All my friends of a certain age want to run away from home

[MareofBeasttown]

I thought it was just me, but after speaking to a bunch of friends around my age ( late 40s to early 50s) I have realised that all of us want to run away from home and fuck off to a desert island somewhere. We all have wildly different home lives, jobs and circumstances, but this is the common factor. Of course the pandemic has made things worse, but I don't think it's only the pandemic. Myself, I want to run away just to avoid being asked "Where is the sriracha?" when the sriracha is right on the counter.

Count me in please I would love to be part of the running aqay squad.He is sat here with a gob on and I can barely be civil.He is a nice man but so dull.She has gone to school moaning cos she is tired,works too hard,fell out with friend,I have done school run.laundry,shopping,and cleaning its 11.08 and I have fitted in more than either of them will think about doing, I want to no sorry need to be Shirley Valentine for a while. I look at both of the and adore them ..when they are asleep, I am sick of everything not being enough,yet still doing it whist the lazy shits just take. I have lost me. I am a wife and mum and invisible. i want to feel alive again,to be wanted not needed. I feel tired inside. Thing is this would all be so much better and rectified if they werent so selfish.if someone said "hows your day been are you ok?" but it never happens.Wish I was as selfish and as ignorant as the rest of the people in this house. I dont even fight anymore to explain and get my point across they just don;t get it ..do they wall?!!! Even the wall has stopped answering I think I am invisible to him too!

I am looking forward to 3 years from now. Until then we are locked into this country, this borough because of school. But after that we are free to move back to the EU to a new country. Will we actually do it? don't know, but I keep dreaming of settling in Germany or if we win the lottery than Japan. Should buy a ticket at one point to increase my chances.....
(I have lived in 3 countries so far and after about 10 years I do get restless any where I am. And we've been here that long....)

I was sitting in the sun the weekend, Covid ridden, and thinking about Shirley Valentine - how in the film, the actress was 43, 5 years younger than me.

Oh FFS! I remember watching that film as a teenager and thinking she must be late fifties.

I'm three years older than her now

Iputthetrampintrampoline he doesn't sound so lovely if he never asks you how your day's been...

My DH and kids are lovely, they do ask how I am and about my day. They do stuff around the house - all the kids use the washing machine, pack the dishwasher, take bins out, make their own lunch...

The domestic brain thing still applies though - why can nobody else phone the hairdresser/ doctor/ dentist/ or reply to WhatsApp car pool groups for the kids' sports fixtures and training etc? DD (16) is getting better at doing these things for herself but attempts to get DS (14) to organise his own appointments are not going well - he'd rather just not make appointments than use the phone - and attempts to get him to communicate with his team mates about getting to football (which DD has managed since she was 13) are sabotaged by the fact that none of the other boys are doing the same and their parents (mothers) organise for them, in a way they'd stopped doing for the girls team by U15...

Why does DH consider telling DS he can't play in a football match 45 minutes drive away when I tell him that I'm working that day but DH isn't and it's our turn to be the car pool drivers... and why is it me who dorts the car pool even for days when I'm at work and DH isn't? Why do I have to be the one to "break the news" that he'll need to drive this once ...)

Tbh I am mostly very lucky with a generally considerate family, and colleagues at work too - we're a small mostly female team and take time for each other.

I just miss having the house to myself and not having to worry about everyone else - the empty house used to be the big perk of shift work but covid changed that!

Can I come too? Tolerance levels have dropped off with my hormones. Meat in the sarnie between ageing parents, teenagers and my gorgeous husband who is heading for retirement and focussing on hobbies ie stuff everywhere.

@Wbeezer

Also that temptation when you fill the car up and see that you have 500+miles range... Anne Tyler wrote a book about a woman just walking away one day, i think it's called "The Ladder of Years", I read it a few years ago...

Aaaarg - I HATED this book.

I mean I loved the premise - that she just walked away ... off down the beach in her costume ... gone.

