Happily Married Wife Says She'd Never Marry Another Man If Something Happened To Her Husband Because 'There Are Too Many Bad Men Out There'
Tons of women told her they feel the exact same way.
PeopleImages / Canva Pro There's no two ways about it: the dating scene is a downright nightmare, and more and more people are feeling like it's not worth it.
As one married woman on TikTok shared, that even includes many women who've been lucky enough to find their soulmate.
A happily married woman says she'd never marry another man if her husband were to pass away.
There are myriad reasons people cite as to why today's dating game is such an absolute mess. Dating apps have flattened our humanity into little more than a set of physical features on a screen that removes the incentive to actually get to know people. Why bother when you can just swipe to the next?
For women, this has come with an even bigger problem: a wealth of toxic men on dating apps who are emotionally unavailable at best, and outright misogynistic at worst.
Modern dating isn't exactly a cakewalk for men either, so it probably shouldn't be all that surprising that a huge proportion of singles have just given up. A 2023 Pew Research study found that nearly 60% of single people don't even bother to look for a partner anymore.
The amount of discourse online about dating is a testament to how fraught it's become. And it turns out it's impacting even many happily married women's belief in "true love" and romance.
The woman said she'd never date or marry again because of all the toxic men in the dating pool.
Carly Bingham is a woman who got lucky. She's happily married to a man she calls her "best friend." And she seems to feel like her happy ending is more of a fortunate fluke.
She asked women in similar situations if they've had the same thoughts she has — if, God forbid, something were to happen to her husband, she'd just stay single, despite how happy marriage has made her.
"Question for the women out there who are married to men… who have amazing marriages with their husbands, husbands that treat them like the queens that they are," she said in a recent video. "Would you, if something happened to your husband, get remarried to another man?"
For Bingham, it's a hard no. "I have a wonderful husband. He is amazing," she said. "But if something happened to him, I would not get remarried to a man."
She did say she could conceive of herself perhaps having a relationship with another woman. But for her, a man is a no-go, because she senses that her husband is the exception to the rule where men are concerned.
"I think I got lucky. I think I got extremely lucky because the stories that I hear online in my friend groups, I got lucky," she said. "There are way too many [bad] men out there and you just don't know."
She went on to describe a sort of "lightning doesn't strike twice" feeling about the situation. "I don't want to take my chances again because I think I lucked out the first time." She then posed the same question to her fellow women on TikTok. Their answers were not exactly surprising.
Many women agreed that if something happened to their husbands, they would simply stay single and avoid the toxicity.
The usual trope we've all been acculturated to when it comes to companionship is to "always believe in love" and that even if you love and lose, you can always love again. Nowadays? It seems like a lot of women have become disabused of all that.
"Nooooope. I'm gonna live 'Golden Girls' style with my best friends," one woman wrote. "I’ve been married 14 years," another woman wrote. "The dating stories I hear are horrendous. I’m not finding this again. I’ll be going on widow cruises alone."
Others took a more practical route. They said they'd be willing to marry again, but only for money. (Listen, mad respect!) But even many women who actually have lost their husbands agreed with Bingham.
"I lost my husband 4 1/2 years ago," one wrote. "We were married 37 years, together 38 — wonderful man, great marriage, but I have no interest in marrying again. I agree — I got very lucky."
And, of course, like clockwork, a handful of men showed up in Bingham's comments to prove the point. "Fellas if there’s no money she’ll find another guy," one man wrote. "And as guys we want sex. The end." What a charmer.
"I don't know if anyone's told you this but women can have jobs. They can make money," Bingham pithily responded in a follow-up video.
In another follow-up, after reviewing the thousands of comments her video inspired, Bingham laid bare the heart of the matter. "Women are done being men's emotional coaches and coaches in all other aspects of life. Women are done," she said.
"It takes so much time and effort to cultivate a genuinely meaningful, healthy relationship, especially with men, because y'all are out here just kind of sucking at emotional intelligence."
And she had a word of advice for these men, especially the ones who showed up in her comments: "You need to either evolve or just give up."
There's nothing wrong with being optimistic about love.
Does Bingham make a very good point about the state of dating? Yes! Does that mean her choice and the choice of those who agree with her should influence your own views on love? No.
It's easy to speculate how you might react or feel in the hypothetical scenario Bingham presented, but the reality is that you never truly know. Love is unpredictable. Even if you close yourself off to the prospect doesn't mean it won't present itself to you in an unlikely place.
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.