To not attend family gatherings as the only single person

I remember feeling like this with friends in my late 20s when they were all having babies - I would happily see them individually even with their baby but in a group the chat was all nappies and nurseries and I felt so left out and lonely.

Op my only advice to you is to maybe see a life cooach and find hobbies and interests and passions that make you love your life as it is. This will help you enjoy yourself and be grateful for the fun you can have while childless and also this energy about you will be so attractive it might help you meet a man to have kids with if you are dating!

OP that sounds so hard and it's reasonable to set yourself boundaries but it could be worse long term to feel more estranged from them.

Can you start planning fun, exciting reasons you might be too busy to attend, rather than hiding at home, which could make you feel worse. It will also mean you aren't sending the "don't want to" vibes which could cause problems long term.

Also, when something hits a nerve really badly, it can be worth really looking at why. Could you consider solo parenting, it sounds like you'd have a great support network? I wouldn't let ideas of how things should be prevent you from having a family at all.

Long term, I think you'll find value in the relationships you have with your sisters and nieces and nephews and would regret pulling away. That doesn't mean not making decisions that centre you now, but make them proactive rather than avoidant.

Take care

Or pointing out to the OP that the only behaviour she can control here is her own, as so often? I feel for her, as I’ve said in several occasions. But she needs to sort out her understandably strong feelings about a situation she’s struggling with rather than expecting other people to self-censor.

There are a lot of married pp with children on this thread having a serious empathy fail

Situation Normal, then?

Yep. There are a lot of married pp with children on this thread having a serious empathy fail 🤦🏼‍♀️

🤣

Honestly, though, I haven’t needed to. My friends with kids have rounded lives and other interests. And tbh even if they didn’t, they have manners and social skills as I say and I can’t imagine them just monologuing about their kids to people they knew might be childless not by choice. I do gather though that that’s not everybody’s situation.

Have you ever actually tried to change the topic of conversation when someone is talking about their kids @ThatNimblePeer ? It’s impossible. I’ve been trying to do it for 25 years and still haven’t succeeded.

This. Honestly some of this is just very basic manners/social skills in ways that aren’t specific to married/unmarried, children/no children. If you’re in a group of people and most of you like Star Wars but one person has no interest, most functioning adults will realise it’s rude to talk exclusively about Star Wars, and try to lead the conversation on to something that everyone can participate in.

Your mum sounds quite full on op!

"On mothers day my mum dedicated a Facebook post to her "two daughters who are now also mothers" and thanking them for bringing such happiness into her and my dads life."

This sounds like deliberate exclusion. The atmosphere revolves around your sisters and their children, they don't bother having you there for the eggs passing out and that post is terrible.

I would take an hour or so to meet up and discuss that with her. If it was an accident, she'd be horrified. If not, she'll make excuses and you will know where you stand.

Is there a scapegoat vibe going on?

I do think it’s quite callous tbh. You have told her how you feel- which is obviously a really vulnerable and honest thing to do. And for her to respond with that just sounds really dismissive and like she’s not prepared to make any effort to help you to feel better. I feel like there are so many things she could have said to make you feel like she cares, but she hasn’t. I’m guessing it comes from a place where what you wrote made her feel uncomfortable or defensive, but I still feel like she could have done better :(. How did you word your message?

@PowderRoomof course it’s OP’s family’s responsibility to show some empathy and care. She is just as much a member of the family as anyone else. I’m the single without DC person in my family. My family aren’t perfect but there is no way they would act like OP’s.

She’s constructing herself as the ‘tag-along afterthought’, though. I mean, she clearly has a lot of difficult emotions she’s struggling to come to terms with, and it would be impossible not to feel for her. But I think she needs to deal with them with a good therapist, rather than make them her family’s responsibility. I think it’s unreasonable to expect them to self-censor at family gatherings, or to apologise for their very ordinary, unexciting lives.

After that response from your sister OP I’d be distancing myself from some of the all-family gatherings. Your sister and DM know how you feel and aren’t making any accommodations.

To those PP baffled about what these accommodations could possibly be it’s pretty obvious. Have some other conversations not about kids, make sure OP is included in photos that aren’t centred around family units, include her in gift giving. Basically stop treating her like a tag-along after thought.

