The High Price of a High Salary: Why I Chose Love Over Money
35-Year-Old Single Woman Confused: I Make $20,000 a Month, Why Am I Losing to a Girl Making $4,000?
It’s normal to get married at the right age.
However, some people in society miss the best marriage age, perhaps because they are busy with work and career, or for other unavoidable reasons, and become “leftover” singles.
There are many reasons why older singles stay single. Besides not wanting to get married too early, they may also have some problems.
John became a “leftover” man because of his financial situation. A few years ago, his father became ill, which drained the family’s savings and left them in debt. Sadly, his father passed away.
This incident led to his girlfriend of three years breaking up with him right before their wedding. John understood that no woman wants to live a poor life.
But he didn’t regret it. Love can be found again, but there is no chance to make up for the loss of a parent.
After his father’s death, John worked hard for several years, and his life finally became stable. He was 35 years old, and his relatives of the same age already had children.
Last year, he met Lily, a woman working at a state-owned enterprise, through a matchmaker. She was the same age as him, and her family was well-off. Although she wasn’t stunningly beautiful, she was pretty.
For John, looks were secondary. What mattered was whether they could get along.
He took this matchmaking opportunity seriously. After all, it had been his long-held wish to find someone to spend his life with.
At first, he was puzzled as to why Lily, with her good qualities, was still single. But as they got to know each other, he discovered some significant problems.
First, she had a bad temper.
John was always punctual. Once, they had a date, but due to heavy traffic, John, who had left early, was 10 minutes late.
He called Lily to explain, but she got angry and hung up the phone as soon as she heard he was late.
When John arrived at the restaurant, Lily had already left. He called her, but she wouldn’t answer. He texted her to apologize, but she didn’t reply. John tried everything, but Lily insisted that a man who wasn’t punctual wasn’t trustworthy.
Finally, with the help of the matchmaker, they made up. John had to buy Lily many gifts to appease her. She accepted the gifts but still brought up the issue from time to time.
Similar incidents happened many times after that. Each time, John had to apologize profusely and ask the matchmaker to intervene.
This made John worry. He thought that there would be many trivial things in life after marriage. If they fought every time, their relationship would eventually wear down.
Second, she had low emotional intelligence.
Whenever John and Lily argued about trivial matters, he always took the initiative to apologize. He believed that as a man, he should be more accommodating.
After a fight, John often apologized with gifts. However, Lily never seemed happy when she received them. She always said things like, “Your taste is terrible. The things you bought are ugly.”
In fact, those were the things Lily had said she liked before, and John had bought them because he remembered.
One incident made John furious. On Valentine’s Day, encouraged by his friends, he ordered roses in advance from a friend’s flower shop and asked them to be delivered to Lily.
However, when the staff delivered the flowers to Lily, she was on her lunch break. She was woken up by the phone call and became furious. She refused to open the door and kept yelling at the staff to take the flowers back to whoever ordered them.
This incident made John feel embarrassed in front of his friend. He had put in the effort, but he was treated like this.
Third, she was bossy and always wanted to control him.
John wasn’t a chauvinist. His ideal life was to have a loving and harmonious relationship with his wife.
However, Lily was too domineering. She often told John what to do, criticizing him for being indecisive and not manly enough.
She always saw things from her perspective and often criticized John in public, making him lose face.
If John argued with her, Lily would always bring up the fact that she was doing better than him. She made $20,000 a month, had a stable job, and received bonuses at the end of the year.
Although John’s salary was comparable to hers, he worked for a private company. Lily often mocked him for having an unstable job and said that he should listen to her if he wanted a secure life.
No man likes to be looked down upon. It was okay to say it once in a while, but Lily constantly reminded John and kept putting him down, which made him feel disheartened.
They were only dating, but John had already discovered so many problems with Lily. Especially when they had arguments, Lily always said that her ex-boyfriends were much better than him.
The biggest taboo in a relationship is comparing your current partner with your ex. John was a man who cared about his pride. He had been working hard all these years, paying off the debts he owed because of his father’s illness, and buying an apartment.
He didn’t have big ambitions. He just wanted to find someone to live an ordinary life with. This requirement wasn’t high.
However, Lily often said that he was unambitious and that a good man shouldn’t be like this. The more they interacted, the more John felt that Lily might not be the right person for him.
He used to think that since he was no longer young, finding a woman of similar age might be better because they would understand each other more. However, this wasn’t the case.
When John broke up with Lily, she acted as if it was no big deal. She said, “With your conditions, you’ll probably never find someone as good as me. Don’t come back begging when you regret it.”
John didn’t argue with her and maintained his dignity. There was a girl at his workplace who had a crush on him, but he rejected her because he had a girlfriend.
When the girl heard that John had broken up, she confessed her feelings again and suggested they give it a try. John used to think that she was too young and that there might be a communication gap between them.
But since she had said so, John couldn’t refuse. They started dating, and to John’s surprise, he felt different this time.
Love has nothing to do with age. A reliable person is reliable no matter how young they are, and an unreliable person won’t become more mature and tolerant just because they are older.
Both were women, but Lily, who was 10 years older than the younger girl, acted less maturely.
When John dated Lily, he always paid the bill. Lily always said that it was a man’s duty to pay. But now, if the younger girl couldn’t pay the bill, she would compensate John with a gift next time.
She said that men are not obligated to pay for love. Love is a matter for two people, and dating is also a consumption for two people. Although this concept was relatively new to John, he appreciated her attitude towards relationships.
The girl didn’t earn much, only about $4,000 a month. But she was good at managing her finances. She didn’t struggle to make ends meet even though she was renting an apartment. She had been using her spare time to do side hustles and lived a fulfilling life.
They had been together for more than half a year, and John had decided to spend the rest of his life with her. He believed that he had found the right person, someone who was willing to work with him to create a better life.
He announced their relationship on his social media, declaring that he was no longer single.
Lily saw it and questioned him indignantly, “Besides being younger than me, she doesn’t earn as much as me, she’s not as pretty as me, and she has no house or savings. You must be blind.”
John didn’t avoid the question. He told Lily clearly, “She may not be perfect, but she’s the one who truly wants to live with me.”
Many people talk about the marriage problems of older single women. I saw a very accurate comment online:
The reason why some older single women can’t get married is that they have all the shortcomings of younger women, plus some more. In that case, why wouldn’t men choose someone younger?
What do you think of older single women?
