Have I “failed to launch”?

[PauliesWalnuts]

I’ve been thinking about this after reading the thread about people who give up on life for varying reasons and ended up wondering if I would be considered to be in this category.

I had a fairly normal family upbringing in the 70s and 80s. My parents had a few marital issues (Dad was a stonewaller) which affected my GCSEs, and I scraped through school and eventually fell into admin work and became an EA. I am an introvert but do have a small number of close friends around the country.

In my very early 20’s my mum got cancer and I cared for her at home for 18 months until she died. I then moved out and eventually moved to London in my late 20s with a job relocation. My dad also got cancer in my v early 30s and I moved home to look after him for the last year of his life before staying in my home city and buying a house as I couldn’t afford to do this in London.

During this time my friends got on with life - meeting partners, getting married, buying homes and having kids. I have always been very plain, was very shy when I was young, and was a very late starter. I have only had three long term relationships and have never lived with anyone, got married, or had children. I have tried OLD but this was an epic fail both in London and my home city and I spent from 35 to 48 single.

Again time moves on and I’m now 53. My friends are watching children graduate or even get married and have their own kids. They are getting promoted and paying off mortgages or buying camper vans with pension lump sums. I had a lovely relationship with a single dad for four years end suddenly last year because he admitted that he never saw a future with me and was just biding time. He didn’t even introduce me to his kids or family which I put down to Covid but was actually because he just didn’t want to.

I tend to see my friends several weekends in the year or during the weeknights as they spend most weekends with their families. I go out, have hobbies, hike, cycle, and swim regularly, and go on holiday every year but these tend to be solo trips for the reasons outlined above.

My godchild recently graduated and I was invited to their graduation dinner. My friend’s parents (who I grew up next door to and who knew my family very well) were talking to someone else not realising that I could hear. They said that they were surprised that I’d never progressed in life like normal people, and that my parents would have been sad that I never married, had kids, or a successful career, as were they. My friend’s dad said that he was disappointed that I had never managed to “seal the deal on life” and that I was too nice to go through life on my own. I know that single women with no kids are supposed to be the happiest, but I did want a husband and kids, and so the last relationship was lovely for me, until he decided that it wasn’t.

I didn’t let on that I had heard but it made me feel pretty low, and my self esteem has taken quite a knock in the months since then. I have always felt that despite trying, I have ended up treading water for most of my life while my peers have raced to the end of the pool. I don’t think it’s jealousy, or envy, but I do have a feeling that I missed out on most of life’s major milestones. And I’m not sure I can change this.

Do you think I have failed to launch? Any advice?

The grass isn’t greener on the other side it’s just different.

I think the world today is a crap place and I worry for my DC.

I see beauty in the simple things in life but wonder what’s the point in the way we as a species now live our lives? Too much tech, celebrity idealisation and social media the death knell of human to human interaction. .

Focus on the here and now and forget about the what could have been.

You sound like a perfectly functioning human being to me (whatever that is!).

There is no one way to live to a life. And nothing you have described sounds like 'failure to launch'. But whatever has and hasn't happened in your life, it isn't yet over! What's on your bucket list? What do you want to do? To achieve? To see? To experience? The upside of no dependents is that you and your resources are entirely at your own disposal to be the author of the rest of your own life. What an exciting position to be in. Best wishes.

OP have you considered the age of your friend's parents as a factor in how they are 'viewing' you?

It's an older generation thing to strongly think of women needing their 'happy ending' of husband and children. My mother and my grandmother have talked like this. I think Gen X and onwards are a lot more nuanced when we talk about people's lives and what makes them happy.

FTL for me is someone who didn't move out of their family's home. I'm surprised you could be described as that as a homeowner who works full-time. Nope, it doesn't fit.

We can't tick all the life boxes. My husband is disappointed he hasn't more friendships. Yet he's had a decent career and had a family. I've got lots of friends and have a family, but my 'career' has often been disappointing with good opportunities being far too brief.

