Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

I’m 63, single, child-free – and my friends weren’t there for me when I needed them
www.msn.com ^ | August 6, 2025 | Kate Mulvey

Posted on 08/08/2025 3:24:01 PM PDT by Jonty30

Several weeks ago, I had a serious health scare. The emergency appointment and ultrasound were attended alone. I did a ring-around of my friends and sisters, but they were away or otherwise occupied. All I wanted was someone to hold my hand and give me a bit of moral support, but on a sweltering hot day, I sat alone in the hospital waiting room – a solitary figure among a sea of cosy couples, with only my Kindle for company as I bounced off the walls with anxiety. While the scare turned out to be just that, the stark realisation that my friends weren’t really there for me when it counted, and that I was utterly alone, was an unpleasant wake-up call. As a childless, unmarried woman of 63, it is difficult to admit how terrified I am of ending up alone and being eaten by cats. Read Next: I tried eight types of coffee bean – a supermarket brand was the clear winner Without the silent contract between parent and child, Someone we look after and who can take care of us, the loneliness wears more and more heavily on me. I find it devastating to imagine ending my days isolated or worse, going gaga and incontinent in a care home. Like many women, I had always expected to get married, have children and maybe even a house in the countryside. It never happened, but not by design – I left it too late. Looking back, in my twenties and thirties, I was about as ready for the chains of matrimony as I was for joining the Women’s Institute. I didn’t want my life mapped out for me.

(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...


TOPICS: Chit/Chat; Education; Health/Medicine; Society
KEYWORDS: alone; childless; eatenbycats; unmarried

Click here: to donate by Credit Card

Or here: to donate by PayPal

Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794

Thank you very much and God bless you.


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 61-8081-100101-120 ... 241-252 next last
To: Sequoyah101
I had a really funny response from a Freeper on the subject of "you better get married and have kids or you're going to die alone" thing...

He said (I have to paraphrase):

"I've heard all this crap about you better get married or you're going to die alone. Let me tell you, death is not a team sport. People rarely get to go out together. And if you are an old guy who lives long enough and ends up in a home, there are so many women coming at you that you feel like a machine gunner at the Chosin Reservoir in Korea fighting them off!"

I wish I could remember his exact words, because I found them funnier than what I could piece together, but...I get what he means.

81 posted on 08/08/2025 4:22:14 PM PDT by rlmorel (Factio Communistica Sinensis Delenda Est.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: cgbg
She didn't disappoint. She was just as I envisioned her:


82 posted on 08/08/2025 4:24:53 PM PDT by rlmorel (Factio Communistica Sinensis Delenda Est.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: Jonty30

I guess fish do need bicycles after all


83 posted on 08/08/2025 4:24:57 PM PDT by Jeff Vader
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ETCM

She could have brought her cats.


Your cats would kill you if they could.


84 posted on 08/08/2025 4:26:07 PM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 31 | View Replies]

To: Repealthe17thAmendment

“...chains of matrimony?”

Yep, she lived her life as a Useful Idiot for the Feminists.


85 posted on 08/08/2025 4:26:14 PM PDT by BobL (If you're over 50 and still eat carbs, expect to become diabetic)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: rlmorel

There’s nothing on those bones for the cats to eat.


86 posted on 08/08/2025 4:28:36 PM PDT by TigersEye (The Golden Age of MAGA is upon us!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 82 | View Replies]

To: TigersEye

Hahahaha. Well, we all come to it at some point if we live long enough, I suppose.


87 posted on 08/08/2025 4:29:49 PM PDT by rlmorel (Factio Communistica Sinensis Delenda Est.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 86 | View Replies]

To: Jonty30

A person without children will have no one to visit them when in a hospital, one to care for them on their death bed, and no one to mourn for them when they are gone.


88 posted on 08/08/2025 4:30:14 PM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar ( )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: rlmorel

On occasion I’ve joked that if something happened to my wife and my children were grown I’d move into a one room Kazinski somewhere in the mountains.


89 posted on 08/08/2025 4:30:26 PM PDT by posterchild
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 81 | View Replies]

To: cgbg

Ugh. What a tool of a human being. You know what I think it is? She hates being a woman and is angry at everyone for it, especially men.

