Methods for finding a spouse

no, this was not the wrong place to rant. i am glad to see you post. but i would like to respond as someone who fits the profile of your post.

i am that forty-something man who is divorced with children. and just as there are things that a woman might look for- financial stability, health, someone your own age- there are things i am looking for like having another child or two. this is not inherently a bad thing. just as it is not bad for a woman to seek financial stability.

i am not just looking for a "breeder" as you put it just as i assume you are not looking to be bank rolled. but both desires could be twisted to appear that way. i am looking for a friend and companion. someone to walk with god with me. i am also looking for someone with whom i can continue my family because that is a desire that i have.

if we were both in our twenties and in love and looking to marry, i am willing to bet that we would be hoping to have children and that you would be hoping that i stayed gainfully employed. obviously, none of us know the future. people get sick. jobs are lost. children are not always carried full-term. my own seond child was miscarried. things happen. life is not often pretty.

as i was recently told, sailboats do not move in calm seas.

so if god grants me that godly lady with whom i hope to expand my family and we marry and she ends up infertile- no, it will not be a deal breaker. i will not put her to the curb. marriage to me is for life.

yes, i am divorced. no, i did not have any control over it. you can only control yourself. you really have no power to control another person. they are always going to do what they want to do. and we can talk about divorce and remarriage in another thread (again...).

but here is some hard reality- for most of human existence, women have been given in marriage to much older men. the fact that we in america choose to mate with people close to our own age is a sociological anomaly.

and even in my own experience- when i was younger, in my teens and twenties- the women my age were almost exclusively seeking older men. they were stable and more mature- "marriageable." i was considered to be young, ignorant and broke. now that i am older, i do find it slightly amusing that the women my age now think i should be dating them! twenty years ago, as a group, they would not give me the time of day. now, they lament that i am not paying them any attention!

you at 36 probably won't have too hard of a time finding someone your own age. but as you get older, that chance will decrease. when you get to be my age- mid-forties- it will be very hard for you to find that man your age.

it may not be right in your eyes. and it may not be fair. but it is what it is. it is life.