Is it loony on a first date to say that you want kids some day?
I assume EVERYONE I’m interviewing who is under 25 is going to leave if they aren’t promoted within 24-30 months. Otherwise, it’s very likely they aren’t a good fit. We have a culture of investing in our early career employees and expect a return in the form of increased responsibility. The only times I’ve been wrong, they have turned out to be either incompetent or not motivated or both or otherwise a really bad fit.
With any relationship, you’re taking a chance. As the years fly by, all of us change and often in ways we didn’t anticipate. I’m not the same person today I was when I got married and neither is my wife. Both parties can enter a relationship with the best intentions, their eyes wide open, but years down the road find they’ve drifted apart for a myriad of reasons. I talked about my sister who broke it off with her boyfriend after she accepted that he wasn’t going to ask her to marry. They still remain friends, in fact she put him on her mortgage after they broke up because he had contributed financially so much to the place she felt it would be wrong not to. He’s married now with children and they still keep in contact.
Sometimes relationships fall apart and nobody’s the bad guy.
Agree with that closing comment.
There’s evidence (no cite) that men in particular will not break up until they’ve got a fresh GF lined up. And if they’re generally satisfied with the status quo GF, most of them are not out looking. So the guys are content to glide along day after day, year after year cohabiting (or not) with steady GF.
Those guys’ women each face the agonizing decision of “How do I force this to a marriage, or accept that I need to walk away because he won’t marry or walk himself.” And on which specific day do they screw up their courage and say “I’m done.”? I will always remember the day I took a deep breath and told wife #2: “We’re done. I’m out.” Took a big serving of courage to say that instead of waiting one more day … again. One of the best decisions of my life (so far at least), but also one of the most difficult to execute.
It’s akin to the old saw that “he/she who cares least, wins.”
I gotta eat sometime, might as well happen today. Nobody needs to get married, ever.
Having a rigid timeline doesn’t seem very mature to me. In my world, adults learn to adjust them if it’s necessary.
Necessary would be something like, “let’s wait to get married until I have finished my education”. Not “I’m still not sure if I want to get married (to you)”.
Ehhh, they’re both valid reasons to not get married. The second strongly indicates you should break up if one wants to get married. The hard timeline is what’s silly, in my book.
I’m sorry if I missed anything but I think all of the women who posted to this thread (and of course some men) sympathize with the woman in this fable. Maybe that should be food for thought.
Men who are happy w just GFs and women who definitely want to get married go back centuries, if not millennia. I find the gender divide in the responses here about as surprising as sunrise.
No great food for thought there.
It should be to the men who insist she is crazy
That is tough, but does setting a deadline two years in advance make it easier? In the story, the only apparent sin of the guy was not wanting to get married. Which is reason enough for her to break up with him, for sure. But if she is tough enough to do it at two years, why not “we’re getting married or else” plus two weeks?
Anyhow, my main problem with her is thinking a first date is the time to issue this ultimatum. Not the breaking up, at whatever time suits her.
I worked in tech, with very flat management structures and ample room for pay increases for good performers. There were plenty of people who were excellent at their jobs but who would have been awful as managers. In any case, the interview is not the time to demand a schedule. And a first date is an interview in a sense.
For the record, I knew I wanted to marry my husband early on in the relationship, but I still thought four years was prudent. We were both in school but I doubt being finished would have changed the timeline. Being much older, I’m not sure… I think we recognized the impulsiveness of our youth at that age and wanted to hedge our bets.
My feeling is I would want to be with someone else long enough to learn how they are in a major crisis, and a wide range of other situations. Relationships are pretty easy when you’re enjoying the status quo. I think four years is a good amount of time to see that shaken up more than once in different ways.
Part of what made me love him so much is that he cared about this boring compatibility shit as much as I did. We talked about all of it, right from the beginning. Both very pragmatic in our approach.
But it’s absolutely true you can marry young and the two of you can change and there’s nothing for it. There’s always a heavy dose of luck there, no matter how well you choose. The most significant way we’ve both changed, I think, is we expect more to go wrong. I think it’s called wisdom. 
Depends on the timing…
Of course. I’ve never said otherwise. In fact, the very first sentence from my post that you quoted was this:
Not at all. That sort of conversation is an integral part of the ritual of “getting to know each other”. It is, however, loony to take out a five-year planner and start marking it up with deadlines, which in effect is what this woman was doing.
The obvious problem for the typical American woman with any post HS education is that from when she finishes undergrad at 22 or grad school at 25 she has 10-12 years in which to meet, date, decide, engage to, marry, have some childless time together, then make 2 babies and still finish an optional or accidental 3rd pregnancy by 40.
There is very little time to waste. Men’s lives run on a very different and relatively unhurried timeline.
Yes, true. I was just looking at it from the perspective of her giving ultimatums. Of course, you are right, he can also make choices or make demands. Apparently, he did when he decided not to propose after 2 years.
I’m a woman, and I didn’t. 
Yes.
I know the romantics here abjure thinking of relationships as emotional investments, but they are, and both financial and emotional investments are prone to the “sunk cost fallacy”. It is hard to cut your losses on an investment. Harder on a relationship one. Going into it with a plan rationally formulated beforehand, with transparency, helps in both cases, if you can stick to it.
Strong disagree. It is absolutely true you will change. Making it work through those changes is not luck. It is working at it together because you are committed to each other. Of course such requires both sharing that commitment to the effort.
My kids.
Oldest. 39 year old male. Says he wants kids someday. Serial monogamist. In a three year relationship with a woman who he is unsure he whether or not he wants to marry. No idea what discussions they have had about that. I hope they have been open and honest with each other. And sure they can break up (this has gone longer than his others have) and he can find a woman ten years younger to start a family with in his 40s. When he’s ready.
Youngest. 23 year old woman. Wants to have a family someday also. Does not want to be mid thirties getting fertility treatments to do it. Not ready now but is pretty open early on in dating that is her want. Definitely now at a point of evaluating along the way if this would be someone who she would want to spend her life with, and if they are someone who would be ready to commit on that time line if it works out. She’s dumped a couple so far.
As long as there is transparency and mutual honesty from early on they are both doing what is right for them. But of course if a family in the future is something you think you want (not need) then there is more sense of a timeline for my 23 yo than for her oldest brother.
Two excellent archetypes. Thank you.
I’ve often said that IMO statistically more women than men want children with any given degree of enthusiasm. As well the women’s collective enthusiasm skews higher than the collective men’s.
Add all that up, throw in the historically lesser economic opportunities for women for reasons we need not address here, and the bottom line is two groups of equal size seeking to pair off very differently.
Lotta room for the whole crowd to end up w a lot of sadness and tragedy, plus a small core of well-matched bliss.
Seems to me that sometimes the way people change is they stop putting in effort. I don’t believe every relationship can, or should be saved. But I think for many there’s that sunk cost fallacy. And when you add kids it gets a lot more complicated.
All academic to me. We had one bad year (relationship-wise, not life-wise… life-wise we had more struggles than not.) We survived that year. I am grateful. I take nothing for granted.