the other side. I hope there's a great guy out there for all of us, ladies, but I hope for now, too, we all spend time enjoying ourselves.

Re: What if you never get married?
 

It's funny, because I was just thinking about this today and just found this post. I haven't read anyone elses posts to know what the most updated post is, but here's my thought.

Today I was driving and passed these condos in the city that I live in. My thought was, "In a couple of years I'd like to have enough money saved up to buy one." It got me thinking about this very subject. I am already planning on buying a house in a couple of years, because I actually do NOT expect to find anyone. And it's a really hard thought for me, because I would love to get married and have kids. I've always pictured myself in a huge two-story house with a BMW and a Mercedes and a dog. Well, right now I'm on the second floor of nice apartments with a Toyota Corolla Sport and a Dog. And that's fine by me, except I would like to buy my own place in a couple of years. OK, so I kind of got off subject. I started thinking that thinking I would buy a condo in a couple of years is crazy because I'm only 22 and for all I know I COULD be married in a couple of years. Granted, it's not very likely, but it could happen. I could meet someone tomorrow.

The thing is, I think this is what deep down most people think. Well, I will PROBABLY get married, and if I do I want to make sure I don't have monogrammed towels or a tatoo that will show in a dress or a newly bought condo when I have to move in with my husband in his two-story house with his Mercedes and BMW.

Also, I just bought a dog about a month ago. She is a very sweet 12-week-old Jack Russell, and chances are in the next 15 years I will have kids, so I'm trying to train her as if I will. I mean, maybe I won't have kids, but I would rather train her "just in case" to be used to kids and not jump on small kids or bite them. Just in case.

The fact of the matter is, all of us think at some point in the back of our minds that we won't get married one day or have kids, but when it comes down to it if we want the marriage and the kids eventually than we try to keep that thought at the back, and not the front.

Re: Re: What if you never get married?
 

Nothing says you can't have those without being married.........

Re: my thoughts
 

Well, I'm Catholic too but that's not running my timeline.......

Re: Re: Re: What if you never get married?
 

Well, having a 2-story house without someone living with me would be a little large... I may get scared at night. But the Mercedes and BMW are definitely in my 10-year plan! The Beamer was going to be my family car, though, and the Mercedes was going to be my convertible. :)

I just turned - egads! - 40 on Monday and am so not in a hurry to marry and have kids. Sorry to disappoint you, Mom and Dad, you ain't getting any grandkids for a while.

Happy Belated Birthday. I'm 35 and feel the same way...tho I am in a serious long term rela and we plan to get married one day, but we're just not in a hurry. Life is good as it is, why rush things. lol

I guess I also subscribe to the same thoughts as Valkyrie does. When I was younger (though, I'm still not old per sey), I never really thought about getting married or having children. Now that I'm older, my priorities are changing, I've had and kept a job, own and keep my own home, car, have a pet cat and do a bit of traveling now and again. I do all of those things by myself and I'm happy with it all, but I have found recently that there isn't anyone to fill the gap. I know that sounds pathetic and I should just say, "Ok, I am happy and satisfiyed that I have that, I don't need anyone." It is a basic human need to have someone and because of that it may or may not happen some day.

i was talking to some of my mother's friends a little while ago, and they have been together for probably almost thirty years, and never married (in Illinois there aren't common law marriages apparently), and i think it goes to show that you don't have to be married to be in a really longterm, committed relationship. they got to a point that they didn't see a reason to get married. i didn't relize until a few years ago that they weren't actually married.

I recently talked with a woman, about 40 but much less mature, who was crying and upset that "God must hate her because she's not married."

I tried to explain to her that marriage solves very few problems, and causes many more; that if she doesn't feel complete without a husband, she'll feel even worse with one. This went on for a while, but I think you all get the drift.

I feel sorry for her - she is so sold into an "Ozzie & Harriet" world that she simply can't understand that it probably never existed in the first place.

As for me, I always assumed that I'd marry, but never really made huge decisions concerning it. Well, unless you count that I took a job that I knew I could never take as a married woman early. I'll never regret taking that job, nor quitting when I did - lots of personal growth & fun experiences!

I probably shouldn't admit to all of this...but...growing up the only dream I was really allowed to have was getting married and having kids. Ever since I can remember career dreams were always knocked or crushed by my parents and no matter what I wanted "how will your husband fit into that?" or "when will you start with making us grandchildren?"...and I watched my sisters give up their dreams to be wives and humor their husbands and be devoted to their children above all and they are just miserable. They want a career.
So I was always kinda forced into wishing for it and hoping for it and it got where I wanted marriage some day just to escape the childhood I had full of abuse and it's sad really.
About a year ago I learned that I have this hormone problem that someday could prevent me from having children. I still can right now, but there's a good chance that much later and I won't be able to. My parents hated me so much for this. And now most my relationships have been awful and eh, it's like I get to start from scratch.
I get the new dreams now...coming up with what I want and it's scary. I kinda want to keep the marriage one just because it's comfortable. But hey, I'm not quite 20 yet...so I have time to um, dream, still....I think....

