00:01So I go out of my way to follow a lot of older women
00:03on social media.
00:04And part of that is just to fight the insane levels
00:06of ageism and self-loathing that these algorithms
00:09will push on you, especially if you're a woman.
00:11Like every time I see a 20-something on here
00:12talking about how she needs to go to her dermatologist
00:14for more anti-aging treatments,
00:16I think you probably would have been better off
00:17smoking cigarettes than being on this app.
00:19But a common theme I've noticed
00:20with some of these older women on social media
00:22is how many of them will say,
00:24like, I waited until I was 47 to leave a marriage
00:27that was done at 27.
00:28And a lot of them are even on social media in the first place
00:31because they're going through this like self-rediscovery era
00:33much later in life
00:34because they're finally not burdened by the wrong man.
00:37And this is not to say that every woman
00:38is inevitably going to get divorced or end up in a bad marriage
00:41because to be clear, a lot of them are also in great marriages
00:43or just never got married in the first place.
00:45But it is to say that when a marriage is going wrong,
00:47when a marriage is failing, the woman,
00:49because it's usually the woman who initiates a divorce,
00:51is probably aware of that years, if not decades,
00:53before she finally pulls the trigger.
00:55And sometimes this is purely financial.
00:57Sometimes this is because it's dangerous to leave a marriage.
01:00But sometimes it's not.
01:01Sometimes it's a combination of sunk cost fallacy
01:04and the social pressure that we put on women
01:06to make marriages work
01:07and the stigma that we put on them
01:09when they become divorcees or single mothers.
01:11Now, this is just the sample size of the women I follow,
01:13but they pretty much universally say
01:14that if they could go back,
01:15they would have cut that marriage off way sooner
01:17or never gotten married to that person at all.
01:19And if you're a younger woman who's unhappy
01:21or unfulfilled or neglected in your marriage,
01:23but you feel guilty or ashamed about potentially saying
01:26this isn't working and moving on,
01:28do not let society gaslight you
01:30into giving that man more of your youth.
01:32And start seeking out the wisdom of older women
01:33who lost decades to the sunk cost fallacy
01:36because they'll tell you what's up.
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