2020-Time to Better Your Life-Part 2

It is a new year and a new decade, but life is going to continue to happen. For you men that are on the fence about decisions you need to make while wondering how these decisions will determine your life's path as you get older, it is important you understand where you are now based on your age and the life decisions you have made. 

Lets look at the most important decade of your life when it comes to relationships. 

Your Thirties

As you enter your thirties, you are likely to be on multiple paths based on what you did in your twenties and these paths are more dangerous and fulfilling than the paths you were on in your twenties with decisions you make harder to fix or correct when compared to your younger years.

One path you may be on is that of a married man hopefully with children. If you got married in your twenties and do not have kids in your twenties you have defeated the purpose of giving up your youth and the fun that is your twenties. If you are married without kids, you better get started having them or get divorced because something is inherently wrong in your marriage if you are marrying young and not having kids. It may not show itself fully but people who get married young and don't have kids soon after will more than likely get divorced before they eventually decide to have kids. This is the worst possible path to be on as you enter your thirties.

Another path is married with atleast one young child hopefully two. This is the best path for a full life if you want children. This does not mean you are more likely to stay married and that you wont have issues with your spouse, but you are having a family and getting opportunities that only having kids can provide. As a younger family you will do more stuff, you will be more enthusiastic, and your kids will likely end up more social and often better especially if the have grandparents in the picture who can help out while they are still young and healthy. Finances will likely be a struggle but if you are ever going to have a woman be on your team and think about someone other than herself, it is when you are young. A woman's self centered behavior will increase as she ages and she is exposed to more smooth talking men bitter female friends who want her to fail. This is also your best chance to marry a good looking woman before you start to age. 

If you are not married and want to be, as you get into this decade, it is going to get tougher for you. If you don't have a great paying job or are desirable to women beyond 90% of other men, your odds of getting married decrease as the decade moves forward. If you think you can just marry a woman 10 years younger when you want, that is a fantasy for the average guy. Men that are above average in looks and money don't have to worry as much when it comes to these analysis, but even the average or slightly above average guy is going to struggle to build a family as his thirties move forward. As you get into this decade of your life, you will find most of the desirable women are taken. With a society where 80% of women reproduce with 20% of men, if you think that waiting until your thirties to start finding a wife and building a family is the way to go because its all about getting your education etc before you settle down, plan on marrying a single mom or divorcee who is likely further along in the deterioration of her looks and is filled with bitterness. Women who make their thirties who are divorced or without having married are likely women with personality issues that are not going to make good wives and you will still ignore them thinking you will find some hottie in her twenties when you want. 

One of the biggest mistakes I made was not getting married until I was 35 years old. This was not because I chose it to be this way. There are lots of factors that determine when you get married so development of your personality and awareness of life's path is important at a young age. While I didn't lack confidence and was well above average in looks, I failed at this for a variety or reasons. I met a girl the first year of college when I was 18. We dated until college ended which was not easy and while we didn't treat each other as well as we could have, there was no doubt love on both sides. My failure was not being an alpha male in terms of how I handled her and the opportunities that come with having a chance at meeting so many women when I was young and in my physical prime. I probably could have married her or once I realized she was not acting properly, I could have easily found another woman who was just as compatible who wanted a family when she was young. Instead I was complacent and didn't push for what needed to happen. It did not end well and we never spoke again. I look back at how I handled her and what she was allowed to do with cringe as I did everything wrong because I did not have a mentor or a lesson on how to maximize where I was at that time in life. While I seemed to be decisive in how I handled my career, I was a simp when it came time to getting and keeping a woman for anything long term. Women like attention and aggressive men can make your woman lose interest real quick if you dont show her you want a real future. If she is quality she will be responsive to you when there are feeling on both sides. By the time everything kicked in in my late twenties, it was not so easy to get married to a woman I felt worthy of what I brought to the table. Working in a small office and not being someone to socialize a lot made meeting people even harder. As online dating started to become a part of society that helped. Ultimately I met someone who was physically perfect to what I liked and who I thought would be a great mom, but she had been married before and brought many issues to the table that I chose to ignore because I was 35, not getting any better looking, and my dating pool simply was not where it was when I was in my twenties turning women down left and right without having to make much effort to get their attention. I was lucky beyond belief in that she got pregnant soon after marriage and we had two great kids before I realized that my life would end up worse then longer I stayed married to her. Many couples who marry later do not get so lucky and spend the last part of the decade in fertility clinics.

Life is about trades and bargaining in your thirties more so than any decade of your life and these trades are not made in your favor as you get older even if you are good looking man with a solid bankroll. When you want kids and you are in your thirties you will reek of desperation more than women in the same boat. You will end marrying a divorcee, a single mom, or a never married unattractive woman who likely does not have the personality to be a fun wife because she has little to no dating experience. If who you end up with is not on depression or anxiety medication at this stage of her life because of her own choices, you are the beyond lucky. If you do wait until this stage in your life to get married and try to build a family, getting kids is much harder for biological reasons. There is a lot that can go wrong. If you do  have kids and assuming you are as likely to get divorced marrying in your thirties versus your twenties, the financial and emotional destruction is going to be much worse in your thirties. My divorce was so bad that I have not spoken to the mother of my kids since I walked out once I realized what my future was going to be had I stayed married. No divorce is friendly but the anger and wrath you face from a woman increases as she ages.

