PART 3: The Men Of "The Men Who Sabotage Women's Fertility" Speak

I wanted to see if my take on men who "waste" women's 20s and 30s was missing anything. So I talked to some men.

Before I begin, thank you to everyone who read Part 1 and Part 2 of my series on “sunk cost” relationships- basically, the ones where a woman who wants marriage is strung along by a man who doesn’t want marriage (or at least doesn’t want it “yet”) for a long time, while he nebulously promises that it’s on the horizon. I shouldn’t have to keep saying this, but because I keep getting comments about it: I’m not talking about people who have happily agreed to an unmarried partnership.

In keeping with this theme, Chapter 3 of my book, Will There Be Free Food? will launch tomorrow, and it’ll be about a time when I was almost positive my husband was going to propose—a big New Year’s Eve vacation with both of our families. I mean, surely he was going to do it and I wasn’t about to make a giant ass of myself with that assumption…right? Catch this story tomorrow morning at 10 AM EST.

Anyway, in my first article, I talked to a lot of women who experienced this “sunk cost relationship” dynamic, but one thing I was missing was…

Joking, joking. The guys who were willing to speak with me were extremely pleasant people, and they brought up some interesting points that I hadn’t considered. Of course, men (and women) aren’t monoliths, so I think what drives certain men to drag out relationships is different from what motivates other men. Also, some men who ultimately did propose and marry their long-term girlfriends wanted to chat as well.

So I hope to answer the question: why do some men propose after eight years, while others carry on with no intention of proposing? Why do some men respond well to ultimatums, and why didn’t they just propose earlier if they always intended on it? Of course, there was some bias here. If a man were to string a woman on maliciously, he probably wouldn’t be open to chatting about it. But I never thought that the men in this situation were doing it maliciously anyway.

One sentiment that I only saw reflected by men who (at least as far as I know) did not actually have a long-term girlfriend and had never been in the situation I wrote about, was that marriage and having children is simply “too risky” for men. The reasons cited usually have to do with financial risk in case of a divorce, and their thesis essentially ends with, “What’s in it for me?” While I’m sure some men feel this way, none of the men I spoke with who actually had a multi-year relationship where marriage was discussed expressed this opinion. In fact, most of these men wanted marriage, and ultimately did marry—some to their long-term girlfriends, others to the next woman they dated.

One constant theme I noticed in all the conversations I had with men was that while many of them were open to marriage, or at least not opposed to it, none of them had marriage as a major life goal that they had thought about since childhood. This obviously isn’t true of all women either, but I think it’s more likely to be true of women than men. Whether that has to do with biology or social conditioning, I can’t say, but I do know that I fantasized about getting married and having children when I was as young as three, and that was in a liberal, feminist household with a working mother who, if anything, tried to influence me in the other direction.

Several men said they never really thought about the urgency from their girlfriend’s side. It was never brought up, and they weren’t raised to think about it. While I appreciate society pushing back against the idea that life ends for women at thirty, pretending that fertility doesn’t correlate with age (and ignoring the fact that this timeline is less forgiving for women) doesn’t do women any favors. The misogynists will come out of the woodwork to say that we “made our bed” and women born in 1995 have to live with the consequences of talking points they never endorsed. But—call me a crazy dreamer—I think it’s possible to live in a world where nobody discriminates on the basis of gender and people are honest about women’s window of fertility. It doesn’t say good things about men if subjugation of women is required for men to agree to have families.

Of course, this gets me in trouble with the other side too. While some men will tell me that I’m pandering to women who refuse to “hold themselves accountable,” some women will tell me that I’m parroting sexist talking points and assure me that women’s fertility and men’s fertility isn’t actually that different. Either way, look…the stuff I say is actually not controversial at all, and I suggest everyone go outside (but not before subscribing!)

But anyway, let’s put our Internet subculture grievances aside and ask the question: Men in this boat, what is your side of the story?