Do married couples (especially married women) generally dislike single women?

Women who have internalized that marriage is the be all and end all for women will look down on women who are not "fulfilling their role"

Check out crab mentality. If someone who is in a horrible marriage sees a single women who is happy and loving their life, they'll try to shame them into getting married to man who wants them.

It's the same pickme type of woman that starts to ignore and neglect her girlfriends as soon as she gets a boyfriend and then comes crawling back the minute he leaves or mistreats her.

When they get married they often neatly separate their friends into singles and couples and only continue to hang out with the couples and just don't invite the singles anymore while feeling so mature and superior because they do "couples game nights" and "double dates" now. That only gets worse when they have children. I've seen it happen countless times and experienced it myself.

Women like that just stop existing as an individual and completely vanish into an unhealthy wife/girlfriend/mother role and draw their whole self worth from that. Single friends who confront them with the fact that there are other ways to be happy in life are kicked out because it's so much easier to tell yourself that there is no alternative to your scrotey husband and boring life if you don't see other people thrive.

I've honestly cut off all women who show signs of that behaviour. They add nothing to my life.

I’ve noticed that the married women who have a problem with me have two things in common:

1. Their husband is attracted to me (gross)

2. She feels insecure in her marriage (probably because of her scrote husband)

Once she’s figured out that he’s a loser and she’s better off divorced, we can be friends.

I’ve noticed that married women become more socially open when they’re considering divorce. It’s like they’re waking up to the world, and building their social networks to prepare for being single again.

I am only friends with single women, or women in marriages who aren’t completely consumed by their husbands.

I think married couples generally avoid single women (unless they’re poly, which is a whole ‘nother problem).

Thank you for addressing this. This is very relatable. I walk a lot, and regularly cross couples who are also walking, of all ages and variations. However, if it’s man+woman, I have by now learned to only friendly nod to the woman, so as to indicate that I am not a threat and not flirting with her husband.

Because, most of the times, the man will enthusiastically greet me, and the woman will give me the stare of death. I now realize this is probably because men can be pretty clueless if someone IS flirting with them, or they don’t trust their men to be faithful.

Still, I always cringe so hard. First of all, these are usually not men I am attracted to - chill out, I don’t want your billy goat. Secondly, HAVE A LITTLE FAITH IN MY STANDARDS, sis. I would never flirt with a man if I knew he was taken, because that’s degrading. And I respect women too much to be undermining them in that way. The fact that they even frame me like that has me seething.

ok i thought i was the only one going crazy. Ive been single all my life but recently notice I get sourpuss stares or ugly stares by women at stores with their dusties. Im not even remotely attractive so maybe im getting judged for not dressing to the nines fulfilling my pickme duties or they're scared their dustbusters are going to look my way since ya know.. men.

the FIRST time I noticed it was when I was at sephora during a sale and a woman cut me off to get through the aisle and reached her arm obviously to reach her bf. Could've been nothing for all I know but I have been noticing the stares and kinda worried pickmes as if theyre doing their best to not lose their bf attention.

I'll chime in with my own experiences.

Some married women have had no problems with me. Others have had massive problems with the fact that I dare to exist as a 30-something single woman around their husbands. I have gotten my share of death looks, and while I've always made a point to ignore the looks and be nice to the wives, I've also recognized there is nothing I can do to get on their good side...except get married.

I feel it's only going to get worse as time goes on. And in my circles, there are so few single women. Actually, I don't personally know any single women in their 30s and beyond. Zero.

Had a friend who married young and she admitted she envied the freedom I have. Apart from that, she didn't seem toxic until she had children. Then she stopped having the courtesy to even greet me at gatherings and started treating me in an infantilizing way/looked down on me as if I was below her or didn't "belong in her class."

It's a case-by-case basis for me. Some married women seem to be alright with me, yet I could have sworn that about two or three of them would give me the stink eye in church. I have since left that church since I also could have sworn that, as a single unattached woman, it is challenging to make friends there - people tend not to come out and welcome you very much.

I hope people don't think my other comment was trying to dismiss the experiences of others or implying I'm somehow doing something "better" to get the married people to be okay with me. I'm seeing how it can come across that way.

Reading everyone else's experiences, I'm trying to puzzle out why my experience is different.

Could it be my lack of attention to strangers? First, how would a stranger know my relationship status (married people don't always wear rings here)? Second, what good would it do me to notice or remember a stranger giving me a stink eye?

Could it be that I don't go to church? I'm Buddhist and pressuring people to get married then procreate is not really our thing. But I do have Christian friends who like me. But I guess the type of Christians who disapprove of everyone who are not like them wouldn't associate with people outside the church, is that why I don't cross paths with that type in real life?

I mostly socialize with two groups - the one with more married people in it is a community volunteer group where we're focused on what we can do, not our personal lives. The other one is a childfree women group where we talk about our personal lives more. That group has more single women, but plenty of married ones, too. I haven't had any issues with the married women in that group - I think that's because "other people don't have to be the same as me" is not a foreign concept to childfree women, single or married.

I still get the sense (from media) that society dislikes single women, I'm just not getting that dislike in real-life interactions with married people. Except for that one cousin. Who is male, and a moron.

I haven't gotten any crap from the married women in my life. Counting acquaintances in this. I'm not counting strangers because I pay no attention to strangers.

There is one relative who gets on my case - my cousin, a middle-aged married man who enjoys trying to piss people off. His wife has been nothing but nice to me. He is so not worthy of her. She looks exasperated at him whenever he acts like an idiot, which is often. 😆

Maybe it helps that the women in my life get to know me at least enough to get a sense that I centre women over men.