I haven’t got what I wanted from life and don’t know how to accept if

[WhataNCnelly]

If anyone can chat I would be grateful. I’ve NC mostly because I’m embarrassed.

All my life I’ve longed for a marriage and family. I’ve wanted it more than many friends who ended up with it. I used to think about paint colours for rooms in my home, think about surprise trips I would do for a partner and birthday celebrations. I KNOW it isn’t all happy stuff and everyone in a relationship is happy. I know that. But I just wanted to have a go at it, you know? I wanted my turn. I would have put my heart to it.

I got on with my life and I have a nice home and a decent job. I’m ok. I didn’t just pine for a man and do nothing else! But I’m still here and desperately lonely.

Recently I’ve become totally immersed in bitterness which is a new thing. I can’t stand talking about or hearing about people’s marriages or kids or engagements. I feel actual sickness and anger about it. It makes me resentful. Today on a video call at work a colleague was laughing saying me and her need to think ourselves lucky as we are not juggling kids (she’s older and has adult kids). It fucking hurt.

I didn’t want to do it alone and for me it was really about that companionship and a family with it. The void isn’t filled by joining a walking club, getting a new hobby or focusing on myself or loving myself more. It’s a void that remains every moment of everyday no matter how full my life is.

I just don’t know how to accept it, how to not wake up and feel such hurt and anger and bitterness. I never used to be like this and now I’ve simply had enough and can’t see a way forward. I am even withdrawing from friends as I’m scared of hearing about the next milestone knowing I have to celebrate that and at the same time accept it’s a life I will never have. How did I get it so wrong. I must have let good ones go. I didn’t focus on it enough when younger. I am so sad. How can I accept this? I see the life I want everywhere, just not in my own hands and now it’s past the point of being able to have it.

just saying I would feel really proud about your career at this stage in life. with so many women with kids and families and divorces and struggling along. so at least you didn't do that and take tax payers money.

if you like yourself then a man will like you too :-))

Older mums are better for kids. I had a younger mum, unloving didn't know how to raise me. so the kid will be happier with you.

@WhataNCnelly I didn't meet my DH via OLD until just before I turned 38, we got married just over 18 months later and although I turned 40 last year we are currently TTC. Please don't write yourself off just yet.

Everyone - colleagues, friends, media - says at 35 your time is basically up for a family. I’m years past that now

Nobody says that, because its bollocks. I'm not going to pour sympathy on you because you already have far too much for yourself. You're wallowing.
The only one who can get you the things you want are you, if you stop moping and complaining about what you don't have.

I am completely overwhelmed by these responses thank you so much. I didn’t expect to get more than maybe a couple of replies. This is a huge huge source of support for me, thank you so much.

I am making my way through reading them all now. One thing that sticks out is people saying that they know people who have had kids later or they themselves have done that..why is the media and the general feeling that after 35 you may as well give up? Has nobody else felt this pressure and fear? I’m just wondering why this is so fixated in my mind. It’s been a thing I’ve thought of for a long time, the fact that it’s not easy after 35.

With my birthday coming up I just sort of freeze and think how is this ever going to change. I am so desperately sad about it, more than I cannot see it changing. There was a poster who said it’s the grief of not having that history with someone and that’s so true. My sister is 26 and she’s been with her husband for 10 years already. They’ve spent all their adult life together. I sometimes sit and think wow I literally have no memories with anyone from a week ago let alone ten years ago. I know it isn’t a competition but I do wonder where I went wrong.

With this person I’ve been speaking to, he’s perfectly nice, but I feel like why would it work out. I’m exhausted from break ups, dating, false starts, nerves, investing in things that don’t go anywhere...I’m so sick of all it. I can’t imagine meeting him and these feelings going away.

I am so grateful for the messages posted here and I’m going to carry on reading them
now. I’m trying my best to really listen to what’s being said. I’m so alone.

did read half of your post but stopped at 'why media is fixated to have baby by 35'?

im not media but I was also fixated to have another baby before 35, because since I've been growing up I heard there are health complications if people have a baby after 40. but if a woman is healthy then 45 is fine. pregancy is no game.

