By 2030, 45% of prime working age women in the US, defined as women aged between 25 and 44, will be single according to Census Bureau historical data and Morgan Stanley forecasts – the largest share in history.
Hundreds of those women, from across the US, shared with the Guardian why they were single, how they felt about it and what they would be looking for in a future partner if they were still in the market for one.
“I hated being single after my last relationship broke down,” said Sarah, 43, a sales representative from California. “I miss having someone to cook for, to share things with. But now, my motto is: ‘My alone feels so good, I’ll only have you if your presence is sweeter than my solitude.’”
Maybe I run in a different crowd. My mom & dad both worked, my mom’s mom didn’t, my mom’s dad beat his wife (never my mom) when Grandma was 60 she divorced him. I don’t want to live in that world. She really had no options for a long time. My dad’s parents were rich, plenty of the women in his family worked but it wasn’t out of need, they just had opportunities most women didn’t back then, because money. My mom’s grandmother did work, she had a farm and was a midwife. I think her husband died young. I guess if you go back far enough everybody worked unless they were rich enough not to, right? Just like now.
I will say I would not personally date anyone who said “feminist nonsense”, you do seem unpleasant (relevant username) - I understand you are probably just venting but you seem to have some idealized version of the past that you are comparing the present to, it was not really good for most people. Your mom & dad were lucky. You aren’t going to get that by regressing the laws to make women less free.
Both sets of my grandparents and all of the great grandparents I’d met were the same way. Married once, raised a family on one or pretty much one income, remained married until one passed away. My great grandmother, her son my grandfather, the last thing I heard either of them say was they missed their departed spouses.
Every male ancestor of mine I’ve met went out into the world, found employment that paid enough to support a family, found a faithful woman, married her, took care of her, kept her safe, made sure she had what she needed, and in return, she took care of him. I go out in the world, I don’t find employment like that, or women like that. I don’t get to own a farm like my great grandfather, I don’t get to work a union job in a factory like my grandfather, I don’t get given a government job in a brand new high tech field while I’m in school like my father. I get to pay back student loans on poverty level wages and women who are just as demanding but not at all supportive and somehow I’m the one in the wrong?
Is it possible you attract women who “want to be taken care of” because you don’t want them to work? I dunno, but do agree the subset of women who are willing to gamble away their own earnings potential on a guy is getting smaller. I do plenty of unpaid work at home, of course. But two incomes give us so much more, and now the kids are grown too, we have to catch up. I just have never been in a position to not work - stayed home with my first set of kids a few years, homeschooled for the first couple years, but went to college at night and worked part time, so when they did go to school I got a professional job and improved our lives. When I offered the same deal to my ex with the second set of kids, he stayed home and did cook, but just got radicalized on the Internet, wouldn’t go to school or anything to try to improve his chances at a job, then he got abusive verbally, then physically abusive and I left.
I do hope for you first a good job, with good pay.
I don’t feel particularly demanding, and my kids all seem to be in good relationships, some got good jobs in their field others didn’t, (I understand about graduating at the wrong time) but are making it work, two people working does make a difference.
And to be fair - before I went to school we lived with 2 other couples to make ends meet, house stuffed full of people working minimum wage jobs, so even though not in parents’ basement we did have no chance of making it on our own.
As with all things in life, relying on others in any way only invites incompetence, so if it is to be done, I must do it myself from scratch.