| Old bachelors and spinsters
Posted: 5/12/2008 4:01:08 PM | With the passage of yet another birthday, it is looking more and more like I will make it to 60, without ever being married. Such is life. I was not convinced that ending bachelorhood would have represented a beneficial change. Then, on the other hand, prospective brides did not line up at my door.
So I wondered if there were many others in the over 45 forum, who are in similar circumstances. How about it. How many are over 45 and never married? And how about over 60? | |
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| Old bachelors and spinsters
Posted: 5/12/2008 4:34:48 PM | | I will be 51 this summer, and have never married. It seems very difficult to meet men who are willing to date a woman who has not been married. If I had 3 divorces under my belt I think I would be more marketable. | |
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| Old bachelors and spinsters
Posted: 5/12/2008 6:16:03 PM | generally speaking, if someone hasn't committed by age 35, they are NOT gonna!
If that is what they want, their chances are better w/ a divorcee or widow/er | |
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| Old bachelors and spinsters
Posted: 5/12/2008 6:41:59 PM | | ^^ assumes you mean committed atleast once .. if not then there are a LOT of us who are going to be single forever LOL.. I could care less if someone has never married. Perhaps they were just smart enough NOT to settle until they found the right person hang in there OP. I have a dear friend who is 50 and JUST got engaged for the first time a few months ago.... his wedding is in July. | |
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| Old bachelors and spinsters
Posted: 5/12/2008 7:50:17 PM | | I never planned on marriage. Never wanted to raise kids. 10 years ago I was engaged, bought her a big ring and all. She ran off with a business associate. Oh, well. Been to the water's edge I guess!! | |
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| Old bachelors and spinsters
Posted: 5/12/2008 8:00:44 PM | | Divorced people are a better risk since they can committ? seems to me that they didn't commit to a marriage, when many of us never marrieds were wise enough not to commit to a marriage when we knew we would end up divorced. | |
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| Old bachelors and spinsters
Posted: 5/12/2008 8:30:40 PM | I'm fitty-three and would liketa be married but if I do, it'll ruin my brilliance in the eyes of married people. hehe. Luckily there's not the same pressure to be married as much as years ago.
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| Old bachelors and spinsters
Posted: 5/12/2008 9:21:00 PM | 51 and never married. Not because I can't commit, but because I was brought up to believe marriage is a commitment for life, and I think you should know someone for couple of years before you make that commitment. In my experience, many men propose marriage while still in the throes of initial infatuation and if a woman says "Let's wait a while" they take that as a rejection.
Can I add another question? Do you think that having lots of older siblings makes you less likely to rush into marriage?
I think I never had the 'romantic' view of marriage because as I was growing up I saw all my older siblings dealing with the realities of marriage and child-rearing, so I had a very clear idea of how important it is to have a spouse you can agree with and get along with long after the romance has died down a little. It didn't put me off marriage, it just made me not willing to rush into it. | |
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| Old bachelors and spinsters
Posted: 5/12/2008 10:22:52 PM | Another old maid spinster here  . My Honey and I live together but we have no plans to marry. I’ve never had a burning desire to do so, and it’s even less of a consideration the older I get.
I wouldn’t know about older siblings influencing attitudes about marriage but I do know that watching the marriages of friends and family fall apart over the years definitely put a damper on any “romantic” notions I ever had about that institution. I’m not against it … if that’s what two people decide they want to do then good for them. I wish them much luck and happiness. But for me personally, I’ve never felt that it was a necessity to have a certificate to validate my love and commitment to someone or theirs to me.
LH | |
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| Old bachelors and spinsters
Posted: 5/12/2008 11:05:52 PM | Having been married for five years, but single now for thirty-five, I don't think my case is that much different than yours.
In fact, I'm not sure I would have ever married if it hadn't been for the SDS turning my apartment that I shared with four roommates into their radical student headquarters and pot party. My girlfriend at the time took pity on me and let me move in with her. That's how it all started. She eventually took off with a guy with a motorcycle.
Life is funny and messy all at the same time. | |
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| Old bachelors and spinsters
Posted: 5/12/2008 11:16:22 PM | Have a cousin who's turning 70 this year. Even in high school, I doubted she'd ever marry. No one was as sweet and as kind as her Daddy. No boy so wonderful. All flawed, flawed, flawed. She never left home. Her father died 30 years ago, her mom 10. She lives with a number of cats, and her fourth or fifth set of dogs. She seems happy.
That said -- most older never-marrieds I know have been in a number of long term relationships, just never married them, and I don't see a lot of difference between that and a number of divorces.
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| Old bachelors and spinsters
Posted: 5/13/2008 12:38:38 AM |  count me in the never marrieds - life got in the way with working a full time job, and taking care of 2 sick, elderly parents.
Had a POF man tell me if he had known I had never been married, he would not have asked me out as there must be something wrong with me, and that was why no one had wanted me. Good thing I have a good sense of self.
Keep the faith OP, as long as you are not the tin man and have a heart, all is possible.
(even the tin man got a heart eventually) | |
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| Old bachelors and spinsters
Posted: 5/13/2008 1:41:50 AM | | Celticmist, don't people never cease to amaze you? Many men seem to assume because we have not been married that we have never been desired by men or that we are flawed because we do not conform to society's standards of what seems to be acceptable. A man told me that he had nothing to talk to me about, since I could not relate to his woes of how exwives used and abused him and how his children were all disasters as adults. Of course I was the one with all the problems since I have been lucky or wise enough to avoid those situations in my life. When I told him that I was not interseted in him due to his seemingly strong need for drama in his life he then said that I was a lesbian, since all women my age had been married if they were not. | |
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| Old bachelors and spinsters
Posted: 5/13/2008 3:40:45 AM | 47 and never married... it comes down to the fact that He did not ask. I never give up hope that I will meet the right man and he will ask this time.