@mumznet what do you mean no game? Yes I think that’s my recollection always been later can be problems

Op you need to take a leap of faith. Nothing is guaranteed in this life. Make a decision and stick to it, whatever it is.

But all this negativity towards yourself is just pointless.

please don't feel alone, I think all mumsnetters are there to support you. we can't change the past, and the future we cant keep worrying about. how about the now? living in the now today :-)

@WhataNCnelly I mean no game by some women who are over 50/60 think its okay to have a baby by treatment. but there are risks. risks to womens life. thats what i meant by no game.

perhaps I should have written pregnancy is not a game.

OP - I definitely have fleeting moments of feeling sad that I don’t have shared memories with my partner (I’ve travelled extensively, been to some amazing places - all alone or with various different friends) I so wish we had had those couples holidays etc - but we met and very quickly had our baby and we are making new memories- that in 15 years time will be all our shared memories together. I will remember all those things in my twenties and early to mid 30s as things I did alone. I’d rather that than all with someone I now hated though!!
And yes I felt that pressure too - making out like your fertility is over and it’s only the lucky few who conceive. In reality I think that’s rubbish (as many people here have shown - I worried about this and got pregnant straight away.) while I kmow this isn’t the case for everyone and I feel for those trying to conceive, fertility issues effect people in their twenties a lot too. People never can tell with this stuff. This is the misogynistic media making women feel guilty for doing anything other than marrying at 21!
I’m so glad these messages have helped you feel a bit more positive. so many of us have been where you are - and that headspace can abs does change

My sister in law was single for years and years. She thought she would NEVER find anyone.

Then when she was 39 she got to know someone and now at 42 they have a 10 month old baby. They got married in 2019.

It's NOT TOO LATE. There's probably someone in your life already that could be the one. If not, just start looking! It is possible.

The reason everyone is fixated on 35 is just another offshoot of the wider way in which the media and society in general are fixated on women, their youth, and beauty.

Older mother= a woman who had SEX! Even though she MAY NOT be a nubile 22 year old! The audacity of the harlot!

If you look at it bluntly, women are only allowed to be fertile if they are young enough and pretty enough for most men to want to impregnate them. Oh, but they're only allowed to be impregnated by one man, or else they're a slut. Oh, but they have to have their own career or else they're a gold digger. Or if they haven't got married by 32 then they're TOO career obsessed, the harlot.

You get what I'm saying. Society tries to put parameters on what a woman can or can't do, and any "on the shelf" nonsense is just that - nonsense.

Listen to your body. It has told you it is healthy and as capable as it can be of carrying a child without the attempt actually being made. Look at yourself. Do you feel ancient, withered and unable to chase a toddler? I would like to think not

So who says 35? Who dictates?

Be aware that society tries to impose their own age restrictions for all sorts of pointless reasons, often without realising. They're mostly bollocks, so step back, step out, and ignore them. And make your own choices based on you as an individual not some sort of "should be doing"

Can I ask where these people have met people, as in geographical area? I live in a Birmingham suburb, 35 mins from the city.

I’m wondering if all these people who are older meeting people have done it in London or something? Everyone around me seems so settled. Would it be different somewhere else. I don’t know.

It may be harder to conceive at 38,.but you will.never know unless you try, I had my little girl.at 41. I met my husband at 24, after 25 yrs the relationship has not worked out, but I'm forever thankful.for my son and daughter

Sit with the sadness for a while, no rush to pull yourself out of it. Better to accept it. You have been imagining your perfect life and perhaps that's stopping you living it. You have up to another 60 years to live though, so live it better. A lot better. Fearlessly and with no regrets. Don't prejudge nice man. He might be nice. If he is, let him get close even if you might get hurt. Let yourself invest.