didnt mean to ramble..just the topic made me think a lot

This is pretty silly... but back in high school, I made really good friends with this one guy (he was the super hot foreign exchange student from scotland ;)). We made one of those My-Best-Friends-Wedding-type pacts that if we were both unmarried and not seriously dating anyone by the time I was 28 (he's a year older than me) that we'd marry each other. It's actually pretty silly... hehehe. We still keep in touch a lot ... so if I'm not married by then.. I have a backup... unless of course he's already married... in which case I will just have to settle for my super fabulous career and the 2 puppies I plan on getting eventually :p

I think a lot of people are placing to much emphasis on planning a wedding rather than planning a marriage.

YES YES YES

I knew I was with the right guy when I stopped caring about the wedding and started thinking about the lifelong committment. That said, we're not married and I go back and forth on how important that is to me.

Ultimately, I do want to get married. But its not the most important thing to me, not by a long shot.

My stepmom and my mom, neither of whom I have ever been close with, have picked up the annoying habit of inquiring about my lovelife.

99% of the time if I am dating someone, I don't "write home" about it. Until I'm ready to introduce someone to my family, I just don't see the point. I live far from my family and it's not like they can keep straight all of my female friends and co-workers names, so why add more confusion to the mix. And I hate getting the, "And how is Mr. ADPiUCF?" They don't know him, haven't met him... who really cares?

So lately, I have been getting the "are you dating anyone?" (maybe I am, and maybe I'm not, but I usually answer "no") and I get silence, a sigh, and then, "well you'll meet someone when your're not looking."

I feel this implies that my life in incomplete and inadaquate without a man. And the idea of my parents thinking about my sex life kinda freaks me out.

So I recently sat down with my mother, and told her that I while I know she wants what is best for me and for me to be happy, I get a little down when she asks about my dating life. Just that the way she goes about it makes me feel I should think there is something wrong with me. And that it's not fair. She understood and said we wouldn't mention it again unless I brought it up. I really appreciated that.

My stepmother, however, screeched like a banshee that it was a normal question, and why must she walk on eggshells with me? Priceless-- she asked if I considered seeing a professional counselor to talk about this with? And so on and so on.

I should point out that my stepmother raised me with my dad, and mom was not in the picture.

Anway, to end a very long post-- why can't a girl be successful in life and let her parents leave it at that?! There's nothing wrong with me for having standards in work, dating, etc, and nothing wrong with keeping things private from my parents. We were never best friend-buddy buddy to begin with, so I can't really even begin to understand where my step-mom expects me to be her new best girlfriend and share intimate details that are none of her business.

No truer words have ever been spoken!

Truer words ever spoken...

And Honeychile... You go gwirl, with your baaaayyyyaaaddd sef...

gamer_girl--

You should go the highest you can go with all your accomplishments you can achieve... Do not let ANYONE ever stop you from what you ultimately want to do... Life is short. And it is not how long, but how well will your live your life... If you want to be an astronaut, then go for it... If you want to be a "mommy" then go for that too... But this arguement has been one of the longest since Women's Rights... How do you balance family and career? It can be done, but with various flavors the fit the various lifestyles...

I am one to truly think that one must pursue what she is destined to do... If not, then life is mediocre.

Re: Re: What if you never get married?
 

hahahaha futurama :D

I agree. Honestly, though, nowadays when practically everyone is sleeping/living together before marriage, what is the point besides a really kick-butt wedding?

Somewhere, out there, there HAS to be someone who cant get enough of me. Someone whos gonna think I rock. I am 30 and am sick of looking. I think I am now a professional dater.

Ugh.

Doesn't it also seem like, though, that there's got to be somebody out there YOU can't get enough of?




you said that well.

The older I get, the more I think it's not gonna happen.
Sometimes I'm ok with that, but sometimes I'm not.

short, sweet, and to the point!

Re: Re: my thoughts
 

Sisters think alike. :)

I don't mind if I don't get married. The reason, my mother got a divorce three times. I don't want to end up like her. So, I will take my time to find the right mate to be with for a long time.

I decided tonight that I would like to marry my 5 favorite sorority sisters! Theres no one Ive ever missed more (since I have a year off from school) and no one who's missed me more!

How great would a house full of sisters, raising adopted kids, and bringing home hot guys be?? A sorority suite but a little more mature! :D :cool:

well....that wasnt the intention, but reading it over again, I can see the porn potential lol

happy to oblige :cool:

Marriage and childraising really don't appeal to me at all. However, I'm only 20, so that might change. I've already warned my parents they probably won't get any grandkids from me and they said they were cool with that. They just want me to be happy. My parents rock.

:)