I feel like I’ve failed financially because it’s now ground to a halt

[reoyl]

Not sure where the best place is for this but I am feeling massively insecure and I KNOW this is all material stuff but it’s engulfing me.

I bought a nice house a year ago, I’ve got around 40 pc equity in it, bought for 460. I have credit cards of 5k and will still be paying off my student loan for another year. I became a single parent recently (not married) and now I’m facing childcare etc ive realised that this is where it ends for me realistically. I have gone down to 3.5 days a week and my salary pays the mortgage and leaves me around 150 a month to save…I’ve never lived like that before and so obviously I won’t be upgrading the house or getting a new car anytime soon.

I worked massively hard in my twenties/early 30s and I feel like it was all for nothing. its embarrassing that I have the job I do and I can’t just nip off on holiday, the best is the family holiday home in the Lakes and that will literally be the place me and DC for the foreseeable. I feel like I’ve let them down.

I don’t know why I’m posting really. I guess at my age I thought I would have done better and now it’s all come to a halt and won’t improve. Ex should be paying maintenance which would help being able to free up some money but he isn’t around and hasn’t talked about it… I’m jealous really that he gets to pursue his career and carry on while my life grinds to a halt on that way. Just feeling really shit and too embarrassed to talk to friends.

@Weirdlynormal ive always been chasing something, never sure exactly what. It’s made me perform well at work and achieve things but happiness? Not always there, I’d say it made an appearance 10% of the time. I’ve had lots of therapy. Nothing changes. I cannot seem to just ‘be.’

@Weirdlynormal did your setback make you less driven is that what you mean?

If you spent your 20s tormenting yourself with anxiety about not having a child yet (which seems highly unhelpful) and are now tormenting yourself with anxiety over your belief that life ends at 33, maybe you should consider CBT to learn how to frame your thoughts in more useful ways?

Because most of the emotional response you are describing is being driven by your way of thinking rather than any objective reality. Which you can change, and then you will have different emotions.

You're talking about beliefs and opinions not facts - and you have control of your thought process to change how you are framing things.

Don't spend the next 55 years tormenting yourself unnecessarily. That would be the real tragedy here.

Op I’m similar age to you, have yet to buy a house and realistically probably a number of years off and even then it’s most likely to be about 250k max which around here gets you a 2 up 2 down. My car is over 10 years old and being held together but cannot afford to replace it and I have about 1/2 my student loan cleared off.

I don’t have family to share with childcare and only recently got back into work because of this. When DC was young I would have killed to have what you have now.

i get where you are coming from especially when everything changes.

but the key to happiness is to not compare yourself to other people. Quite often you don’t know what situation they are in and that person with a 700k house could be so over leveraged one missstep and they lose the lot. The person always going on holiday could have 50k of credit card debt and they could be burning themselves out to keep ahead of it, or eventually will come down with a bump when all lines are filled.

be happy with what you achieved which for 34 seems to be a decent leveln

@blanchrspot thanks for defending me. @SuperPets i think you’ve missed the point or I’ve not expressed it well. I feel like im trapped in a world where all my friends, family and colleagues are on a different playing field. It might well be the case that im better off than others or even most, but in my immediate life, with my day to day, I am part of a completely different landscape, that is what is hard… not the fact im yet to install a swimming pool.

You're being unreasonable. My house is worth probably 50k and without a very lucky inheritance I wouldn't even have it.

In this climate, just being able to own your home is a blessing.

Deferred happiness. "I'll be happy when I... [get promoted / buy a mansion / have a baby]" but that moment never comes so you miss out on what you have now because you've decided happiness is something to feel in the future not the present.

Did you do any CBT? And did it address this core belief / behaviour of deferring happiness off into the future? What strategies do you still use from your previous therapeutic work?

@QuestionableMouse where can you buy a house for 50k? Genuinely interested!!

@midairchallenger i didn’t do CBT just counselling. Maybe I should try that. I don’t really live in the moment, I find it absolutely terrifying and honestly cannot do it. If I have time to think (of which I have a LOT now), I get less and less able to cope.

@reoyl no my set back made me try and be a person I wasn't (hard drinking, partying, drug taking), but I'd still be up at 4.30am to drive to a meeting! I think it was accepting 'me' as I am that finally happened and I was happy single, geeky, and fatter than I'd like, but fit and active. I then met someone about 6 months later and I think the two events were very connected.

I have often thought 'is that it' but now I realise that, yes it is, but that can be good. I need novelty and I get bored easily, I set myself challenges. It's not waiting for life to deliver, but living life and adding what satisfies you now.

I do think big changes make you have a rethink and you need to recalibrate.

You do sound a bit depressed to me. I've been there and it's a weird place because it's not logical. It's fine everyone saying, look at what you've got (which is true), but it's not so easy when you feel a loss of something.

Oh and I will add. After my first child and my DH got a promotion, I felt really mean about it: that could have been me! I felt the loss. I understand that feeling.

@reoyl my brother had this, he was working with people earning high 6 figures (he wasn't) &/or who had significant family wealth behind them. It's hard when you're in it but out of it if that makes sense. He was completely satisfied before but when other people were getting 200k to get on the ladder he started to feel like a failure.

I live in a now very gentrified part of London & the wealth is quite staggering. A new neighbour will move in & spend hundreds of thousands on renovations or I will speak to a school mum who is moving out as they can't afford more space. The next week they have a 300k gift to move up the ladder or buy a 2nd home by the sea. Of course it's a bubble but I'm a 2nd gen immigrant from a very modest background & had no idea that large sections of society lived like this.

