Over the years I have watched many relationships, some have thrived and some have, well, not thrived.

One thing I have noticed over the years is that as men and women age, their paths diverge quite a bit. Men chill out with age, usually quite a lot. By the mid 40's to 50's, even guys that were, frankly, assholes in their younger days have mellowed out. Females though.........the opposite is much more common. Of course not all females are this way but I have seen so many otherwise very nice gals turn into anything but chilled as they age.

Even my Mom who I loved as my Mom, was, well, kind of a PITA as she got older and it did sour our relationship to a point simply because after so long, I was ready to get away from her ''opinions.'' Now Dad on the other hand, he was quite the opposite, we butted heads a lot when we were younger, he was pretty easy to get ''fired up'' when I was a kid [and yes, I knew how to push his buttons]. In everything else he was ''stoic'' certainly little emotions showed no matter what. Dads did not do the ''I love you jr'' stuff way back when. If food was on the table, a roof over the head, you tossed a ball occasionally, he went to your sport games at school.............well, you knew he loved you. When he got older though, dang, he mellowed out an incredible amount, actually could bring himself to say he loved his kids and really did become my best friend as well as my Dad as we aged.

I see the same thing over and over with people I know and I wonder how much is age related and how much is society related.  I see way more chilled happy middle aged men that enjoy life then I see women. And it's not all menopause related either though I'm sure that has some relevance.

It's one of the reasons I just don't date much anymore, just go out some, sure, past that, meh, I just can't justify it anymore, I'm very happily chilled out, life is pretty good, everything is paid for, I still enjoy my job [most of the time, on call, ehhhh, not so much] and I can do what I want without any arguments or disagreements. I truly want for very little. Sure I look at some new ''toy'' and go I want that initially but I very seldom go past that point because I really don't care THAT much about it.

Do others see the divergence as men and woman age and is it ALL just hormonal in nature? [guys lose testosterone, women lose estrogen] I can see some of it but so much also seems to be people just wanting to be in conflict and ''getting their way'' without compromise.

My wife's always been a pain in the ass.

The older I get the more I learn to tune it out.


Which pisses her off, so...

Win ?

Bwa HAHAHAHA!

As men get older they realize that their life wasnt that bad.  They had a roof over their head, a warm bed to sleep in, a full belly and a rewarding job.  It's time to stop caring and just relax.

On the other hand though

As women get older they realize that that man kept them from fulfilling their dreams of living in a mansion, travelling the world, eating at fine restaurants and becoming a queen.  They grow bitter and fill their hearts with hatred, blaming the man for their disappointing life.

Yes.  The crazy gets worse with menopause, then weight gain, then reduced sex drive.
There's a line in a song about his wife getting meaner and uglier every day.  Get used to it.
That's why grandpa spends time in the tool shed...to get away from grandma.

thats why you trade them in for younger models as you get older.

Nature is unkind to women.

They mistake symbolic dreams for needs, focus on the career until they realize they should be having babies, and are shocked to discover that youth and fertility are their only stock in trade, and their value declines precipitously.

I hear ya OP

My grandpappy always said, "Women are crazy. Being with them depends on how much crazy you can stand."

With that in mind, maybe it's no so much that they get crazier with age but that we notice it more as we mellow.

Well, I don’t know if it’s necessarily age related. Society has changed. My mom laments that when she grew up, women were expected to be homemakers. If you did work, it was teacher or nurse.

Now that’s a bit of a generalization, but holds true for a lot of women. As they’ve aged, it’s become acceptable for them to speak up and be who they want to be.

Imagine not feeling comfortable saying what’s on your mind for decades.

Some 'truth' here!!!!!
My 'second' home is the local shooting range!!!!

This is what I believe in also

Nailed it.

OP you are way late on the learning curve.  There's a reason why men are not wanting marriage anymore.

I think you are discounting that WAY too much.

This describes my 25 year marriage to my now ex-wife. We married with next to nothing and built a comfortable upper middle class life, raising two great kids along the way. It never was enough and it was impossible to make her happy. Throw in menopause and becoming an empty-nester (losing her identity as a mom) and she became a bitter, miserable cunt.

women are like luxury cars...at first we're all like ohhhh...ahhhhhh... but after they start ageing they dont look as good as they use too, and they rapidly become high maintenance and they know the newer models are more attractive,
this makes them bitter and snowballs the whole effect.

every once in a while you come across a keeper.....but those are rare and if you have one your not gonna give it up

A woman marries a man and thinks he will change.
A man marries a woman  and thinks she won't  change.

When I was younger I would get really angry and upset about all kinds of minor stuff.   I'm incredibly mellow now compared to how I was.

Wife has been in peri-menopause for a few years now.  It's getting to the point I don't even want to be around her.  She bitches non stop.  Even complains about the sounds I make when I breath sometimes.  

It's not just the decline in estrogen it's the oxytocin levels also.  They lose any sore of mothering nature and become unaffectionate.

Seems to be pretty common for middle aged to elderly couples.  Changing hormone levels I guess.  Men mellow and become more laid back and women seem to go the opposite direction.

I'm nearing 50 and divorced and I plan on being single the rest of my life.  It's really great doing what you want when you want how you want without having to compromise or deal with someone else's demands.

My grandfather pretended to have bad hearing. My grandmother would nag on him to get a hearing aid all the time and he refused. One day my grandmother was hassling him from another room and he didnt flinch reading the paper. My gf walked in with my grandma calling him. He looked at my gf and winked and went back to his paper. Once she told me that i knew that man had marriage figured out. All 50 years plus he learned somethings.

Not hard to imagine. That’s the corporate world mid-level and up for at least the last two decades, where diversity and inclusion orthodoxy stifles honest conversations about ability, competence, leadership, and individual contributions.

That’s an easy fix, don’t marry a woman who needs to be a princess.  My wife has none of those fantasies.  We’re on the same page of a modest home with land to homestead.  She prefers to make her own high end meals than eating out.  Her one goal is to visit Italy, which we can hopefully do within the next year or so.

So you solve the problem by deliberately doing what pisses her off?

Do I have that right?

"That man" being the one whom they chose .............. that one?

Just a small niggle ............ you left out secretary.

What we have a tendency to do is think that a 'rough diamond' can be polished into the guy we want.
A bad boy is almost always appealing, women are drawn to men who look and act like MEN. Often though,
those very traits create issues in the long term as we try to mold our man into some other thing that was really
never going to be. I see a lot of women I know turning into shrews as they age and they feel more and more
the need to totally control their husband, my Father is a perfect example of this, he is totally dominated and run
by his second wife but he is also content in this role.
Finding someone who will respect you and allow you to be you without being threatened by that...
Now THAT is winning.

+2

My wife asked me all the time how can I tune her out so easy.

My response is normally Huh, can you speak up so I can hear you.

Pisses her off to no end.

This ^^

kwg

I now understand why all the late 40s and on guys hang out in their garages so much.  And why they spend so much time on lawn care.   Also why they discover golf, fishing or some other endeavor away from their wife.  I don't think I can resign myself to a life of misery like that.  My eventual divorce grows closer by the day.

In 95% of the rest of the world, the average middle class family lives like royalty, seldom worrying about electricity, food, clean water, a roof over their head, multiple vehicles, toys galore, a retirement before death, education, heat, A/C, and the list goes on and on. There is very little reason to be miserable as a way of life as we go into what tends to be the easiest part of our adult life in one way or the other.

Most guys tend to realize this at some point................