I'd say this has less to do with success with women and more about success with life in general. When you live life on easy mode (meaning born into a healthy family unit with wealth/opportunities/luck) for the first 20-30 yrs of your life, you may end up coasting into mediocrity and going through the motions until you wake up at 45 with an existential crisis at the realization that you've wasted your entire life. If your early life is characterized by pain and trauma, it forces you to grow, adapt, and examine your life and alter it's trajectory. A friend of mine goes as far as to say that greatness can only come from trauma.
The idea of marrying a high school sweetheart and working hard up the corporate ladder from a young age is such a complete clown move I'm actually amazed a small fraction of men manage to do so happily without blowing their brains out.
well, I fit the box for trauma, def in this camp but I’ve actually done well out of the corporate ladder.
My life was so dysfunctional until my 30s I never had that settling down experience. I had some unstable women and a drug problem, and brushes with the law/trail of destruction/periods of depression. Then I got it together, got a very well paid sales role and made it a success - a roaring success
At 36 I married a 25 year old (pretty hot). To support your comment - many of my friends had their stuff together and now they are with women who don’t fully respect them (as they see then as they were at the same age when younger) and now their women, who in quite a few cases are a year or two older, have hit wall hard.
I did get laid a fair bit in 20s and did well as a DJ in the party scene but any serious woman ran a mile. Because I was a f-up when young in the long run I am doing better now.
Another thing is as you say, I have developed a lot of character over this time. A lot of these dudes have started to resent me a bit.
The only bit I take issue with is some people aren’t suited to work which is self employed. Salespeople like me generally need something to sell and this means you have to be in a corporate. To all intents and purposes when you’re a good corporate salesperson life is very much like being self employed anyway, I work when I want, I can leave and get a job with another firm at any time. I make my own decisions, and management is a joke because they just want to keep you there if you’re good. My reviews are mainly my boss checking im happy and not looking to leave!