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.

My brother and his wife met in their mid-late thirties and now, 20 or so years later, they are still happy and have three great kids.

38.. you could still have a child on your own via other methods. You still have years to meet someone. Settling for someobe you didnt love is a terrible idea.

38 is a tricky age. I think there are lots of women in this position actually. You’re definitely not alone! The ticking biological clock is real... You kind of simultaneously have to keep hope alive for the happy ending as well as steeling yourself to be able to cope with not getting your happy ending in case it doesn’t happen and it’s stressful!! As well as, as you say, thinking well if it hasn’t happened by now is it ever really going to at my age?! And also try and get to grips with new options that weren’t available a generation ago and decide what road if any you want to go down - do you go for egg freezing? Sperm donor? Coparent with a platonic male friend or indeed stranger who also wants a child? Wait to find a partner and hope that if you can’t have children naturally (knowing that every year reduces your chances of fertility as well as a healthy baby argh!) IVF/donor eggs/surrogacy happens then? Adopt? Hope for nice stepchildren?! Etc.

I’m 41 and feel much the same. Marriage and kids are all I ever reallly wanted (and I don’t think it’s pathetic to say that, it’s a valid desire surely?) I’ve been feeling this way since I was about 33 when I split with my ex (slightly different situation in that I have one teenage child with my abusive ex who likes to make my life a living hell, but also feel “cheated” out of my lovely husband and children family life that I had planned in my head, when my friends who said they cared not one bit about marriage and kids and said they’d never tie three selves down to a man etc. are blissfully happy with bloody twins etc). Honestly I don’t count my ex as a “real” marriage and although I do appreciate that I have a child and I am honestly glad that I did, I never planned on just the one, would love him to have siblings still (even though they’ll never have the close in age relationship I’d envisaged originally), and never got the experience of having a full family life with that child and their father etc IYSWIM. So I’m still on the lookout for a nice husband and more children (at least one anyway) and haven’t given up hope yet, although I’m very much looking back and kicking myself for not tying a bit bloody harder when I was 33, or indeed 38, don’t make the same mistake!!

I do think you sound a bit depressed so I’d definitely seek some help with that and I agree counselling might help you to decide how you are going to approach this problem. The older I get I will say that it becomes apparent to me how unfair life really is and that you are only ever seeing a snapshot of someone’s life and then maybe not even seeing everything. Last year I’d have said my sister in law had it all, slim and beautiful, naturally confident and optimistic and married to my rich successful and lovely brother, pregnant with a first baby and planning more, dog etc, and I was honestly I’m ashamed to say jealous of her and the bright future she seemed to have ahead of her. Then my brother collapsed and died suddenly age 37 and her life has just become so difficult and sad overnight. At one stage I’m sure you’d have looked at me married age 25 and pregnant by 27 with a great career and an apparently picture perfect marriage and been jealous. Oh how times have changed! After my brother died I like to remind myself that I am lucky just to be alive to worry about being 41.

I have no answers for you as I am struggling with a lot of the same thoughts and feelings as you (and yes I am suffering from depression too). But I think it has been good advice here where people have said decide if a relationship or a child is more important to you in case you can’t have both (although don’t rule it out!) and prioritise your actions accordingly. But don’t do nothing about either desire!

It’s taken me some time to work out what I could and could not live with (and what’s realistically within my financial means etc). I think I’ve decided that for me at this point in my life, I can live with not having any more children (although it’s making me cringe just to write that) if I find a really nice partner. And that I don’t really want to add more children to my single parent family as long as I remain a single parent, for financial reasons if nothing else! I also had a religious Christian upbringing and still hold those views so feel a bit weird about using random sperm to get pregnant as that’s not what’s supposed to happen in a good Christian family, although I think this is my hang-up and I kind of wish I didn’t have it in many ways! I also had puerperal psychosis postnatally and got sectioned for months so have to take that into account especially if trying to do it without moral and emotional partner support. Interestingly I think the intense biological urge to have children has lessened a little bit over the past couple of years and was at its absolute peak at about 38 😂 That’s not to say it’s gone, just slightly less desperate feeling. Maybe it will be the same for you.