2 examples in my life. One wanted exactly what you wanted, eventually married had three kids and she hates her life, dislikes her husband and dreams of affairs and is impatient with her children. It all looks perfect from the outside. The other was single, a loner and never felt she fitted in, until she married at 50, emigrated to the US and now presides with her husband over a huge close and loving extended family including his children and grandchildren. She never would have or could have imagined that life and she barely lived until she was 50.

I thought you were going to say you were 50 or something not 38!

38 is not too late at all but you do need to take steps to make it happen. You say you'd give anything to make it happen. So keep that mind frame. Do everything to try to make it happen. Try to be positive, start internet dating ( once lockdown lifts) and make active steps to meet someone. If you don't then you'll truly know what regret is when you look back in 10 years time and it actually is too late.

OP I felt like you - particularly from
37/38 to the point where it was all consuming and making me quite bitter and resentful.

Firstly there are people who meet their life partners from your age onwards - so don’t lose hope that can happen and regularly does.

However for me personally I was quite jaded by the dating scene. I had a good hard think about what I really wanted if I couldn’t have everything and that came down really to bring a mum. I mulled over going it alone for a good 12 months and on my 39th birthday registered with adoption agency as single adopter. I can honestly say it’s the best decision I ever made - I’m 42 with my son asleep upstairs and in the process of adopting his baby brother who has been born since.

I am single still (though have had short term relationship in this time) and I’m fine with that - my priority is DS - and we have the family life I’ve always craved for - even if it is harder sometimes being on my own. Lack of father / partner just makes way for other close relationships with family and friends - so I never feel as if we’re missing out as such. I’m quite open to meeting someone in the future though and the way I see it it will probably be someone with children already so more of a blended family set up. Which is quite the norm anyway these days

But just remember - life isn’t over and you can have what you want but it might just be in a slightly different way to how you are imaging now

People are fixated on 35 because biologically your on a timer. Your eggs start releasing extra eggs each month in a bid to get pregnant ( literally dumping them) that’s why twins are more common in older mothers. Also the quality of the eggs degrade as they have literally been sitting in your ovaries since before you were born - ageing. Also the chances of you having a baby with Down syndrome is much higher as you start heading toward 40. By the time a woman reaches 40, as many as 60 percent of her eggs will contain an abnormal number of chromosomes.

By the time I started IVF ( 38) I had a very low ‘supply’ of eggs left. They can measure it with a blood test.

So it’s not a society thing - it’s biologically factual. Older generations wouldn’t have known about the science but they would have seen the consequence of older women starting or trying to start families late that’s why they knew to urge women to ‘hurry up’

Yes OP come to SW London where no one gets married before their late 30s and the average first time mum is 40! You’re in the wrong town

I have sent so many engagement cards, new baby cards, wedding gifts, new home presents ... I’ve never had any of these things and what I’m mostly angry about is why didn’t I just settle for someone?

I can remember my sister saying these exact words a decade ago. She met her now DH at 37, married at 38 and had two children in her early forties. It can still happen for you OP.

And if it doesn’t, you will have no option but to make the best life you can without a partner and children. They are not the be all and end all. Many, many people are very unhappy with both these things in their lives. Happiness comes in all forms and many people with families find their fulfillment from things not connected to their offspring at all.

There is no point in having regrets. You are still young. There is lots of living to be done and once you open yourself up to possibilities you may find more good things come to you.

Don’t give up, OP.
I have lots of friends who have are just having babies now at 39/40. A couple of older friends met someone at 39/40 and both had babies at 42. If you want a baby, you could have one now on your own. It’s doable.

My sister a long term singleton with an "unsuccessful" dating history met the love of her life at 44, they were engaged 3 months later and married a few months after that. Kids didn't happen for them but 12 years later they are still so happy. You never know what's around the corner.

I am a long term singleton too but at 37 i decided to take the matter into my own hands and went to a clinic to have a baby on my own. At 41 i now have a 3 year old and have no regrets