These failings seem to overshadow everything and it's made much worse when you overhear someone else pointing out your failings too. So it must suck, I'd feel like a massive loser if I overheard my family dissecting my career failings!

I envy your steady employment and reliability, also 53 is still young you can find another, better partner.

Your friend's dad is projecting his feelings onto your circumstances. It sounds like he said it with affection that you were too nice to not have what he considers to be 'seal the deal' life experiences. Goodness knows why he used that expression but it doesn't mean you haven't.

Failure to launch does not describe you from your post. You have certainly launched into life with friendships, relationships, caring roles for both parents, employment, house purchase, relocating, hobbies and travels Including solo trips. You are hardly watching life pass by without progressing into adulthood.

My advice would be to dismiss his comment and leave it in the past. It has no place in your present or future! 😊

To add to the water analogies of launching and treading water...
You have launched and are seaworthy - well equipped to deal with any situation and that includes dropping anchor occasionally (not treading water) before embarking on your next voyage! 😊

Other people’s opinions of you are none of your business. What you overheard says far more about that person than you. I’m your age, and had a big setback last year that laid me very low, and made me feel like a terrible failure. Now I’m trying to think about what I want to do with the next 30 years. Think about what you want. It sounds as if you have freedom and opportunity to do anything.

I don’t think you failed to launch you sound like you were maybe just unlucky in love and didn’t put yourself out there much so maybe missed some opportunities that others grabbed with both hands…..there is still time to change, even make drastic changes, eg you could sell your house and move somewhere completely different, change jobs etc…..these would expose you to new people and possibly new opportunities

OP, are you happy?

If you are happy, you have succeeded in life where many, many others have failed.

You have friends, hobbies and a social life

You are not a 'shut in', dependent on family or friends to do things for you

You were not reliant on your parents for your care and you now don't need help negotiating modern life

You haven't failed to launch and you mustn't think of yourself as having 'failed' in some way

Mumsnet is good isn't it? Lots of cool clever women, from lots of different places. Honestly, fuck them and fuck the exceptions.

Courage calls to courage everywhere. You do you. And women will recognise that.

Having kids certainly isn’t the be all and end all, Op. it’s very hard and lots of people actually regret having them - there are often threads on here about that. People complain endlessly and then when someone doesn’t have kids for whatever reason they’re like “oh it’s amazing having kids!” Who knows why!

first of all - are you happy?

if so, then IMO you’ve done life right and haven’t failed to launch at all.

I am in my 40s with husband and kids and am completely envious of a single childless friend I have of the same age. She is doing what she wants when she wants. Being single and childless can often be a better choice for women.

Most of what I would say has been said but I want to add my voice. You haven’t failed at all, you’ve done a very lot and you’ve been there for your family when needed, which means you are a true and genuine person.

There are many, many ways to ‘do life’ and the people you overheard sound like they have a very narrow perspective on this and can only see their own way as valid. I think deep down you know that’s far from true but unfortunately, hearing their narrow opinions made you question yourself. I’d say don’t question your life anymore.

Life can be anything at all, you just need to make the most of every situation, be the person you want to be, follow your passions, hobbies, work, whatever and then you can never ‘fail’ just because it didn’t follow somebody else’s idea of ‘the life pattern’. This is yours!

You didn't fail to launch OP - that's people who never leave home. You left home and came back to nurse your DF when he became ill.

There are many ways to live a life. Marriage and DC is one way and it's the way that many people expect and judge both themselves and others, but it's not the only way. It does sound like you're feeling fed up and stuck, so unstick yourself! Because you aren't married and don't have DC or GC you're free to change your life and do something different. If you feel stuck with that decision, what about a few sessions with a life coach or a therapist to try and figure out how you'd like this next stage of life to look. I think early 50s is a time when many women feel ready to take on a new challenge, reinvent themselves a bit, change jobs, study something new, move house and have a fresh start.

Haven't read the whole thread but you sound a lovely person. You have had relationships in the past and can again. Maybe you will meet someone and eventually join their family if they have grown up children or heading for grandchildren.

