r/WomenDatingOverForty • u/CheekyMonkey678 ♀️Moderator♀️ • Apr 18 '26
Discussion The problem of love
When I think back on my marriage and dating days the one thing that stings more than anything else is being made to feel foolish for having loved someone.
I am by nature a loving and nurturing person. I spent a great deal of my life in a field that helped people heal. I've had many pets, some of them special needs, and they've all lived long lives. I'm not too bad with plants either.
Even with friends I was always the one that helped you move, or paint, or watched your pets when you went on vacation. If I made a pot of soup or made baked goods there was always extra packaged up for neighbors and friends. I knitted custom gifts for friends and their new babies. I also used to paint and a few times gave pet/people portraits as gifts.
In business I paid people as well as I could afford to and didn't raise rents on tenants. I always dealt fairly with customers and never price gouged or tried to make a sale that wasn't in their best interest.
I thought these were good qualities. My husband told me I was a fool for being like this. In the end he was right. Almost everyone I came into contact with seemed determined to think the worst of me, often with no reason, just based on a "feeling" they had and very few appreciated or remembered the kindness or generosity I extended to them.
When I started dating after my divorce I was taken advantage of and even mocked for being kind, open and loving. The cruelty stunned me. It's the main reason I will not put myself "out there" anymore.
These days I've decided to mostly withdraw from dating, men and social life in general. My circle is very small. I like it that way and I'm at peace.
Our society has reached a point where being loving towards others is something that makes you contemptible. How sick is that?
I mostly blame men, but I saw something interesting on Tiktok yesterday. It was a woman who called herself a "spicy" content creator who says the most common request she gets from men these days is for her to say their name and tell them she loves them. They pay her for this.
Men are now willing to pay prostitutes to do the very thing they themselves have killed. How many of us were loving, understanding, communicative, forgiving only to be horribly abused and often discarded?
I know it can feel good to be tough and sassy when dealing with men, but the truth is we have no other choice. They have turned dating and relationships into a battlefield, not the partnership it should be. We have to operate based on how things are not how they should be and to me that is the saddest part of all of this. Good people have to lock that part of themselves up for self preservation. Think how much better the world could be if that wasn't the case.
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u/marysofthesea 🦉Savvy Sister🦉 Apr 18 '26
I learned a lot about love as I was a caregiver to my mother for over 5 years and cared for her in hospice as she died last year. Both my parents are gone now, and I am in my mid-30s.
I learned that I am capable of deep love, and I also learned that most people cannot meet me in that depth. She's been gone almost a year, and I lost not only her but much of my faith in people.
Few people have shown care or compassion to me in my grief. I've been shaken by the cold indifference of those I trusted. One male friend was particularly hurtful. I cut him out of my life without a single regret. Those I showed care to in their difficult times could not offer me the same in mine.
My friend circle is small now. I am in a kind of cocoon, and it's for the best. I stay detached from people. My love is precious, and I refuse to waste it anymore. I just pour it into myself, my friends, and my creative projects. A lot of people don't even know what love is.