35 and single

Itwasntme.

Most of us will agree that happiness is a choice. I am curious to hear what you ladies make not of her general thesis but of the various assertions strewn through the film like, "female freedom has an expiration date," etc.

Bananatop

Excellent video, very well put together. I like that she understands that to get married and have kids is important for some people, but it's just not for her. I believe that there is a physical tipping point for women, the age when they can't have children anymore. Some view this as emotionally devastating, others view it as just a part of life.
I also believe there is an emotional tipping point for both men and women, when they get to a stage that they have to make a decision...do they want to be in a relationship or not? I think it's a question people often forget to ask of themselves!

Nymeria

Loved that video also. I am also a woman who never dreamed of a big wedding or children. Seems like an alien concept to me, although I accept that for many people it brings them incredible happiness.

I guess it's a recurring question/issue not only for women but anybody approaching their thirties who hasn't found 'the one'. I'm 29 now, and single (sort of) and expect to still be that way by the time I'm 35. I think it would be strange to be any other way...like I would have to become a different person to be someone's wife.

'Female freedom has an expiration date' is a tricky one...mostly I don't agree, unless you are someone who wants children (I don't), in which case there is probably a clock in your head ticking louder and louder as the years go on. But even still, we live in a time when women are having their first child later and later, with or without marriage. There is help from ivf and surrogacy and adoption, and a whole host of options that single women have that weren't there before. It maybe not be the ideal dream scenario, but some people get married and have kids, and realise it is not what they thought it would be either. Thats life.

Ok, so there is always some pressure, usually from older relatives who are from a more conservative generation. However, as long as you are true to what you really want then you will find happiness.

I've known in my own heart that children, and to an extent marriage aren't for me. If that means that a stranger, or even someone I know thinks of me as lonely and sad, or pities me, then so be it. That is their view, not mine.

I dunno, I suppose the main thing to remember is that there is not one path to happiness for everyone. Marriage and children is good for society, not necessarily good for the individual.

Legs.Eleven

Lovely video and lovely chica (I love Argentina and Argentinians. Very creative, free-spirited people).


What is the freedom she's talking about though? Pre-settling down freedom? I wouldn't look at life that way, personally.


I really think it depends who your friends are and where you are.

My friends here in Spain are not married and only one of them (Irish) has a kid and my friends range from mid-20s right up to early 40s, so that pressure to settle down and have kids now is absent. However, when I go home for Christmas next week, I'll meet up with my friends who didn't leave Ireland and they do have children. All my friends who left Ireland are living a life much like they did in their 20s though. Out of my group of close Irish female friends all in our 30s, 2 out of 8 of us have kids and they are the two who didn't leave the country and they are the only two who are married as well. The rest of my less close female friends over there in Ireland don't have kids either. Many of my friends are single too.

I simply don't feel the pressure that other groups of friends I know of have. Whatever happened to my lot (they wouldn't be a very traditional, conservative bunch), we never had that buzz going on and by contrast, this woman in the video does.

I do want children and I'm very conscious I have limited time. Someone very close to me had a miscarriage recently and the doctor put it down to her age. That gave me a reality check that if I do want kids, my time is limited but the only pressure on me is time and not my peers. I don't see it as my freedom ticking away though and plan to be quite free once I have/if I have kids too. Marriage never appealed to me, so I'm not even considering that.

clairefontaine

I've heard alot of women say they found their freedom at 55 and 60 when the kids had all left, and all the pressure to get married had stopped.

Lia_lia

Her apartment is so messy :eek:



I always said I never wanna get married. Freaks me out a bit and seems kinda, pointless?! I dunno.

The Sweeper

Nymeria wrote: »

I guess it's a recurring question/issue not only for women but anybody approaching their thirties who hasn't found 'the one'. I'm 29 now, and single (sort of) and expect to still be that way by the time I'm 35. I think it would be strange to be any other way...like I would have to become a different person to be someone's wife.

Nymeria, I think you've hit the nail on the head there.

I've been married now for 10 years and the single constant thread that keeps my marriage going is this weird balancing act between compromise and self preservation - so you compromise on the stuff that doesn't mean a lot to you (even if you don't want to), but you cling like a limpet to the stuff that does mean a lot and on which you don't want to compromise (because otherwise you end up resentful).

So yes, precisely, you do kinda have to become a different person to be someone's wife, because you can't have everything just so - not with another person in the mix.

My husband has a job which means he's away from home a LOT. It really brings home to me how much we do compromise - because I live quite a different life when he's not here to the way I live when he's home.

sparkledrum

She says she definitely doesn't want to live alone but as you get older the options lessen. If not marry or live with a boyfriend what options are there? Yes, I suppose have a child on your own but if that isn't on the agenda, then what?

metaoblivia

I never dreamed about a big wedding or being a wife when I was growing up. And romantic relationships have never been a priority for me. I guess for me, getting married and having children was never a goal. It was something that could happen (and may still happen) if I found the 'right' person for me, but it was never a goal in and of itself.