I don’t think I would expect more really, it sounds like they are discussing the big things going on in their own lives at the moment, children can be all consuming like that, and would you really want them to say “okay we will only talk about pre-approved topics with you OP”? I wouldn’t want to feel like my family are having to walk on egg shells and hide parts of their lives around me, so I’d be content with acknowledgement that they know it is tough and so that would then explain if you stepped back a bit or seemed a bit off.

They can’t help having husband’s and children, asking them not to discuss or bring their family round isn’t really reasonable, it’s about managing your own feelings around that rather than particularly them having to change I would say.

What do you mean? That ops siblings shouldn't be able to discuss their children/things they do as a family when op is there, that conversations should only be about approved topics? If someone in the family is made redundant should work become a verboten topic?

Your assumptions are quite weird, also. I don’t know about you, but I certainly don’t live in a world full of straight married parents who sit about validating one another’s choices. My closest friends are a mixture of childfree people of both sexes, single parents, one by adoption, people dealing with complex divorces, and two lesbian couples dealing with the complexities of biological/non-biological motherhood.

I was out for dinner with three friends last week. One is longterm single and childfree, another is treating dating like a FT job and longing to meet someone while she’s still fertile, and the third has a teenager whose father, with whom she’s still in a relationship, has always lived in another country.

The world’s not that black and white, and it might be good for the OP to surround herself with different types of people dealing with different shit.

As I said up the thread, I’m the only one of my five siblings to be married with a child, which means I’m ’left out’ of childfree concerns. My two next sisters bond by going away together a lot at the drop of a hat, which I can’t, because DH’s job involves working weekends. But you know. I deal.

The OP said in her post of 15.15 that her sisters post suggests she understands why the OP feels bad but doesn’t offer a solution ‘rather than apologising and asking what they can do to make me feel more included’.* *

I’m asking what outcome the OP would like.

I do get your feelings as I've been there but equally...this is the family you do have.
I'd try and reframe it and lean into it.
You've got 2 sisters who want a close relationship with you

Having kids 2 and under is hard and xan be all consuming so your mum probably is supporting "her babies" as best she can.yentsl health was awful for a year or so after both kids.

Is there a reason you wouldn't pursue parenthood alone ?
Sorry of i misread your posts, but it reads you do want kids

I’m married with a child

Yea, we guessed 😂🙄

I don’t think anyone has said her sister should apologise? But the idea that married people with children could occasionally demonstrate some empathy and take other people’s feelings into account - basically, could treat single childless people the way they themselves would want to be treated if they were in that situation - is not quite as wild as you seem to believe.

I think we’re all familiar though with married people with children who take offence at that idea.

Put it the other way round: you’ve got your husband to talk to about your marriage and kids, you’ve got your friends most of whom will be married with children, you’ve likely got your married parents, and in OP’s sisters’ case they’ve each got each other and have the opportunity to talk about the married with kids life whenever they see each other one on one. Society is not providing you with a shortage of opportunities to centre your marriage and children and discuss life with people in the same situation. Why is it so desperately important that you also have to centre those things at events that include your childless unmarried sibling? Isn’t this a bit of an opportunity to lean into other aspects of your life and identity? Unless you don’t have them which, maybe, you don’t.

Genuinely, OP, while I absolutely hear your feelings of sadness and exclusion, some of this sounds a bit mad. What do you actually want to happen? Your sisters to stop talking about a major current element of their lives because it makes you feel left out? Their babies/young children to be left at home with their fathers? And the ‘naturally’ bit about you sitting on the ground sounds paranoid — surely whoever sits down first gets whatever seating there is available? And whoever’s last drags in a kitchen chair or whatever? I’m married with a child and am the one most likely to sit on the floor in my parents’ tiny house, because I like it. Marriage doesn’t mean you sit on the available sofas like visiting dignitaries!

What is it that you think your sister should be apologising for? Do you want her and your other sister to self-censor because you have a lot of unresolved feelings about being single and not having a child?

Yeah this is how I would have taken it, she’s acknowledging what you’ve said and agreeing she can see that it would be hard

I didn’t read as callous tbh. Just acknowledgement but without any kind of adjustment.