I’ve decided to prioritise finding a partner and cross the bridge of further children win that partner once I’ve found him! Have kind of said to myself in the past I will try and get pregnant naturally til I’m 43. But now that I’m 41 with no man in sight (you’re ahead of me there! Meet the nice man!!) I’m thinking ok maybe 45...! I don’t think I’d push it further than that. And I have endometriosis by the way so who even knows if I can get pregnant at this point at all. If he has kids of his own I may feel that fills the gap for me somehow. And I’m open to adoption although not sure if they’ll have me with my mental health history etc. The one thing I do regret actually is not having my eggs frozen before 35. And having failed to do that not freezing them at 38! But I couldn’t afford it at the time to be frank, was also worried about the hormone treatment needed to extract the eggs setting off another psychotic episode, and also at that point in time you couldn’t store them for longer than 10 years so was thinking what’s the point if at 45 when I’m still just about happy to try naturally I then have to chuck the frozen eggs away too. Although I think they’ve changed that recently. Anyway other than not losing weight earlier and getting onto online dating quicker and appreciating my young age in my 30s when I had it 😂 that’s my only regret in all this so far. I think you should consider it though seriously it might take that feeling of time pressure off your shoulders a little. Yes better if you had done it 3 years ago but you don’t want to be thinking the same thing in another 3 years, I’ve missed that boat now.

Anyway it will be ok whatever happens. There are many ways to live a life that is worthwhile, fulfilling and happy and surely if we hit 50 with no man and no (more) children we’ll find a way to live right? Right?! We should start a support thread for other women looking for the happy ending still. I bet there are many of us.

Also wanted to say don’t blame yourself that you’re in this position. I think many women in their late 30s and early 40s are these days due to social and cultural changes etc. I blame the men personally! They are generally a bit rubbish at settling down in a reasonable timeframe in many cases. And I’m sure there’s nothing you did “wrong”. I swear some of it is just pure luck. I don’t rethink my friends and siblings have superior ability to pick good men etc compared to me, I just think I was unlucky to end up in a marriage with an abuser when they found decent men. I don’t make a habit of picking abusers and none of them thought he was an abuser when I married him and neither did I obviously. My cousin fell in love with this guy in her early twenties (actually I think they met when she was 19, he was a good few years older), who cheated on her more than once, they split up and got back together a few times. Like you and me all she ever wanted was marriage and kids from a young age and he knew that too. But he strung her along for ages not wanting to commit - we had a conversation once where I said she should split up with him and move on if after over 10 years together on and off he still showed no signs of wanting to marry her or have kids with her when he knew that was her deepest desire in life. But she told me she loved him so much she’d rather have the chance to be with him for now, even if he never proposes and she never has children and even if they end up splitting up in later life when she’s lost the opportunity of those things with someone else. Of course for her it all bloody worked out didn’t it and he woke up one day when she was I think 39 actually and thought what on Earth was he waiting for, proposed and told her he wanted to have six children 🙄 Which as you can imagine delighted her and pissed her off in equal measure (she did point out to him he’d left it a bit bloody late if he wanted 6 kids). She then struggled to get pregnant of course but with IVF they now have two lovely kids (one had cleft lip and palate but all good after an operation). But my point is back when we were in our early 30s and had that conversation nobody in their right minds would have probably told her that her best strategy for getting married and having kids was just to wait around and hope he woke up one day and saw the light. But yet that’s what worked for her. Luck not strategy!

Another example (sorry!) - a friend did a gap year after uni working on a conservation project in Alaska age 22. Was meant to be there for 6 months and never came back cos she met a guy out here who proposed to her 2 weeks after meeting her 🙄. Again blissfully happily married with 2 lovely kids. He didn’t turn out to be an abuser even though she barely knew him when she accepted his proposal (people have said to me I should have allowed myself longer to get to know my ex before getting married and then I might have worked out that he was an abuser - we married after 18 months together but it all worked out ok for my friend! Just luck, see! Not you making bad decisions or having bad strategy. I don’t know some people just live charmed lives, what can you do?!

Oh I'm so sorry you're feeling this way @WhataNCnelly it does sound like you're feeling very defeated and like time is up. It must be so demoralising seeing everyone else with what you do desperately want.

I just wanted to share that I have been specifically told by a fertility specialist that fertility STARTS declining at 35. Not that most people struggle from 35. But that that is when it starts declining. I personally know one person who had twins at 39 and one woman who had a baby at 40. Oh and I just remembered a family friend who had an accidental pregnancy at 45 and then had another baby a year later so that the first one had a sibling. My point is, that while it feels like it's too late, it is most definitely not impossible.

And when you list all the things eg meet, date, move in, get married etc like you did, it sounds like so long away. But dating doesn't have to be so dragged out. If you connect with someone and are in the same headspace as them, with the same life goals etc, you don't have to wait. I moved in with my husband when we had been dating 6 weeks. We've now been together 12 years. Sometimes you don't need years together to know.

I know someone who has just had a baby at 42 with a new partner. They aren’t married but engaged. They’re very happy.

Maybe don’t expect the conventional, you need to change your expectations and find happiness will come in other ways. Don’t give up, but the more time you expect exactly what you imagined the more it will stop you from actually being happy. Lockdown won’t be helping. I would also Seek support for your mental health, speak to a counsellor as you sound like you’re struggling. They will be able to help you navigate these feelings..