BUT

She went back ... and not only went back but just walked back into the same life and NOTHING changed. Absolutely NOTHING.
She almost picked the wooden spoon out of her husband's hand and carried on with cooking the dinner as though nothing had happened.
That crushed me.
She had seen how it could be, the life she could have and then chose to go back to the drudgery with no compromises or renovations.

@middleager

Oh yes, the short stay in hospital is like a luxury cruise. I had a fabulous time when I was rushed in, turned out to be a false alarm but 4 days of no cooking and someone fussing round me. It was heaven. How bloody sad is that.

Everybody on the thread nods in unison, because we get it!

Thank you, I feel less alone. Been a hard week.

Oh God it's only Tuesday!!!!!!!!!

I read a book by a stroke victim and one of her first thoughts lying on the pavement was ‘thank fuck I don’t have to go to work.’. Sigh

It’s the invisibility that gets to me. It’s like your in a photo with all the real, important people but ignored. But without you the whole show would collapse. Although I’ve felt a bit like that throughout life. Quietly organising and fixing everything in the background and watching someone else take all the credit.
Always the one presenting the flowers never the one receiving them.

@Angrymum22 sorry that's crap

I'm one of the very few who doesn't feel like this but only because of some huge life changes precipitated by my diagnosis of breast cancer last year (treated and now recovered, thankfully). It made me realise how much I needed more peace and quiet in my life.

So, I stopped cooking an evening meal. I had always resented doing it. Instead the fridge is stocked with super easy M&S stuff. Or we order take out. Or we live opposite a well stocked village shop. So I issued an edict to DH and 17 and 18 yr old DDs Feed Yourselves.

I hate gardening. As does DH. So I got a gardener and ignored all of DH's grumbling about the cost. Garden is tidy and pretty and no more running battles over who is cutting the grass or where the extension cable is.

We have had a cleaner for years so the only job DH was asked to help me with was changing our bed, it's a super king so tricky to do alone. But even that he managed to fuck up and turn into a 3 ring circus. In the time it took me to change both my pillowcases, plump them up, put my side of the bottom sheet on tightly and got the clean duvet ready, DH had managed to cram half of one pillow into a tangled pillowcase, whilst glaring balefully at me. Murder often crossed my mind. So, I upped the cleaner's hours and she now changes all the beds. Job done.

DD1 is now at university [weeps] but have already booked 2 nights in a hotel in November to visit her. Except I plan to spend one whole day and night and brunch the next day with DD1......then fully intend spending the afternoon and evening On My Own in the hotel, quietly doing nothing. I intend doing this regularly over the next 3 years.

...attempts to get DS (14) to organise his own appointments are not going well - he'd rather just not make appointments than use the phone - and attempts to get him to communicate with his team mates about getting to football (which DD has managed since she was 13) are sabotaged by the fact that none of the other boys are doing the same and their parents (mothers) organise for them, in a way they'd stopped doing for the girls team by U15...

@UntilYourNextHairBrainedScheme, how about just not communicating with the team mates and letting him learn the hard way that if he doesn't organise his shit he misses out on football? It's especially galling that the girls get on with it but the boys are pandered to. So sexist. Don't let him grow up to become yet another useless man that posters on here are moaning about.

@LookieLikie

I wonder who the women (mainly mid 40s+) are who DONT feel this way. And why

I don’t. No kids and a husband who is a fully-fledged adult capable of looking after himself. My life is more or less entirely lived for my own benefit and I’m pretty happy. Sorry, but you asked.

DH had managed to cram half of one pillow into a tangled pillowcase, whilst glaring balefully at me.
I'm convinced this is why men often move on so quickly when they lose a partner - just overwhelmed at having to run a household.

I fantasise about this every day. Would love to pack a backpack and just start walking. Cba with any of this being a sensible adult bollocks any more.

13:36 CandidaAlbicans2 I obviously didn't explain clearly what I meant - DS contacted his team mates because we said we weren't going to sort it any more, especially as DD had been sorting herself out younger - but DS's team mates just didn't reply, or replied to say that they didn't know and his mum should talk to their mums, or replied ignoring the car pool questions and talking about the actual football - all in all being useless which rather blocked him from organising with his teammates.

