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.

In answer to your question of where did I meet DH - well, he was my lodger first. Not the first lodger, by any stretch of the imagination, but the first one for whom I felt anything! We lived together before we even got into a relationship, which was kind of useful (except little did I know that once we went back to his mother's sphere he'd revert to a massive manchild and expect everything to be done for him ) and then we were friends before anything more serious happened.

One of my friends came out of a long term relationship and met her husband on a train. Friends have met their husbands at work, in a coffee shop, in pubs, even in clubs (Unusual for those to work out but does happen!)

The "shared history" is not that important. I was with my first BF for 11 years from the age of 16 - before he fucked off with someone from work. THankfully no children involved! I still have good memories from that time but I couldn't get hung up on not being able to share those times with my husband now, that would be madness! There were also 8 years between that split and meeting DH - lots of experiences then too, most of which are great memories - but they're mine. And that's also great - I did so much!

DOn't be envious of your sister. She's likely to be envious of your single life at times - grass is always greener!

You do never know what is around the corner.
I know two women who have found love and happiness quite late in life. A friend of mine thought that she would never meet anyone and quite unexpectedly did when she was a little older than you. She is happily married now. They enjoy the freedom that not having children brings. She said to me once that she says the old adage to herself»What can’t make you laugh can’t also make you cry».

My mum had a friend, a single woman, who worked as a teacher and had a fulfilling life. After she retired, age 65ish, she met someone and got married!
They lived together very happily until she died recently in her late eighties. She had a brilliant relationship with her step daughters and step grandchildren.
At her funeral her step daughter told me that she had been the singular most positive influence on her life and she loved her as much as her birth mother.

Try to fight the bitterness. You never know what’s waiting for you!

You need to give yourself a break. 38 isn't too old to find someone and have a family. It might just look a bit different to how you planned e.g. so what if you don't have a long engagement - those specifics you need to let go of, they really won't matter.

However, I'd recommend counselling, group counseling can work well, this will help you reflect on why it has happened so far and find the right type of partner

You sound like you want it enough for it to happen, but you need to figure out why it hasn't so far - do you deem yourself unworthy etc.

Good luck.

Hi OP I just want to thank you for starting this thread and being so honest.

Reading your mindset now and the responses, so much resonates with me too.

Your comment about being in a suburb.. I think yes there but others may disagree.

Oh @WhataNCnelly I completely understand this, all of it. Even the grief of thinking I won't have a shared history with someone.

People told me I was attractive, I had a lovely and interesting life. But I could not meet anyone or let anyone in. At 37 I got therapy, read Calling in the One (honestly, give it a chance!), and did something I was always against-OLD. But not a free site, one with a decent subscription cost.

First man I chatted to on there...one year later we got married in the same place as our first date, with our surprise first son already on the way! We bought a house last year and will welcome another baby in 3 months, I'll be just 42.

Dh is wonderful, I'm so glad neither of us settled for anything less before. The shared history doesn't matter one bit, our life is in the present and in building our future.

I live in a small city. Suburbs makes no difference. It's all about an internal change. Single Londoners will tell you it's a terrible place to meet someone.

It could all be just around the corner!

OP try to remember that media describe tendencies not individual lives. Just in my village I know three women - I'm one of them, who had miscarriage after miscarriage in their thirties and then around 40 got pregnant with their first healthy child. One had one child, I had two another had three. The advantage for us all is that by then we knew how much we wanted to be mums and we really enjoyed it all. It's not always true that your body is best equipped to have a child when you are younger. All three of us were fit and slim at 40, had healthy diets etc. If you're not already, you could focus on that aspect of life. You have full control over the state of your body and then if/when you meet the right man or choose to get pregnant as a single mother, you stand the best possible chance.

As others have said, there's also a chance of meeting someone even later when children aren't an option. You may end up being an inspirational step mum or you may end up just having the most wonderful love affair and life together with the freedom that gives. Again, I know several women like this who are so happy - no children but brilliant love life that began well after 40 and strong, fulfilling careers. All this is so possible.

@ReallySpicyCurry - you write great posts.

I felt that way in my earlier and mid thirties. When I was 37 I made some new plans for my life - a complete change of direction. I was still sad to miss out on the husband and children I'd longed for, but managed to move on from the bitterness and deep grief.

Just a few weeks before my 38th birthday I met my now husband. We have two children and hope for more in future. And we are so very happy.

It is possible to move on from the bitterness, although it may take time as well as effort. And it's also not to late to meet someone and even have a family. It would have been lovely to meet my husband earlier in life, but he was definitely worth waiting for! Good luck, OP.

OP the feeling is overwhelming and the pressure on 30+ women to have a baby before 35 is so ingrained!! But it's just not as everyone makes out!

Have you considered freezing eggs? This takes the pressure off as you can take your time to meet someone and then use your eggs when you are ready.

I met someone in my mid 30s and I find that things naturally progress quicker because you both know what you want and have those honest conversations earlier because everyone's done with the bull! It did mean that I went on multiple dates that didn't go anywhere but that's just because I knew exactly what I wanted and wasn't going to waste my or their time. I tried to see it as a positive that I was getting closer to the right one with each that fell to the wayside!