~Charmed~ | |
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| Old bachelors and spinsters
Posted: 5/13/2008 8:18:45 AM | Was married once for a long time...don't understand why we have to refer to individuals who have never married as "bachelors" and "spinsters..."
I especially don't like the word "spinster", because it conjures up negative visions of an unmarried, unattractive, older woman living in squalor with 1,000 cats running around.....a wizened old crone, if you will. And back in the Middle Ages, you know what they did to older women who lived alone with their cats.......
None of my over 50, never-married female friends are ANYTHING like the negative visions that "spinster" conjures up...... | |
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| Old bachelors and spinsters
Posted: 5/13/2008 10:49:22 AM | My ex-wife married the hell out of me but here I am at 45 and I am more contemplative about what an ideal relationship at my age and for the future should look like. Having been married I could well never be married again from here on out.
I guess is the question "is it bad" to never have experienced it? | |
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Shervo
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Joined: 8/16/2007
Msg: 17 | |
| Old bachelors and spinsters
Posted: 5/13/2008 10:54:16 AM | I'll be turning 52 on the 31st - more sand thru the hour glass!
I never got married for many reasons, mostly because I didn't find a woman brave enough or patient enough to take me on in a permanent situation.
I did have one chance while living over in England back in the 1980's and it ended as she abandoned me for some "Bruce" in Australia.
Being single as one ages, male or female, should not be condemned. Maybe it should be celebrated, for it really is a lifestyle choice for some, like me. I played pro-football, raced cars & karts and travelled extensively for many years. I was "alone" but not "lonely".
Would I like to be part of a couple...in a word, YES, but I still have to be me. I just have to meet a woman that will be both brave and patient because I still do "single" things!!! | |
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| Old bachelors and spinsters
Posted: 5/13/2008 1:19:47 PM | | In my experience, the older you get, the pickier you get, and if you have never done it while you were young, flexible and naive, you will have a very difficult time doing it when you are old and stuck in your ways. A widow or a divorcee will present different kinds of mutual adjustment issues, but they are at least used to the idea of adjusting. I found that even a relatively short period of being older and single had me drifting into a life set up uniquely as I preferred it, and not very easy to accept another person into at all. 40 plus years of that I can only imagine as an almost insurmountable barrier, although I have a few male friends who married after 50 for the first time, and had not spent any significant time in LTRs before hand. | |
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| Old bachelors and spinsters
Posted: 5/13/2008 1:42:27 PM |
My ex wife married the hell out of me. Having been married I could well never be married again from here on out.
I am truly sorry, but that comment just made me bust a gut laughing! Birds of a feather and all that!  | |
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| Old bachelors and spinsters
Posted: 5/13/2008 2:12:44 PM | | I am a ole spinster (when does one graduate to crone?). I've been close to marriage twice, in one case I am REALLY,REALLY happy I didn't do it; in the other, not so much. My ex (the good one) and I were JUST talking about this--he is a ole bachelor still, too. I think I am not picky ENOUGH, frankly--I see *so many good guys* out there with so much to offer, I just can't settle on only one. | |
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| Old bachelors and spinsters
Posted: 5/13/2008 2:20:42 PM |
I am truly sorry, but that comment just made me bust a gut laughing! Birds of a feather and all that!
Just doing my job!... | |
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| Old bachelors and spinsters
Posted: 5/13/2008 4:02:23 PM | I have been married twice, ugh, divorced twice, ugh. Spent all of my vacation days one year in custody court, ugh. Had to split my household, twice, ugh ugh. From where I am sitting you never married folks seem to be very savvy, I wouldn't mind dating someone like that for the rest of my life. 
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zeeba
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Joined: 3/27/2008
Msg: 23 | |
| Old bachelors and spinsters
Posted: 5/13/2008 4:12:58 PM | Count me in this one. 46 on my next birthday, and never been married. I think that we all have to be careful not to speculate or generalize about why we haven't married, though. Every person and every situation is different.
For me, my first boyfriend talked about marriage -- a lot. At that time, however, I was so immature! There was no way I was ready to be married, and in retrospect it would have been so unfair to him. Then, I was working full-time after graduate school...and I knew I was my sole financial support, so love and romance were not exactly a top priority. I also lived in really small towns where there were very few opportunities to meet single/divorced men.
Actually, I'd still like to get married. I like the idea and I could easily make a commitment. Are the opportunities there? Well, honestly...not really. It's a reality for me and either I have to face it or go around being incredibly depressed for the rest of my life. I'd rather get on with things and live life, and we'll see!  | |
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| Old bachelors and spinsters
Posted: 5/13/2008 4:14:53 PM | | Lots of people marry past 60. You're not getting out of it that easy. This time next year you could be back from the honeymoon wondering what possessed you to veer off down the bridal path after some creaky temptress. They get ever so much more wily with each passing year. | |
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| Old bachelors and BACHLORETTES
Posted: 5/13/2008 4:53:49 PM | I especially don't like the word "spinster", because it conjures up negative visions of an unmarried, unattractive, older woman living in squalor with 1,000 cats running around.....a wizened old crone if you will. And back in the Middle Ages, you know what they did to older women who lived alone with their cats...........
There! I'm now a BACHLORETTE!!! | |
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