For every negative thing I have to say about my ex and the court system, the fact I did not get married until 35 is my own fault and I deserved what I got in terms of a partner because I ignored the damage done by her own choices and a prior husband. White Knight syndrome factored in with desperation does not allow for a good end game when it comes to trying to build a family after age 30. Getting two daughters who I am very close with and who I have real input into to their lives is worth all the failure and heartaches including the post thirties social opportunities that we will discuss in part three of this thread. As bad as the financial rape and parental alienation from the ex was, I was very lucky to win equal custody of them at trial simply because God blessed me with finding the ex wife's nasty marriage habits that not only justified me leaving my marriage despite my guilt for doing so, it gave me a real chance in court that most men don't get or wont fight for because of the cost and the legal system that tells them to take the every other weekend custody and be thankful for it. Equal custody is not automatic and women, especially women who have been married before, know this. I was forced to trial to get equal custody from a woman whose habits if they were mine would have caused me to get supervised visits at best. No matter the facts, these older women will punish you more for divorcing in their late thirties on up because they know that they are now single moms and they aren't as attractive as they were when they were young. If you think your social options are bad for meeting women when you are older, the older women know their options are even less and they are labeled as single moms which makes it even harder for them. Physically women do not age like men so they need their security protected so divorces for older people are a nightmare when kids are involved. Younger men need to be taught this so they can make decisions on life sooner rather than later.

In addition to your social and family issues as you enter  your thirties, where you are in your career is also important. The paths are obvious and destructive if you make the wrong choices in your twenties.

If you spent your twenties not learning a trade, starting a viable business, or developing a reasonable career through post graduate education or with a company that offers some hope of stability as you age, you are going to look pretty stupid while men in your age group not only do well but get rich. While spending your twenties traveling and partying seems fun, by the time that decade ends you are tired of it and have nothing to show for it financially. You can start businesses that soon fail or advertise yourself to be more successful than you are to meet women, but as you enter your thirties, your ability to bs women about your lack of stability does not work or it does not allow you to end up with a quality woman. Your chances at male friendship also decrease as men isolate themselves more from others especially if they are not achieving like men of similar age. You will likely never marry, marry a single mom or divorcee, or find a low end woman way more likely than a man who gets a career and can use his stability to attract a woman. This a real problem.

By the time you hit your thirties you better be on a path with your career whatever it is with some level of stability. It certainly isn't easy to get married young and have kids while building a career, but this is the time to do it. It can be done and your physical strength and enthusiasm will be at your best. As you progress through your thirties, if you don't marry or have kids, your financial appearance only matters to you so get as rich as you can and enjoy life but to say you aren't more empty as you age no matter how wealth you are is just a big lie for 99% of men. If you do marry late despite no career or stability don't expect your wife to stick around long and you will be more likely to get divorced. If you are successful because of choices you made in your twenties, your life will be much better in your thirties because you can enjoy your older kids or provide stability to younger kids. This will also give you the best chance, albeit a small one, to get a decent woman or less damaged woman to have a family with during this decade of life. Your thirties are not designed to have it happen in this way.

If you married young and had kids in your twenties, it does not shield you from divorce, but if you do divorce, it is going to be a lot easier than a divorce in your forties or even fifties with kids who are not adults. If you marry young and divorce without kids, it is easier because assets are usually at a minimal and divorce is quick and not as expensive. People also tend to move on quicker when they divorce younger because it is easier to see more of life in front of you and begin again. 

If you get married and have kids in your twenties and get divorced, this is tough and the drawback of getting married young. While divorce happens and preventing it for another discussion, if you divorce with kids at any point in your thirties you still have a huge advantage over men who will go through the same thing in their forties. The longer you make the marriage last the older your kids will be when you get divorce so your child support is near an end. This matters because you have not likely reached your maximum earning or built up many assets. When you marry and have kids in your twenties, even if you divorce, the odds are the financial hit will be less and you can still rebuild.  One factor that men who marry and have kids young only to divorce is the fact they still have their kids and aren't back on the market trying to meet a woman to have kids. Nothing will destroy a mans self esteem more than a guy who does everything right in his twenties job wise, enjoys some fun during this time, and then hits his thirties thinking he will meet an awesome woman and have kids only to see that the type of woman he will meet is bitter, angry, divorced, undesirable, or mentally damaged beyond repair. You would rather stay single. The mindset that this great woman will just appear is a false dream that will lead you to a  bad choice or a life post forty of no kids or raising another mans kids. Not having to worry about this makes life so much easier post divorce so use your twenties to make better decisions or you will pay for it in many ways in your thirties. 

The worst thing you can do as a man is marry in your thirties because assuming divorce will happen, you are going to get financially destroyed in your forties and the payout will be at its max. While there are exceptions as to the extremes of wealth versus poverty and a mans looks, for the typical man who goes through life, your decisions are best made at certain times to allow for minimum damage and a maximum chance at recovery when it does happen.

As you think about where you are in life now, ask yourself what your future holds if you do nothing or if you make a bad mistake. In the next post, I will discuss men post 40 years old and how events in life shape them. These men might have more awareness, but the extremes of happiness versus sadness that they experience are very tough to overcome because your age is going to start to show even in the best case set up of how you live. No matter what your age, don't ignore what is going around you be it with your wife's behavior or your own choices or lack thereof. 

Getting advice from the right people, especially if divorce is an option you have ignored, is vital.