Now I'm 32 and single, on the precipice of a big move, and I keep waiting for that light bulb to go off in my head and send me into a panic. But it isn't happening. I feel like in many ways, society keeps telling me I should feel desperate to find a man, settle down and pop out a few kids. But I don't feel that way. I enjoy my alone time, I enjoy my friends and family, and I enjoy my hobbies. I think men are great, I just don't find myself longing for a prince charming to come and sweep me off my feet. Maybe it will happen or maybe it won't, but either way I know enough about myself to live a happy and fulfilled life.

Ambersky

I wanted to marry, have children and stay with one person for the rest of my life but being lesbian, marriage wasnt an option for me. There were no socially agreed markers of stages of relationship or statements to be made about where all this was going, no going steady, no engagement and no marriage. I experienced more social pressure from family and the general community not to be in a relationship rather than pressure to be in one. Within the LGBT community the usual excitement, expectation and some pressure to couple does apply, I think with perhaps less emphasis of staying with the same person forever but just so long as there is someone.

I liked the video and agree with the idea that it is important to make your own happiness in whatever your situation.
I really really desperately tried to make situations and one relationship in particular work.
Even though it wasnt what I set out to do and even though it seems cliched what I think I wound up doing was finding myself.
I was the kind of person who could easily get lost in someone else, who found it difficult to maintain healthy boundaries of my stuff/your stuff while still knowing and having my own individual opinions, preferences and identity.
Being single for long periods Ive learned to love my own company and I have time for others. Having also been in lots of relationships I have learned from everyone who has graced me with their company. Im in my late 50s now and I feel less pressure from myself mainly I suppose, to be coupled , so I find I can relax and I am really enjoying myself so much more than I have at any other stage of my life. If a relationship were to present itself I would be open to it and if it doesnt thats fine too. Possibilities for relationships dont end as you get older I know some people think they do, but they dont.
Life seems to find a way of teaching you the lessons you need to learn if you are open to it.

Itwasntme.

Ambersky wrote: »

I wanted to marry, have children and stay with one person for the rest of my life but being lesbian, marriage wasnt an option for me. There were no socially agreed markers of stages of relationship or statements to be made about where all this was going, no going steady, no engagement and no marriage. I experienced more social pressure from family and the general community not to be in a relationship rather than pressure to be in one. Within the LGBT community the usual excitement, expectation and some pressure to couple does apply, I think with perhaps less emphasis of staying with the same person forever but just so long as there is someone.

I liked the video and agree with the idea that it is important to make your own happiness in whatever your situation.
I really really desperately tried to make situations and one relationship in particular work.
Even though it wasnt what I set out to do and even though it seems cliched what I think I wound up doing was finding myself.
I was the kind of person who could easily get lost in someone else, who found it difficult to maintain healthy boundaries of my stuff/your stuff while still knowing and having my own individual opinions, preferences and identity.
Being single for long periods Ive learned to love my own company and I have time for others. Having also been in lots of relationships I have learned from everyone who has graced me with their company. Im in my late 50s now and I feel less pressure from myself mainly I suppose, to be coupled , so I find I can relax and I am really enjoying myself so much more than I have at any other stage of my life. If a relationship were to present itself I would be open to it and if it doesnt thats fine too. Possibilities for relationships dont end as you get older I know some people think they do, but they dont.
Life seems to find a way of teaching you the lessons you need to learn if you are open to it.

Your entire post and in particular the bits in bold really made me stop and think. The reason this equation is so complicated is because of social pressure and conditioning in their varied cultural forms. Yes, we are by nature intimate beings so it matters to most that there is someone especially when the question of children is factored in but does that someone have to be a long term romantic lover? Can that someone not be a friend? Friends? Family?

I don't know - I was thinking a lot about this the other day and I came to the conclusion that for me at least, a romantic relationship is not absolutely vital to my happiness. I would love to be in a happy one of course but I would rather be single with the occasional fleeting bout of loneliness - as is the currently the case - than in a relationship that didn't fully satisfy me just because it was expected of me.

I guess it's different when one wants kids and a family but that structure is also morphing to suit the times. And by the times I am talking about how women are no longer entirely dependent on men for financial security as was the case in days gone by. Because of this, we don't need to get married and have kids for security. We have choices. Choices mean freedom - the freedom to live life as we want to. I mean, look at Sweden - so many young people are opting out of marriage but still choosing to have kids with their friends with benefits/boyfriends/partners. I wonder, as we move towards real gender equality in the future, will marriage an institution follow the path it's currently taking in the more gender equal societies like the Scandinavian ones? And if it does take that path, how will that affect societies' takes on what should be a woman's trajectory in life and consequently, the choices we as women will make once that pressure is removed.