Perhaps try to rethink your perception of how things should be. Write your own rules and focus on the parts you want the most and the order you want them in.

In response to a couple of your later posts, OP:

We were in the South-East, but not London. My husband was living in a large town and I was living in a village not too many miles away.

It would be lovely to have years of shared history, but we don't. Not even shared memories of what was going on in the world or of children's television or toys, because of an age gap. But after just three years we have so many precious memories together already. And we haven't yet come close to running out of things to talk about!

My husband was 42 when we met and thought it was too late to for a family, we've been married, bought a house and had a baby in 4 years, it's definately not too late for you.

A quick search on MN will reveal a mountain of posts about women having children into their mid forties. Honestly you don’t need to be panicking at tumour age about babies.

@WhataNCnelly how are you feeling now?
You've had a lot of replies. I hope you've been able to think things through a bit.

Oh OP I remember this feeling well. It’s so shit and it’s ok to feel how you feel.

But I promise it’s not too late. I just got married and had my first baby at 40. I was pregnant when I got married. We didn’t have a long engagement or loads of shared history or any of that stuff, it really doesn’t matter and we’re happy as anything. I had the shared history, text book romance from meeting as teens to all the milestones we shared together, moving in, engagement, lovely wedding booked and paid for, all our mutual friends and family delighted for us. Couldn’t have been more perfect on the surface, meant fuck all as it turns out - he was shagging someone else, all came out days before the wedding. Went on to have the wedding and kids with her whilst I’d wasted all my twenties on him and most of my 30s in pain and grief and yes bitterness.

Maybe you’ll meet someone and yes have to move quickly and not get all the ‘steps’ you imagined but does that really matter if you end up somewhere happy?

And yes, maybe it won’t happen. And that’s very hard to accept. But who knows what might happen instead - I have a friend who is very happy as a step parent and now step grandparent, having met her now husband in her mid forties. They have a rather idyllic life on the coast and rescue donkeys! Another friend adopted a baby as a single mum. Tough road but she’s happy. My best friend is 50, met her gorgeous younger partner a couple of years ago, they’re living the dream - and the man is gorgeous and the kindest person you could imagine who treats my friend so so well. I know you’ll read that and think ‘but that’s not what I wanted!’ And I understand that, it’s so hard, but happiness takes many forms and I am sure it is waiting for you.

My sister is 26 and she’s been with her husband for 10 years already. They’ve spent all their adult life together.

I would say this is far more unusual than your situation actually, and, without wishing to tempt fate for your sister, not necessarily a recipe for long-term success, just because people change so much over those years. Better in many ways to meet someone when you're both older and know who you are and what you want.

With this person I’ve been speaking to, he’s perfectly nice, but I feel like why would it work out.

You need to change this mindset OP, and ask yourself why shouldn't it work out.

@WhataNCnelly

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.

This kind of thinking, that you'll only meet someone if you live in London, is just silly. There are single people everywhere and Birmingham is the second largest city in the UK, so why would you think that the only place you can meet single men is in London?

You're asking the wrong question, it's not geographically WHERE you meet someone, but HOW. A good friend of mine who was desperate to settle down, marry and have DC in her late 30s joined a paid OLD site. She made it very clear in her profile what she was looking for i.e. serious relationship, marriage, DC, not interested in casual dating or flings, and she then took a deep breath and actually met the men she was matched with.

The one who became her DH and with whom she now has two DC, was someone who from his profile alone wouldn't have interested her. She says she'd never have gone on a date with him if she wasn't forcing herself to be open-minded and hadn't been utterly focused on her goal, which was to find a decent, kind, nice man to marry and have a family with.

Agree with all of this.
I met someone later. I’m not in London - I’m in the suburbs of a northern city.

I met my husband online dating - on match

Even though I’d paid for the service I was ready to give up as it was as full of idiots as any other site, but decided to give it one last go. And there was DH.

I asked him on our second date if he wanted children as there was no point pursuing things if not. We moved in together within a year and started ttc not long after. Terrible advice generally and frowned upon on mumsnet but the advantage of being older was I knew when I’d found a good one and that I could trust my judgement.

I haven’t read the whole thread so I don’t know if it’s been mentioned elsewhere but the 35 thing is based on outdated data. 300 year old french data, to be precise. The 300-year-old fertility statistics still in use today www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24128176

Don’t worry OP. Life is rarely what we think it will be, but get yourself to a sperm bank if a child is what you really want.

Great advice in response to OP’s geography question @zafferana.

OP, my own experience is not hugely helpful because I met my DH when I moved abroad and had to get out and about to make friends full stop. Luckily there was a big expat social scene and with lots of social events and he popped up on one of those. I fully acknowledge that in the U.K. amongst people in their late thirties there is very little of that sort of social scene. And to answer your question I was single in London for most of my thirties and it was not bursting at the seams with single available men. The truth is that the majority of people in that age group anywhere in the country are indeed already coupled up and that does contribute to making single people feel like freaks or like it must be their fault. Even in my experience abroad, the vast majority of new friends I made were couples; now-DH was a bit of an unusual case, it was certainly not that I had loads to choose from.

