I'm a 25-year-old successful female. Is it weird that I really want to get married and have a kid in the next 5-10 years?

In December I’ll be 26. I was in a relationship for more than two years with someone I thought I may eventually marry and have a family. Over time, the relationship kind of disintegrated due to compatibility and culture issues and we now live separately and see a lot less of each other.

We’re essentially broken up (It feels like it, at least.) but we see one another occasionally, go on sort-of dates, he calls me ‘sweety’, ‘baby’, etc. but that spark we had as a couple is palpably diminished. It’s confusing and I’m hoping that when I see him this week we can confirm that we’re on the same page about this feeling because I’d like to move on as a single person without guilt or feeling like I’ve caused him unnecessary grief.

Part of my rationale for wanting to go our separate ways is that I no longer see him as a potential candidate for marriage. I’m aware that I sound pretty old school here, but since my Mom died, I’m very aware of the passage of time and how life goes by so fast.

The truth is that I want to find a nice man, settle down, and have a child someday. If I were a man, I’d have the luxury of being able to put this off almost indefinitely. And yes, I know many women get married and start families in their later 30s—my grandma did—but I’m trying to be realistic. Every year after 30, my window of opportunity is going to shrink.

Is it weird that this becoming a source of anxiety for me in my mid-twenties? I’m a progressive woman, consider myself a feminist, and don’t think I ‘need’ a man – I just want the companionship and the partnership that comes from a stable marriage and to know the satisfaction of parenthood. Are my fears of missing out overblown or am I on to something my peers aren’t?