@WhataNCnelly if you really want a partner and a family it can totally happen at 38 or older. I’d had terrible luck with relationships and long periods of being on my own. I too felt bitterness at times. I was 38 when I met my DH. It was so random and caught me by complete surprise. That was just over three years ago. Yes it did move reasonably quickly but I still feel each stage was still enjoyable. We bought a house after two months and he proposed after 5 months. We married at 9 months when we were both 39. Sadly I had two miscarriages soon after but just after I turned 40 I was expecting my ds and I can honestly say I’ve never known love like I have in my life now. We’re now trying for baby 2 after 3 years together and are both 41.

When I look back now the bitterness and disbelief it could happen for me really held me back. It was when I worked through that and started being open to a relationship things changed. I really do feel for you OP. It’s so painful and I’ll never forget how I felt. You deserve a partner and family if that’s what you want. There are many single men out there wanting the same thing. Yes it’s tricky finding them, especially at the moment but you totally deserve it.

I can imagine what your work colleague said cut deep but I’m sure she didn’t mean to offend. Don’t be afraid to say you hope to have kids someday to anyone if that is your dream.

I wish you all the luck in the world op. Live like it is just around the corner and don’t ever give up! Xx

Oldest person l know to have a child was 48!! So many had children in their 40s.
Oldest person l know to get married was 58 just after retirement and met another retired person...like two young love birds. Built a fabulous new house, travelling..just really enjoying a comfortable life together.
I think counselling is a good idea as its obvious you are going through a tough time and it would be great to have the space to talk it through.
It's good you are aware you are becoming bitter as a lot of people it seeps out of them but they aren't aware of it.
Remember if you had married the ...just ok..guy you would probably be getting divorced now and going through a whole crisis of what have l done with my life?. You could be very bitter over that.
Let that one go as you were wise enough at the time to know he wasn't the one.
Counselling online at the moment might be a good option for you.

I really feel for you. But at 38 you are still incredibly young.

I have a few friends who have met people much later - late 40s - widowed men with lively kids and they have become part of a full and loving family.

I have friends who have had kids kid-40s

I have friends who have chosen just to marry and no kids and very content

We live in dark times but condemning yourself to a life of solitude at 38?! Come on now - you have a whole life still to lead. Grab it!!!!

Don't write yourself and life off. I haven't read the whole thread just as far as that you are 38. Phew I'd thought you were going to say 88. I can truly say that I began a new life at 38. A divorce, a new home, a new job, a new husband... if you have been doing things in one way and it hasn't worked for you try doing something new. It's a brand new year so go for it. Good luck.

OP your time is far from up although honestly yes you’re on the older end. Stop focusing on that though and start appreciating that you’re still in the game! 5 years from now you’ll actually have something to feel miserable over so seize your chances now and make it happen!

‘long engagements’ and ‘slow moving steps’ are for young people who can’t afford/aren’t sure of the commitments they’re heading towards. Stop building them up in your head to be this big romantic fantasy, when you know you know and you get cracking!

(I was 25 and DH was 32 when we got engaged, big white wedding 10 months later then pregnant returning from honeymoon! I didn’t ‘miss out’ on anything. If you know what you want and have spent time thinking about it all you just get going!)

Post covid I suspect the dating market is going to explode! So many single lonely people who have felt exactly like you for so long. Get yourself a profile on some ‘serious’ sites and make it clear what you’re looking for. Get out there and meet as many as you can. Arrange to meet at places you’ve missed during lockdown so who cares if the guys a letdown you’ll still enjoy your food/drinks/walk/ice cream.

Be totally upfront about what you want but in a ‘I want to get married and start a family ideally within the next few years, not specifically with you...but in general’

I vividly remember my friends being mortified I told DH about 5 dates in (hadn’t even slept with him at this point) that I wouldn’t date a guy for more than a year if we weren’t getting engaged. But why would I? A year is perfectly adequate to know if that person is ‘the one’, if not that’s find let’s cut our losses and move on!

I see a lot of women getting strung out waiting like a donkey whilst these shitty men dangle the potential of marriage/ a ring like a carrot on a stick. I’ve seen women get harshly dumped in their mid/late thirties by men they’d been ‘dating’ since their mid twenties... how horrific must they feel having wasted all that time and having non of the things they wanted (marriage/kids) to show for it.

You have a lot going for you OP! You’re under 40 and you can take control of your situation and totally change it a year from now.

Or you can continue feeling sorry for yourself and not bother trying because the exact image you built up in your head (for which you’d probably have had to be engaged in your 20’s) hasn’t happened. Your call!

