there's nothing "safe" about committing to a life long relationship, or having kids.

and many people hit a certain age, regardless of how they played it and they get to a point, both in good and bad ways, that where they ended up is nothing like they imagined. you can tell yourself as a couple "we'll never be that couple that looks like we hate life" but you have no idea.

You can say things like "i want a great sex life all my life" and have no idea how that chemistry is going to match with someone all your life, you can't forsee the future. You have no idea how it's going to turn out. None. And the only person in that future you can control .. is you. So you're depending on all these other elements outside of your control, so your "dream" ends up the way you planned. NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN.

you also go through phases.. some things cease to matter that once did, new things start to.

there's no safety in that.

For all these schmucks who think they'd be happier without the wife and kids, who's to say they wouldn't have gone the other way and then lived a life where love never hit certain depths, where they never got to experience long term bonds..and they sit and watch what "other people have" and envy it?

Grass if always fucking greener. We all want what we don't have. Balding, fat cubicle monkeys think if they just didn't "settle down" they'd still be banking hot chicks on the weekend. 40 year olds who still party like they were 19 years old wish they're life had more meaning and wasn't as dramatic, where their relationships were a little more quality than the ones they have.

Unless you're a swinger, and live in a place where it isn't too scary to be outed as such a thing... you don't get to have it all.

You just don't.