I'm pretty satisfied with my lot but am a bit older. My brother is a workaholic & does alway seem to be aiming for the next thing.

@SuperPets

Why do you feel it is necessary? What for and what kind?

Empathy for a start. You don’t have to agree that the OP is right to feel engulfed by failure. You might believe that objectively she has no need to feel that way but surely you can understand that given she does in fact feel that way she needs support.

Specifically some words of support or encouragement might be helpful. If you don’t feel you can manage that, then maybe saying nothing would be kinder?

I'm so sick of being told to #befuckingkind all the time

When are you told to “be kind” and by whom?

@reoyl claim CMS.

You don’t need to save all or even any of it. It’s to contribute too DCs upkeep, roof over head etc. Use for holidays to bring some joy.

When will childcare cost reduce?

With CMS and reduced childcare, it’ll get a bit easier. You can probs my up your hours once DC a bit older.

It’ll get a bit easier. Understand it’s hard in comparison to your circle. Try to find a way to be ok with that and find a little joy

Child maintenance is to maintain the lifestyle the child had prior to the separation.

I used to compare myself to my best friend as she had a house worth over £1m and mine was only a fraction of that. I was so jealous as her house was my perfect house.

But it ate me up inside and was pointless.

I am happy now that I have a small house as my bills are much less and I can retire earlier than her.

I can't believe I used to be jealous of her. I am now so happy with my lot.

You're unhappy because you are constantly comparing yourself to your friends. Everyone's circumstances are differen't. Once you stop comparing & start appreciating what you do have, rather than don't, you'll live a much more fulfilling life.

Tomorrow your life could change - for the better or worse.

I absolutely understand what you mean reoyl. Like you, I’m very goals orientated and during the odd time when I’ve had to stand still, rather than be actively moving towards the next step, I’ve felt lost and like opportunities are just passing me by.

It would be hard not to feel resentful that your ex now has the freedom to chase his dreams and move further up the ladder in whatever way he chooses, while it feels like you’ve had your wings clipped and can’t move left, right or forward. And, if your social circle are all the same too, I can see how it’s left you feeling isolated and panicky about what happens now – what about your dreams and your plans and hopes for the future?

Compared to most of the population, yes, you are lucky, but right now, you’re also allowed to feel sad and lost that your plans didn’t work out and that’s going to take time to process, accept and then move on from. Virtually set back can be the springboard to better things but for now, give yourself permission to just stop while the dust settles and you work out what you really want.

Take some time to work out what’s most important to you. Is it better financial security? Then see if you can up your hours or look for another job, but that does come at a cost where life is harder juggling longer work hours and children. Give yourself permission to ease yourself into life while you figure it out. You don’t have to have all the answers now.

And add some different friends into the mix – it’ll give you a much better perspective and hopefully, leave you feeling proud of what you’ve achieved rather than how you’re being left behind.

I get it. You were expecting one future and now you have to adjust to another. Regardless of whether your reduced circumstances are ‘adequate’ (and of course you already know they could be worse) they aren’t what you signed up for, and that takes adjustment.

Although seeing what other people have is hard, I’m not sure comparing yourself to your friends is so much the issue here, as comparing where you are to where you expected to be.

I had expected not to need to work again, and now I do. Once I do, there is no going back. I’ll lose that freedom for good, even into retirement. It’s not the money, or that I’m too good to work, but I valued the time and flexibility more than I can say.
I wasn’t particularly well off. I chose to have that time and flexibility and a below-average salary because it was more important to me. And knowing there will still be nothing spare for nice things is hard. And worrying. I don’t mind driving an old banger, but sooner or later it will need replacing. Or the windows will. Or the garden fence. And when they do, I will have to have the cheapest thing I can get. I don’t mind that my family have fancy hot tubs and Teslas. I don’t want them. I’d love a new kitchen (this one is a terrible layout and uncomfortably high for me and I bought the house expecting to replace it right away) but I can’t even hope to save for it, even going without treats or holidays for years and years. I have a certain amount of capital and if I spend it, I’ll never build it again. (I go back a forth on the kitchen. I want it, but I don’t need it. But then it makes my back hurt, so maybe I do need it). See, I’m a bit stuck too. But I’ll figure out with some kindness and hand holding, and so will you (unlike others I don’t believe people who have more than I in some areas don’t deserve kindness at all!). While
most people do move on, it takes time to adjust. Give yourself time. Don’t expect to figure it all out today.

Things might change for me (although I really can’t see how) but they will definitely change for you, because your child will grow. Having young children in expensive childcare is a season. It passes, although it doesn’t feel like it while you are in it because it’s so all consuming. You prioritise them now, and your career later. Most single parents do repartner (my view of positively preferring to be single is unusual in my experience). Feeling stuck and trapped is a common reaction to a change you didn’t choose.

Definitely get some counselling to help you adjust. Check if you are entitled to any help (I’m not, so I know how that feels) and chase your child’s father for maintenance. He should support them financially, and that should free up some money for you. It’s not to save for them. It’s to spend on their needs. You save for them out of what’s left if you choose, AFTER you have had some non-essentials too. Try to expand your circle of friends to include people in more varied walks of life. The normal they have isn’t your normal just now and it will help to have friends with common experiences.

Everything will be ok in the end. If it’s not ok, it’s not the end.