If you could live a whole other life, what would it be?

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Completely out of the blue, I just had a whole picture of myself living a completely different life. I was in America, somewhere with lots of horses and pines and the matriarch of a large family with a well-respected, pillar of the community husband and a brood of beautiful, healthy children. Not a clue where this came from and a million miles away from my actual life and what I've ever wanted.

It got me wondering, what other lives might I have lived? Have you ever daydreamed about living a completely different life and what was it?

So many different alternatives! We would have had more money, not had to struggle and budget all the time, and four children. I have a friend in Florida who has retired to live in a vast private estate with a country club. Every house has its own pool. Basically it’s like being on a permanent holiday.Alternatively, I would have been good at science at school and become a forensic scientist.

I would be a completely different person with a completely different life if I had not married an autistic man.

I can now see my Dad and brother were/are autistic too. My Dad also caused me a lot of pain.

In my fantasy life those are the bits that change. There are no autistic men in my life, in my fantasy life.

On another thread I said I would have liked to be Mary Beard.

Having lots of children and a large house in the country would be my worst nightmare.

Have you been watching the Waltons OP or spending too much time on trad wife internet bollocks?

I would live a life with no interest in sex or dating as long as I could then come back to this one, after. I sometimes wonder what I could have done with my brain if I hadn't got side tracked by the pursuit of love. I hope the answer is that I'd be really high achieving but lonely and appreciate what I've got now more. Or maybe I'd have just fallen in love with the RIGHT person later in life and avoided a lot of heart ache. That's more morose/deep than I imagine the thread was intended as, sorry 😂

I’d be Enya. Living in a castle in Ireland with my cats and nobody else. Bliss

I’d live somewhere remote with just animals for company. I might still do that in the next couple of years, I can work anywhere.

A massive Villa in Tuscany, Seville or the South of France with staff. DH and I living the high life whizzing around in an Aston Martin…our children visiting and just living the best life. I would visit London once in a while so we don’t get homesick but definitely would love the country villa life surrounded by our kids, the dog, good people, good food and having no worries mentally or financially.

I'm sure this in part explains the happiness curve.

We're happy as kids, then the pursuit of love/sex drives us mad until post menopause we realise what a ton of bollocks that all is and settle happily into being our own selves, comfortable in our own skin again.

I'd be living in the Cotswolds doing some sort of detective work with a male friend for occasional dinners, outings, plus 1 etc but no sex.

I would be single, no DC, live in the city, spend my spare time playing video games. Bliss.

A princess in a palace, wear big dresses and go to balls.

Like Agatha Raison? That sounds good. Out having adventures, going out for food, theatre etc, but no further romantic complications.

I’d be creative. I’d live in a warm country by a beach and hang out with friends and family in my little studio cabin surrounded by palm trees, making beautiful jewellery all day long then making a small fortune selling it to tourists at night markets.

I’d get my husband to run a chilled out beachside cafe so I could have free food whenever I liked. There’d be more cats and possibly a boat.

I agree. I’m early peri menopause but I can also feel myself slipping back into my true original self. It’s a relief.

i see so many threads on here about maintaining sex drive in peri and menopause and I can’t really relate. I am married, so it is an issue; but if I were to ever be single again I can happily imagine living the rest of my life without ever having sex again

No children.
Lived in different countries.

You’ve been reading Agatha Raisin 😁

I certainly haven't been reading Agatha Raisin! I tried once and it failed my "If you don't enjoy it by 3 chapters, ditch it" rule 😅

Maybe a nun, living in a remote convent with lots of silence and growing vegetables or making jam or summat.

I'd be married to a rich, kind man, living in a large but cosy home somewhere in upstate New York. I'd easily travel in and out of New York City itself for theatre etc, but also easily ski in the mountains, and easily get to beaches on Cape Cod in summer. I'd have lots of children and plenty of room for them all to bring their own families to stay as they became adults.

Just as long as I swerve one man - I’ll be alright.

Depending on my mood, my brain oscillates between two very specific, highly romanticised fantasies:

• Becoming a cenobitic nun
• Becoming an eremitic nun

When I’m feeling lonely, disconnected, or exhausted by how superficial the modern world can feel, I crave the cenobitic life. I fantasise about a built-in sisterhood, waking up before dawn to sing Gregorian chants in a candlelit chapel, and finding God in the shared rhythm of a community. The heavy burden of making individual choices disappears, replaced by a collective devotion where every daily chore becomes an act of prayer.

But when I’m overstimulated, socially burnt out, and drained by the constant noise of everyday life? That's when the eremitic fantasy takes over. I picture myself entirely alone in a small stone cottage on a quiet mountainside, stripping away all human distractions to stand face-to-face with God. No notifications, no small talk—just stoking a fire, drinking hot tea, and finding a profound, radical intimacy with the Creator in the absolute stillness of the desert.

Ultimately, both are just different paths to the same destination: a deep, soul-level craving to strip away the modern static and get closer to God—whether that's through the soft, holy hum of a community or the breathtaking quiet of total solitude. ✨

I wouldn’t have had children with AJ abusive bastard

Wow @Ipsevenenabibasnever thought I'd find myself swayed by the idea of being a nun! You sell it!
For me, it'd be an artist of some sort, living in a stylish art filled city flat and with a series of hot younger arty boyfriends on rotation.

I have always done this. I thought that perhaps it was because I've always been a wide reader, right from childhood!

I wondered what it would be like to be a nun (specifically, a Benedictine one; I don't think a silent life with the Carmelites would be for me), a mother of a large family, Amish, living on a remote Scottish island, training to be a Norland nanny, or at the Le Cordon Bleu school (where I could also have learnt French).

These days, I would choose to be as self-sufficient as possible, making clothes and fantastic food, home educating my offspring, and living in an area even more rural than where I live now. I'm not sure where a job would fit in with this, though, and given that I have no real-life need for a husband, I'd still need to earn money somehow!