Add a pandemic on top of all the usual obstacles and it’s all even worse. However you could maybe use that to your advantage. When OLD, widen your geographical search because first contact will be online anyway, so it doesn’t matter where they are. Then if you build a rapport you or he might be willing to travel further to meet when able to. If you think there might be more men in London, check them out online. A lot depends of course on whether you would be willing to move cities further down the line for the right man. Eg does your job tie you to where you are now? And I mean really tie you, to the extent that you would choose job over perfect relationship.
Obviously the man could move too, and this is all theoretical, but worth thinking through these scenarios now.

Oh and the whole “I will never have a long history with someone” thing- that’s definitely wallowing! You have your own past, shared with the family and friends you have holidayed with, worked with, laughed and cried with. You could still have a Ruby wedding and six grandchildren with someone you are yet to meet. Once you are in a couple there is a sense that you almost forget what life was like before. And generally being in a couple (at least until you get very old) is about looking to the future together, not reminiscing about the past.

Not read the full thread.

But I’ve found not dwelling on how things could/should have been different. I’ve learnt that the hard way and have had mental health issues for the past 20 years.

A lot of it was getting caught up in the past and dwelling on different choices I could have made at the time. But it didn’t change anything!

I’ve had to make myself concentrate on the now. You have choices, you’ve another 50 or so years ahead of you. Is this how you want to be in a years time, 5 years, 10 years etc.

A lot of people have this image in their heads of what life will be like as a ‘grown up’. In reality this rarely matches.

You need a plan, maybe 2 or 3? What can you do today which will break the negative cycles you’re in?

Obviously the current crisis doesn’t help, but things like going for a walk in the park won’t help as it’ll just make you think that everyone else has what you want. But this is just one small part of life you’re seeing.

Ignore everyone who says over 35 means life is over for you. They’re wrong. Focus on what you can do, not what you can’t.

Hope this helps

You have your own past, shared with the family and friends you have holidayed with, worked with, laughed and cried with.

And this makes for a more interesting dynamic in a long term relationship, I think. If all your history is “shared”, there’s little new to talk about. Having some independent experiences can be a really positive thing.

I honestly don’t know how I would have picked myself up from the pit I was in the other night without all this support. I really can’t express how much this thread has helped me. I’m doing my best to take every bit of advice on board.

I didn’t know that that data was outdated - one poster above mentioned after 35 there can be problems and I think that’s what I linked that ‘deadline’ into, a general panic that after that what’s the point, it’s dangerous etc.

With freezing eggs I was told it was rarely worth it as it often doesn’t work?! Also the procedure can be unnecessarily invasive. I wouldn’t rule it out though at all.

I’m going to look up the book the poster mentioned about ‘calling the one.’ Thank you.

Those who have told me about their own experiences it has been more comfort than you know. I think in a funny way I have managed to lose all hope and with that, I’ve started to drown in a negative mindset.

Having hope that life will be ok and feel worth it again is the biggest problem I think, more than actually wanting these things I don’t have. I spent forever thinking about this life and how I would make everything cosy with bookshelves and walks and film nights (I know I’m probably a bit deluded here as to the harsh realities that come with this too)... but when friends call me career obsessed or ‘one of those free and wealthy single people’ that they’re ‘so jealous’ of I feel so misunderstood. I focused on my career as one day I hoped to share that with someone and I would literally give up my home and all my money to have that family life... it hurts so much that people IRL glamourise my life as if I’m someone who just wanted a decent job and fancy holidays...I’m not that person at all. I really struggle with that label I seem to have gained, I want the messy floors and sleepless nights and ruined sofas with crayons all over it.

I think I’ve internalised the geographical thing...last time I was swiping online I was messaged my loads of men who were rude or inappropriate or woefully bad at spelling and stringing a sentence together. I suppose I was grasping at straws wondering if the London market was better or something.

@NataliaOsipova

You have your own past, shared with the family and friends you have holidayed with, worked with, laughed and cried with.

And this makes for a more interesting dynamic in a long term relationship, I think. If all your history is “shared”, there’s little new to talk about. Having some independent experiences can be a really positive thing.

That is so true. I’ve been with DH for 10 years and we’ll be watching a travel programme and one of us will ask “have you ever been to X place?” and a whole interesting story will then emerge.

You are grieving for the life you very much wanted and didn't have (so far). Let it roll, let the grieving roll. There are no rules to grieving, do it your way. Disengage your critical voice and let it roll - it's your business, noone else's, noone can tell you how to do, or not do, it. Give yourself acres and acres of compassion - you deserve it, you're hurting very much ❤️

Ime it's important to make sure I spend time with people in a similar position eg I have very few couples in my social circle. There's a huge community of people like us, plug into it - we're all here, hoards of us. ❤️💖