Xxx

@WhataNCnelly

I will be 38 on Sunday. I can’t believe this is my life, what a mess I have made.

I thought you were away to say 60 odd. You're only 38! You have time to meet someone and have a family. Would solo iui/ivf be something you'd consider if you don't meet the man that you want to have a kid with?

Honestly op there is time so in the nicest possible way don’t waste what is left being bitter . I aren’t bothered about dating so not to clued up but I see people on here dating proactively which I assume is been kind of ruthless about going after the type of men who want what you do so I’d do that tbh

Good luck

Morning OP
I haven't rtft but I know friends your age who met 'the one' in their late thirties and had children early forties. It happens.
Also, in terms of fertility, yes you'd be labelled advanced maternal or some such in doctor speak but I had my second aged 39 and my third aged 42. That was without trying (apologies to anyone ttc who might be sensitive to that ).
There have also been women on this forum who found love a second time around after bereavement etc so I really don't think it's too late. Yes, you've had a bit of a dry spell. Yes, Covid-19 makes it a little trickier. But I don't think you should give up. Have you thought of the Guardian Soulmates site? I would try on there just to get to know someone - there might be a bloke feeling exactly the way you do just down the street.

I was divorced and single for ten years at 38.

I had given up on ever not being.

At 38.5 I met someone (Tinder) and I told him what was important to me and that I literally had no time to waste. By our first anniversary of meeting we were married and had a baby.

I used to read these stories and think “Oh fuck orffff” but it really did happen and baby is snoring full of snot next to me.

I know I was crazy lucky, but it really isn’t too late. Look into solo motherhood if children are important to you. Men can come at any time but babies are time-sensitive, and you might just have time to do it solo if for you that’s a better choice than not doing it (it was for me).

Have you thought about fostering/adoption...?

I have a female colleague/friend who was your age when her previous relationship (which had never reached the stage of living together) failed. Ten years later she's married with two children and a large house.

I haven’t read the past the first page but goodness OP you’ve made me wonder if I should worry as I’ll be 38 soon and am very much full of hope!

It sounds as if you’re looking for Mr Perfect. Someone, you gel with instantly. Life isn’t like that. By deciding everyone you speak to is a stranger even after chatting for a while, you’re narrowing your chances to almost zero. By not putting yourself out there, you are making a choice to not even give yourself a chance to find a partner. By not looking at different ways to have a child, you’re choosing not to have one.

I think you’d do well to have therapy as your entire behaviour and mindset is the exact opposite to your desires.

A friend of mine was in your position at 38. She started tentatively dating, met someone, because of their ages they sped things up a bit so went from dating to engaged in 6 months, tried for baby while planning the wedding etc. The baby took a bit of help with ivf but that worked first time at 42.

It is possible.

OP could you look into donor sperm form a fertility clinic? I know a woman who hit 40 and decided to do it alone, now has two beautiful twins. It is expensive though so you may have to save hard! But can be done. She said she was fed up of waiting for someone else to give her children so did it herself.

Planning on having my second at 38/39. First at 35. Your friends and colleagues are arseholes.

[quote WhataNCnelly]@Howmanysleepsnow in 5 years I will be 43! From what I read online most struggle after 35 and by 38 you’re very lucky.[/quote]
You realise this isn't true? In my NCT group most of the mums were in their late 30s/early 40s, having their firsts - many of them went on to have another.

My grandma had a "whoops" baby at 47. Thought it was the menopause, turned out to be my uncle.

Don't write yourself off.

OP stop listening to your negative friends who are bringing you down with stuff that isn't remotely true.

Two anecdotes about people I know.

Friend A called off her LTR with an extremely good guy (also a friend of mine) at the age of 36 because she knew she'd be settling emotionally. She was distraught because she thought that was the end of becoming a mother. Had a couple of dead-end flings with bastards in the years after that - actually accidentally got pregnant but had an abortion because she knew it was the wrong man, wrong circumstance, wrong everything. But she met a lovely guy, so very much the male equivalent of her it's almost freaky, when she was 39 and their daughter is now one year old and the light of their lives.

Friend B was the perpetual bachelor in our social circle (also the highest earner). He settled down (when he was 34) with a very nice 38-year-old he met off Tinder (of all places) and they had their first kid two years later.

Happens all the time. Unfortunately there's no science to making it happen for you - but you need to be open to meeting new people. Not just men, and not just men you're assessing for long-term prospects. Good people to have in your lives, maybe just as friends - but when you make new friends, they'll also have friends, and they'll have friends, and your pool expands... (obviously once bastard covid is over).

But don't regret not settling, because that way would lie worse heartache.