If you are in your 40s/50s with no children…

[AnaViaSalamanca]

What is your life like? How do you spend the bulk of your free time?

Mid/late 30s here. Most friends have kids or are trying for. I have no desire. In fact the thought of having children makes me anxious but wondering about the alternative

I've just turned 48 and found myself today trying to find something to cut out the meaninglessness I feel sometimes. Don't get me wrong, I like my life - me and DH are youth workers, have a stepson, love travelling, and have many hobbies. But I just can't get beyond this empty feeling I get. A friend of my sisters is 49 and due her 1st baby in a months time, and I can't help wonder if I should do that? Reading the threads here about people who had their families when they were younger and can now feel freer in their lifestyle, to have a child now would seem bonkers. I don't really want to change my lifestyle but I don't want to just drift around aimlessly either. I guess there are lots of ways to introduce meaning into lives that don't involve having a child, I just need to find them and committ. My husband doesn't feel like I do - he's not the one who had the premature menopause - so we need to align on something.

so we need to align on something.

I agree that you would be wise to find something that satisfies you. I'm not sure that you and your DH need to align on anything. My DH and I work well together but we have lots of separate interests which works very well.

Good luck with finding what you want.

Exactly. By the time I am 50 my kids will
be in their 20s. I don't think they will be taking up loads of my time.

Please don't have a child to solve your own existential angst/desire for meaning. You aren't actually solving it - you're just dumping onto another person, who will likely in due course experience the same feelings of meaningless.

The only sensible reason to have a child is that you really want a child.

My child free sibling does 3 yoga/exercise type classes. Also does a course from home. Meets friends at weekends. Was also choice.

'I've just turned 48 and found myself today trying to find something to cut out the meaninglessness I feel sometimes'

I'm 43 and I know what you mean. I have a lovely life and am grateful on a daily basis, but sometimes I still feel empty and wonder what it's all for. I had (have) very emotionally unavailable parents and I know that's where a lot of the emptiness stems from. I have felt the ache, the longing for a family of my own but I just know that the daily, relentless reality would not do me any good at all

Particularly at our age, I think it's down to us to address the underlying reason for the emptiness and to do what we can about it, understanding that we may always feel it in some form. I was in therapy for a long time and it was very painful, but helped me enormously

Just wanted to say that I hear you x