I'm married and got 2 kids. Sahm with no career perspectives since I haven't been working for a long time and my degree is of no use (it really isn't). I feel like a total failure. My friend is 50, childless (she wanted children) and so is sad about that but she has a fulfilling career and lives a good life. We are both a bit envious of one another but sometimes life just happens. She didn't chose for her longtime partner to leave her before they had children and I didn't chose to have a disabled child. We just have to make the best of it and look at what we got instead of what we haven't got.

I think the phrase ‘seal the deal on life’ renders that person’s opinion worthless. It’s based on a very narrow and fixed idea of what a woman should be. OP, you sound like a wonderful person who is living a successful and full life.

I think “failure to launch” means failing to get a job that earns enough to live independently and failing to manage your own life without the support of a parent (cooking cleaning etc). You clearly live independently and are doing just fine.

Some people think marriage and kids is the only normal. That’s not true there’s lots of normals. You have provided for your self, created a network of friends . You are clearly a good person caring for your family like that. You are succeeding in life inspite of the hurdles thrown at you.
Do you want anything to be different? A career? A qualification? A partner?
you can change things but don’t do it because others think you should. Only make change of you feel you need it.

There's nothing in what you wrote that indicates failure to launch. You are a well adjusted, independent, caring person. You have a job, a house, hobbies, friends. That's more than most people have.

Thank you again for all the messages - have re-read them, and slept on it overnight. I’m not usually one for comparing myself to others (as we all know it’s the thief of joy!), but hearing that opinion from people who knew my mum and dad so well, and ironically who have now been in my life a lot longer than my own parents, really took my breath away and made me wonder who else I knew thought like that.

I think that having that “treading water” feeling is possibly due to a couple of factors that aren’t really in my control. I am on a reserve list for a job I wanted when I was 18 that I didn’t get the first time round and then life took me in a different direction - work and then caring responsibilities. This time round I still probably won’t get in (I hit the criteria but not enough vacancies) but the reserve ends next Feb so until then I have to wait. My fallback for not getting that was to sell up and go travelling but my house only got two viewings who reported back on the same issue - family house, but not a family sized garden (it’s tiny with no room to enlarge) - so I took it off the market until Jan to have a break from it.

I feel that if this is my “lot” then fair enough, I’ll play with the hand that I was given, and absolutely try to squeeze every thing out of life, but it’s hard when I feel like the game is delayed. I need to start thinking about small wins, I think, maybe a course, to make me feel that I am still growing and developing as a person, as I’ve really felt that wasn’t the case the last year.

If you can’t sell your house now, rent it out and go travelling

Also, not all families want big gardens and the opinions of a couple of viewers doesn’t mean it will be the opinion of all, I think you shouldn’t have taken the house off the market so quickly….it shows quite a defeatist attitude

Op, no, of course not, but are they quite elderly, if you’re 53 and they are friends parents, are these people in their 70s and 80s? Sometimes there can be a generational fixed view , getting married, having babies, is their view of success. For our generation and younger, it is not the case.

its not all elderly people but there is a small town mentality with the older generation who maybe grew up and lived close to their home town their whole lives, that they define success as how you heard them talking. It’s not about you and your life, its about them and theirs.

I’m sorry what terrible thing for him to say and you to over hear.

You sound lovely - and a responsible, caring adult. Anyone would be lucky to have you as a daughter / friend.

Just reading Mumsnet and the unhappy people in unhappy marriages can show you other options are not necessarily something to covet.

I'm very sorry you had to overhear such bollocks. It can't have felt nice. I'd almost be tempted to tell them that you heard it and didn't appreciate it, but that's just me.

You absolutely haven't "failed to launch", whatever the hell that is supposed to mean. You are financially independent, you own your own house, you have lived independently in several places including London, you have cared for elderly parents, you are a Godmother.

Some people are so unimaginative and self absorbed that if you haven't followed their classic trail of getting married and having children then they just can't understand it. They can't see that there are many ways of living life, not just their way. We are all different.