Ambersky

Interesting comments Itwasntme. Im actually hugely relieved I didnt marry a couple of the women I wanted to marry . I think the social conditioning to want to marry can be a two edged sword. On the one hand there is a danger that relationships can be taken less seriously if the markers leading up to and including marriage which gives both parties a real reason to seriously evaluate and declare what there intentions are about a relationship are not there. I know that may sound a bit strange but I think I have experienced that, mind you there was also social conditioning not to take a relationship with another woman as seriously as that with a man which may have been even more powerful reason not to take it seriously.
On the other hand by inviting the state and its laws into your relationship you allow it to dictate decisions about finances, duration, etc and accept a model of relationship which you may not have chosen if allowed to develop to include others ways of being family.
We are also, from birth practically, guided along the path of seeking the coupling with our one true soul mate for life. The myth says this person will rescue us and make us happy and whole at last.
Ive heard some pretty good arguments that that is the most powerful all prevailing myth that still remains in our time, the search for the magical other. Ive heard women say that they have put off taking responsibility not only for their own personal development as individuals but also for finding and working at something that will make them financially stable for life or for finding accommodation that they could be happy in for life, because they were waiting for this one true love to do it with, or who would do it for them.
A book I found interesting is The Eden Project: In Search of the Magical Other by James Hollis very interesting and helpful here is an extract

“The search for fusion regularly gives rise to various symptoms. Our own psyche knows what is right for us, knows what is developmentally demanded. When we use the Other to avoid our own task, we may be able to fool ourselves for awhile, but the soul will not be mocked. It will express its protest in physical ailments, activated complexes and disturbing dreams. The soul wishes its fullest expression; it is here, as Rumi expressed it, 'for its own joy.'
Let's continue the fantasy of finding an Other willing to carry our individuation task for us. Well, in time, that Other would grow to resent us, even though he or she was a willing signatory to the silent contract. That resentment would leak into the relationship and corrode it. No one is angrier that someone doing 'the right thing' and secretly wishing for something else.”

beks101

Interesting video. I can relate to her a lot.

She sort of personifies this sentiment I've been experiencing lately. It goes something like this: "There I was, dating, having fun, just living my life, doing my own thing, when suddenly sh1t got serious, people started getting engaged/married/pregnant, and here I am, still dating, still having fun, still loving life but feeling like a big kid with a bunch of adult expectations on my shoulders".

I'm in my late 20s, but have never really had any big relationships where I got a taste for "happy ever after", so dating has largely been something that always happened on the side, for fun, with a short shelf life, as I've been navigating bigger ships like career, travel, multiple emigrations etc.

I guess I've come to equate "me" with "single" - not in a doomsday, #FOREVERALONE type of way - I've just never built my identity around being one half of a life with someone else, as people tend to do in long-term relationships.

Like Metoblivia, I'm still sort of waiting for that personal "light bulb" moment to collide with the societal expectations that I've already begun to experience. Relatives asking if "I'll be next" at family weddings :rolleyes:; my own mother, who bred complete independence, ambition and self sufficiency in me, and who herself met my father quite late, subtly enquiring about my love life...

("Yes Mum, I've met lots of guys, some nice ones, some absolute fcuktards...none that have stuck so far, but I'll let you know..." ?? )

Being unsure about how to reconcile my own distant dreams of settling down with the right guy, starting a family - which I always assumed would happen down the line - with the casual relationships and short-lived dating experiences that have personified my love life thus far. And knowing that the timeline for jumping into this world, which is so unfamiliar to me, as an habitual singleton, is so ruthlessly short.

I dunno. Sometimes I think ignoring the "deadline" is the only way to deal with it - I know without doubt I'd rather be alone and childless than stuck with someone I despise for the sake of doing the "family" thing.

Blush_01

I like that she's thought about her own situation and come to a conclusion she can live with. Only 22% of her wants children. That's something she can do alone if she wants to. That happiness is a choice is predominantly true, I think, but to get to the happiness I think some people need to plough through a lot of sadness, and make very challenging decisions on the way, that may make them temporarily very unhappy.

I also agree that female "freedom" has an expiration date. I'd like to think I'm a pretty independent person, and I don't feel I need another person to make me happy, though I'd like to meet someone I could consider settling down with at some stage. I hate that people expect that I, and people my age, should be doing it now (I turned 29 this week). Someone said to me not so long ago, and it puts things very succintly - I say it regularly myself now! - "I'd rather be left on the shelf than locked in the wrong cupboard." In the past month I've been told, purely by virtue of my age, that I must want to settle down, that I "know what it's like, at [my] age." Seriously??

clairefontaine

Doesn't she work in film production?

I don't think people realise what option s shut down one you have kids.

Can you work late? No.

Can you travel? No.

Can you work 12 hour shifts? No.

Can you come in on short notice? No.


.....not unless what?...that's right...no unless you have a supportive husband...ah hah... This freedom/liberation ****e from feminists is so up the wazoo of fantasy.

Women want husbands so they can continue working should they have a child.

She's working, and work frees, so once you have kids thats another kind of work. I think the time limit on freedom is a bit wrong tbh, because evey decisions means a sacrifice, no choice comes without a price.