DD's friends, like her, had been checking with their own parents/ family calendar, calling friends, they checked with their parents, from age about 13. DD says "I said you'd take on Monday and fetch on Wednesday, L's parents will fetch on Monday, and take on Wednesday, H's wil take us to the match on Saturday and stay and watch... I've put it all in the calendar"

DS's friends just say "dunno, get your mum to ask my mum" or ignore texts about organising lifts completely, or reply ignoring the question and discussing something else, leaving it almost impossible for DS to organise anything.

We live 5 miles from training and sometimes up to 40 miles from matches but for both football kids there are other kids from our village and the next who play on the same teams so we've always car pooled (rural).

DS has actually cycled to training today as the neighbour kid we always car pool with is ill, and that would be a way for him to take control for himself, but the mum of the kid we car pool with is a sort of friend through very long acquaintanceship, and is absolutely adamant that cycling ten miles and training for 90 minutes would be too much for her "little" boy (who is actually six months older than DS and in good health...).

I think my point is that its almost institutional - trying to bring a teen boy up to carry his own mental load hits unexpected obstacles in the form of other families not expecting the same of their teen boys, and babying them longer than their girls. Infuriating but hard to address alone!

@Spiindoctor

DH had managed to cram half of one pillow into a tangled pillowcase, whilst glaring balefully at me. I'm convinced this is why men often move on so quickly when they lose a partner - just overwhelmed at having to run a household.

It's utterly pathetic behaviour akin to his seeming inability to discern whether the dishes in the dishwasher are dirty or not - necessitating him always, always leaving dirty dishes on top of the dishwasher (he wouldn't want to put dirty dishes in with clean).

If such a basic, mundane, domestic step was too complex for him, then I decided that so was cooking for me. I have zero idea what we'll have for dinner tonight and he hasn't dared asked. It will most likely be take out again, or a ridiculously over priced convenience meal from 'Cook' - but I have no shits left to give. If he begrudges the cost then he can always cook, yes?

@ancientgran Sound tough. Hope you get some time for yourself too.

Peaceanddove -so are you saying you no longer do anything at all? No work, no cooking, no housework, no gardening? What do you do all day?

Just to stress that I have no expectation that it's you that should be doing the house stuff, but it sounds like you have given up. Your life didn't sound that stressful before. Have you seen the GP?

We both work (very) FT but DH and teenager are more than capable of sorting themselves when needed. We have a cleaner, which is an absolute godsend, but do share the other stuff, washing, cooking, sorting the garden etc. DH is maybe not very keen on grocery shopping, but teenager will go and get bits she wants if its not on the shopping list. I wouldn't put up with being a slave to the others to the extent I wanted to run away - though I think it's much easier with older kids. I spend plenty of time with my friends and don't feel my life revolves solely round the house and family. Just had a nice weekend away with DH and I'm off with the girls next weekend - I do try to escape work sometimes when it gets very stressful.

@MissAmbrosia

Peaceanddove -so are you saying you no longer do anything at all? No work, no cooking, no housework, no gardening? What do you do all day?

Oh, I still do the day to day tidying, all the laundry etc. But today I had a quiet morning drinking coffee and doing a jigsaw. This afternoon I did a bit of shopping, followed by some laundry. Dinner ended up being a Beef Stroganoff from Cook with Uncle Ben's Microwave rice (very, very tasty).

I Really, really want to run away. The shit is relentless. Awful HR dept, death of a friend, total lack of support for disabled ds. And that's just one week

@MissAmbrosia

Just to stress that I have no expectation that it's you that should be doing the house stuff, but it sounds like you have given up. Your life didn't sound that stressful before. Have you seen the GP?

Seen my GP? Eh?

The only thing I have 'given up' is all the tedious household guff and chores which I really didn't like (though don't actually mind tidying at all, but the thought I never need clean a bathroom again makes me very happy).