No wonder she couldn’t find a guy. Even the horny ones knew better than to drink beer around her.


90 posted on 08/08/2025 4:31:36 PM PDT by rlmorel (Factio Communistica Sinensis Delenda Est.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: Jonty30

it’s not always a persons choice, some times it’s God’s will for a person to be without help at times. Some times He wants to get our attention. Some times He wants to use our situation to have an effect on others.

the Bible clearly says some people should remain unmarried. You wanna fault people for doing as the Bible says some should do?

Many marry that should not have. Many(married or not) have kids that they should not have. Lots of people disobey God in many ways.

It’s God’s to sort out who should have stayed single but didnt, or who He WANTED to go through something alone, but they guilted or otherwise managed to talk some one into helping them.

Easy to judge things through your own eyes, but the Bible says His ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts are higher than ours.

we will never really know many things, until maybe when we meet God after we die.


91 posted on 08/08/2025 4:31:48 PM PDT by b4me (Pray, and let God change you. He knows better than you or anyone else, who He made you to be.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Z28.310

All too true.


92 posted on 08/08/2025 4:32:15 PM PDT by MayflowerMadam (It's hard not to celebrate the fall of bad people. - Bongino)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: rlmorel

It’s just as well for the cats.
What little meat they could scrape off of her is probably chock full of spike proteins. :D


93 posted on 08/08/2025 4:33:25 PM PDT by TigersEye (The Golden Age of MAGA is upon us!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 87 | View Replies]

To: Jonty30

We make choices. Choices have consequences.

60s “feminism” has caused a lot of suffering for a lot of women (and men and children) over the decades.

The best we can hope for is that others learn some lessons from the choices this woman made.


94 posted on 08/08/2025 4:33:52 PM PDT by ChildOfThe60s (If you can remember the 60s, you weren't really there)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: b4me

I have a good friend who remained single all his life. We always had deep conversations about science, philosophy, politics, society etc. He is now in a ‘memory care facility’ a thousand miles from me and I cannot contact him nor can anyone else I know he knows.


95 posted on 08/08/2025 4:34:36 PM PDT by posterchild
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 91 | View Replies]

To: Jonty30

I’m calling BS in this writer.

Because two years ago, it was a different story.

https://www.the-sun.com/lifestyle/8514281/single-shamed-ring-fake-fiance-date/

ENGAGEMENT RINGER I was shamed for being single at 61 – so I bought myself a ring and invented a fake fiance, it helped me bag a date

Well, I’m sick of being single-shamed, and men thinking there is something wrong with me.

Just because I haven’t said “I do” doesn’t mean I’m a loser in love.

….

So now I have done the big reveal, has it worked?

Yes, I have started dating the wonderful man from the gallery.

And yes, he knows about faking the engagement, and after a lengthy explanation, he managed to laugh about it.


96 posted on 08/08/2025 4:38:20 PM PDT by DoodleBob (Gravity's waiting period is about 9.8 m/s²)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Ruy Dias de Bivar

A person without children will have no one to visit them when in a hospital, one to care for them on their death bed, and no one to mourn for them when they are gone.


Real-life Eleanor Rigbys.


97 posted on 08/08/2025 4:38:29 PM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 88 | View Replies]

To: Jonty30

I do feel bad for older single people. When i got married and had kids I lost touch with some of my single friends - and married ones too. Other priorities took precedence and there just isn’t enough time in the day for everyone. Kids took priority over friendship - it’s a sad part of life. I need to do a better job of reaching out to them.


98 posted on 08/08/2025 4:38:38 PM PDT by imabadboy99
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ChildOfThe60s

60s “feminism”


And it’s evil twin, “The Playboy Philosophy”.


99 posted on 08/08/2025 4:39:37 PM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 94 | View Replies]

To: Z28.310

You can count on .....you.


100 posted on 08/08/2025 4:39:46 PM PDT by rktman (Destroy America from within? On hold! Enlisted USN 1967 proudly. 🚫💉! 🇮🇱👍! Winning currently!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 61-8081-100101-120 ... 241-252 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson