IMHO the “25-35 anxiety” thing definitely happens, but mostly among people who want kids. And while for women some of the anxiety might be biological, I think with both sexes it has more to do with wanting to be relatively young and healthy during the child-raising years. That has started to change, though: I feel like I see way more people in their 40s having/adopting their first child than I used to.
Society has also gotten looser about the “need” to be married before having children, but for a long time I think that was the main driver for a lot of marriages. As someone who has never wanted kids, I’ve never felt any pressure to get married. It’s just never been a particular goal of mine, or an end unto itself.
(A marriage-like relationship, however, is something I would very much like to have someday. I’ve been single for the overwhelming majority of my life and I’m totally ok with it, but in a perfect world I wouldn’t be alone romantically. [And from time to time I do experience varying degrees of anxiety about whether I’ll ever meet the right man.] I did live with someone once, but our relationship never really came close to being the kind of partnership I want/need – which ultimately, I suppose, is why I ended it.)
I used to work with an RN who had one kid, a daughter. Whenever some nosy stranger asked her about wanting a baby brother or sister, she’d answer: “My mom doesn’t have a uterus.”
Interesting. I didn’t really fret about marriage. Not directly anyway. I was 28 when I met my wife and while I was completely open to a relationship I was primarily concerned with getting laid first and foremost and finding that good relationship was secondary if the sexual chemistry was there.
For all intents and purposes we were living as a married couple and I was content with that. It wasn’t until a fateful dinner when after a couple glasses of wine my wife jokingly told me, “I’m a keeper and if you don’t propose to me by this time next year then I’m out!” that I started considering marriage. I was I proposed a year later to the day and we married when I was 31 and she was 23. Its been great ever since.
I was in a long-term relationship from 24-27, and one of the reasons I ended it was because I realized that, at nearly 4 years together, it was time to either get married or split up so we could both find someone marryable before we got too old. I loved him - still do, as a very dear friend - but I realized that he was not The One, so I broke it off.
About 6 months later I met Husband, and we knew within a month that this was It. More than 15 years on, and we’re both still sure. My ex is still not married, but has been in a serious relationship for over a decade with a lovely woman who was married before and has no desire to do so again. I poke at them about it sometimes, but not too hard - they’re happy, that’s what matters.
I swear that dating in my late 30s as a divorced guy wasn’t the easiest. When I turned 40 though all that changed. Lots more women were willing to go out with me. I think a majority seem to think that he’s 40, a job, a couple of kids, he must not be too bad.
I was never that anxious to get married between 25-35, or have kids, but I was also married at 22 and divorced by 27 so that might have had something to do with it.
In my experience, typical groups of friends tend to undergo a phenomenon where during a stretch from the late 20s through early-mid 30s, most people in the group end up getting married, leaving a relatively small number of unattached people.
These people fall into one of two categories- people who don’t care at all and have no intention of ever getting married, and people who wanted to, but it just hasn’t happened for yet. They tend to start getting REALLY anxious and desperate about it, as they’re kind of in the dating trough between the “just out of college” and “just got divorced” crowds.
I think for the most part, they calm down after a few years and figure that if it’s going to happen, it’ll happen, but that they can’t make it happen.
Based on other things you’ve posted to this MB, you were divorced a second time at 37 and had a 4 year old child at the time.
That would suggest 1) that you most likely got married for a second time in your early 30s or earlier - and so were not really in the dating pool for much of the 25-35 period, and 2) that your late 30s were the immediate aftermath of your divorce, which may have influenced things as well.
I was most upset from early twenties through thirty that I was barely dating; getting married seemed like a pipe dream. I got married at 31, so no anxiety then.
I’ve noticed that as well. I got married late and had my first kid a year ago at 41. I can think of about 7-8 couples I know personally who are all around the same age and have a child around 3 or younger.
I would caution though that I also know a number of couples around the same age who had trouble conceiving. So there definitely is a biological imperative to start earlier.
As for the 25-35 thing, I’ve heard that referred to as a “quarter life crisis”. Not just anxiety about marriage and kids, but career and general adulthood shit as well.
Congratulations on your child! I am honestly thrilled that you are a father now. I love my daughters more than anything else but marriage sucked even though I picked one with all of the qualities that anyone could hope for. The only saving grace is that her parents and family in general still love me and we make the co-parenting thing work. It isn’t ideal but you work with what you have and it isn’t bad at all in my case. I still go to all major holidays with my ex and her family and it doesn’t get any more civil than that.
In my experience, the desire for sex turned to love at 28. I was a young man traveling and working, dating different women for 6 months of so at a time. At 28 things changed, I was looking for a partner. I didn’t find one until I was 31, so there were a few years of slight anxiety, but nothing major. I think some of the anxiety derived from the socioeconomic situation of the area I was living in at the time. Quality prospect were few and far between.
Yeah, I definitely noticed that with me and my friends. It hit around 28 - a sudden powerful sense of ‘Hang on, I’m not twenty any more, I don’t want to just goof my life away.’ For a couple of people it led to taking relationships up a notch or having kids, and for some people it involved travel or emigration, but for most people it was career-related. Lots of career changes, getting more serious about the career, making new things happen.
That’s how old my best friend was when she and her husband adopted their son (as a newborn; they were in the hospital when he was born) – and her husband was 43. That was 14 years ago. Their son doesn’t look like either of them, and when the four of us are out together sometimes people assume I’m his mom.
I do remember that I “freaked out” way more about turning 30 than I ever did about turning 40…I don’t remember 40 being hard at all, actually.
Marriage and kids can certainly be a challenge. Especially going from doing what I want when I want to having to coordinate with my wife around the baby. But truth be told, the what I want to do when my wife isn’t around probably isn’t the best thing for me anyway.
