Daily Mail

Last Chance Saloon for Love

The feeling of urgency is something I remember well — that sinking, singleton despair and the doom-laden sense that the sands of dating time are running out through the egg timer of my life. What, I wondered, would happen if I hit 35 without being married? How would I find the right relationship and have a baby in time? As it was, in my haste to beat the biological clock, I got it all wrong by marrying — and divorcing — before I was 34. So much for trying to stick to the rules of the dating game. Before 34, I had always been told, was every woman's 'Relationship Window' — the optimum time to meet and marry your match.

A couple of generations ago, the race was on much earlier. Because they were considered old maids by their mid-20s, our mothers and grandmothers were courting and acquiring the security of a husband when they were 20 to 25.

More recently, women decided their early 20s are strictly for fun, and now the Relationship Window opens at 28 and closes at 35. So, you'll find single, childless women reaching their mid-30s increasingly hysterical that they might have missed their moment.

What if they have to face their 40s still frantically dating, while trying to quell their worst fears that they might end up alone — and childless?

In his latest book, The Good Life, social commentator Jay McInerney documents the Relationship Window for single girls in New York, describing it as 'the female equivalent of the two-minute warning in an American football match: time left — but not that much'.

But if you missed out on the man, marriage and motherhood in your early 30s, all is not lost. I am convinced of one fact: 40 is the new 30, and a second Relationship Window has opened up.

A new cycle of dating has changed the landscape of love for women in their 40s. Why? Because there are a growing number of men and women who are freshly divorced.

And also because there are millions of others who were too busy focusing on their careers, and suddenly, at around 40, have become desperate to find a partner to share their lives.

With the mushrooming number of starter weddings for the early 20s and the cataclysmic rate of divorce — 53 per cent of marriages in the UK end in disaster — this new Relationship Window is a second chance for women aged between 38 and 43 to find (hopefully lasting) love.

Perhaps at that age, having children is no longer a realistic dream, but a man who loves you is better than an empty bed every night.

The problem, of course, is that the pressure to find a man in a hurry during the second Relationship Window is anathema to genuine attraction — chemistry can never be faked or forced.

Yet however much women like me (aged 39 and entering my second Relationship Window) try to put the time constraints out of our heads and follow our hearts, there is that nagging voice in the back of our minds that says if we don't get the man and settle in to a committed relationship before our mid-40s, we'll be over the hill.

There is a nagging fear that the available men's eyes will be diverted by younger, fresher, feistier chicks. Depressingly, this is simply the Darwinian law of the dating jungle.

Mairead Molloy, who runs the elite dating agency, Berkeley Sweetingham International, would agree that people are more painfully aware than ever about their Relationship Windows, and are frantic not to miss the boat.

In the past two-and-a-half years, she has witnessed the intricacies of dating first hand, having taken 1,100 men and women on her books, at a 50:50 ratio — all of whom she has met and interviewed.

Even though it costs a whopping £6,000 to get in her Filofax, such is the demand for her services that she is expanding her offices, which include London and Cannes, to open in Monaco and New York.

'Women's painful awareness of the Relationship Windows really does affect their chances of finding love,' she says.

'While it is the easiest thing in the world to place a single girl of 35 with a single man of 40, if she's desperate for a baby, however much she tries to disguise it, she's in too much of a rush.

'She can't hide her screaming ovaries, and men are totally put off.' Mairead sees an increasing number of highly organised women in their early 30s determined not to miss their first Relationship Window.

'I get many women of this age who want a two-year courtship and know where they want to be at 35 — married with children. They are aware of the window and are very focused, so they come to me to ensure they don't miss out.'

Mairead believes there are two reasons for missing out on this first Relationship Window — women are consumed by their independence and are too busy for commitment while they are building their careers, or they are having affairs with married men.

'The women I get looking for the second Relationship Window are those who wanted the flat, the job and their own money, and suddenly, they lift up their heads at 37 and think: "Right, where's the man?"

'Then there are the women who wasted their 30s having affairs with married men.

'I have a host of women aged 38 to 43 who are divorced, with or without children, who have come out of long affairs or are single and looking for a husband.

'I match them with a whole band of 40-something men who may have been married and don't want more children or who are ready to do it all again.'

However, just as the mounting despair is palpable in the thirtysomething career woman suddenly desperate for a baby, Mairead says her second most difficult placement is the 45-year-old woman who has missed her second Relationship Window.

'A 45-year-old woman wants a maximum 47-year-old man, or a good-looking 50-year-old, but a 47-year-old man wants to find a 40-year-old woman.

'The problem is that the 45-year-old woman doesn't want to date the 60-something man who wants to go out with her, and yet she's terrified of facing 50 alone — and projects that.'

Isn't it all frightfully ageist? If attraction isn't based on looks, why does age matter?

'Everyone I see is completely hung up about their age,' says Mairead.

'The saddest thing is I see so many lonely people. Everyone comes to me and says: "I'm so tired of going to weddings and parties on my own." All they want is to be loved and to be with someone, regardless of how old they are.'

So what has caused this epidemic of loneliness which has made women so paranoid they are breaking their lives down into segments of opportunity? And if we're all looking for love, why are we having so many problems holding on to it?

The mere fact that using dating agencies and the internet for matchmaking no longer carries the stigma it once did (53 per cent of American women have used more than one dating agency), suggests that while we accept this all-consuming desire to partner up, we don't know how to settle down.

The rise of career women with forceful independence and surging earning power, along with the easily battered male ego moaning about emasculation, are all factors playing out in modern unions, which wreck havoc on domestic stability and longevity.

Not only did we have American writer Michael Noer sounding off in Forbes magazine warning men not to marry career women, but economics professor Randall Kesselring's research at Arkansas State University found the richer a woman becomes, the more likely she is to divorce.

After studying the finances of 112,740 women, of whom 16,760 were divorced and 95,980 were married, he concluded that 'a female's economic success may cause friction within the family'.

He argued that for every £10,000 a wife's earnings increases relative to the family's income, the chances of marital break-up rises by 1 per cent.

I know a successful interior designer, aged 49, who left her husband, an artist, on her 40th birthday. She walked out on him, taking their two children, because she couldn't face another decade supporting him, while living with his seething resentment of her financial independence.

Now, facing 50 and single, she is achingly aware she made a mistake. She's full of regret, not that she left her husband, but that she didn't wise up sooner to the opportunities of her second Relationship Window.

'When I first left my husband, I was so busy with the children that I didn't want serious commitment,' she says. 'I had affairs with married men, which suited me because they were less time-consuming.

'However, I should have spent my early 40s dating properly, because now I'm competing with much younger, fresher women. I worry desperately that I have missed my chance for a second relationship.'

Another divorced friend, a single mother and banker, aged 37, has joined an internet dating agency because she says: 'Fate is too fickle to leave it to chance, and even worse, it takes too long to deliver.'

Mairead Molloy agrees: 'Men like confident women who are not in any rush — that's sexy.'

As we evolve socially, we have to re-adjust to make our lives meaningful. As scary as it is, relationship success is about slowing down. Not giving up, but letting go.

As Mairead says: 'Life won't end if you don't meet someone. To be happy, you have to fulfil yourself.'

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