I'm fine with any discussion entered into in good faith, so you're good - although I've read so much in the past several years about this stuff that it's not always easy to call to mind a specific support, here are a couple I recalled.
Yes, of course some younger women do want a life partner and children, but the numbers are decreasing and more women than ever don't want that at all.
A hobo-sexual is a term that refers to a person (nearly always a guy) a guy who does nothing in the relationship, except perhaps provide good sex. He gets into relationships so he has a place to live. He doesn't work, but also doesn't do anything at home and essentially sponges off of her. By contrast, most women, even if they out-earn their male partner, still do the bulk of home, child, and elder care - and the vast majority of women work outside the home these days.
I've known a couple of women who married guys like that - one poor woman did it twice. A woman my husband used to work with her husband quit or got laid off or something and now he spends his days drinking and playing golf and she still has to cook and clean and take care of the kids when she gets home from her very demanding job as head of IT for the company. She may have divorced by now, I don't know, but the demographic that marries the least are poor women, and one of the dynamics of that is not wanting to be legally linked to someone who might not pull their economic weight. It's not the only reason for that, but it's part of it. And poorer women have more children than other demographics, so the married in order to have children theory doesn't apply to them in the same way that it probably does to middle and higher income women.
Middle aged and older men desire relationships and marriage more than women of the same age, because they get more benefit from it than women do. Men get more of their social and other needs met by a female partner than women do of a male partner because they tend to have a much wider circle of friends.
Not wanting to get married again is more about autonomy and freedom than anything. Even women who do want partners prefer to live separately and not remarry. My rather conventional mother did that after my dad died. She had another partner for 22 years but they kept their own homes and she like the freedom of not having to cook and clean for him, not having to ask for his assent to spend time with her friends, etc. Since her children were grown, it certainly made that choice easier, but all of the men in her widow/widowers group were looking to get married again - most of the women were not.
https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/lets-talk-about-why-female-divorcees-dont-remarry/
“Most people blame the victim when it comes to abuse, rape, and sex assault. When I told people I was abused, most men (and a shocking amount of women) I met gave a smug shrug and said, “Well, you picked the wrong guy.”
Men don’t necessarily have this. They very rarely ever have to worry about being raped or killed by their partner. Most people would also never blame them for trusting a woman. That double standard is a major issue that contributes to the “once bitten, twice shy” vibe women have.
Eventually, women who deal with bad dates and being blamed for their dating choices tend to say they’ve had enough. It shreds their trust in men, and rightfully so. Everyone has a breaking point.”
