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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To feel like I don't fit in here

54 replies

JustMeAndMyBaby · 16/01/2012 21:01

I've just moved from where I've spent the last 10years (a city with a mix of people and lots of young single mums) and where I had DD. I decided to move back to where I grew up. It's very different, very middle class, lots of SAHM. I just feel like I don't fit I'm a single gay mum. I'm the only single parent of a pre school child I've met here. Every time I go to a baby group I get asked what DH/DP does one mum even presumed when I said I was on my own that DH must have died and when I say I'm on my own the conversation stops. A couple of the groups I've been to are really cliquey and despite the fact I'll speak to anyone people have actually just looked at me and walked away. I'm a very confident person but this is getting to me.

OP posts:

MsAverage · 16/01/2012 22:00

Ok, you are away from friends and missing them. But you have lots of time instead. It was my greatest pleasing moment after divorce when I discovered how much time I suddenly got.

blibblibs · 16/01/2012 22:01

Its really difficult being the new girl, but I would say just keep at it.
I moved almost 18 months ago and am only now starting to make friends! I treated playgroups as a chance to get out of the house and different toys for DD to play with, and if I had a conversation great, if not at least we got out for a bit
Even now at one of the playgroups I hardly speak to anyone but another one we go to is much better.
I moved from where you are now and have some lovely friends back home so they are out there

runningwilde · 16/01/2012 22:11

Some playgroups are horrid. Have you tried the surestart run ones? I find they are much less cliquey. People who are like you describe are not worth bothering with - I hope you meet some fab people soon - if you lived near me I would intro you to my mates who are lovely

BandOMothers · 16/01/2012 22:14

Bugger them! I hated toddler groups...everyone knew one another and weren't interested in chatting. Can you get to any nearby towns where there might be groups with a wider circle?

Original poster

JustMeAndMyBaby · 16/01/2012 22:19

Running - I dont think we have surestart in Scotland.

I just feel so alone I actually have no one here apart from my mum and step dad but were not that close though there very close to dd. I don't even care if there mum friends just someone would be nice. I feel so depressed I was borderline PND at the start and now I'm wondering if that's what going on or if I'm just all messed up by splitting up, moving, all my friends drifting. I just feel so lonely plus so scared of going back to work this week.

OP posts:

zookeeper · 16/01/2012 22:21

I would concentrate on making friends through adult things - could you get a sitter in the evenings and do something that involves meeting other adults?Once you've made a few friends the whole babygroup thing will become more bearable.

I went to loads of playgroups/toddler groups with my dcs and loathed the lot

Original poster

JustMeAndMyBaby · 16/01/2012 22:24

I feel like i cant ask dps to babysit cos they already help me out with a lot of other stuff, but they probably would but there's not much on apart from exercise classes and don't really know if that's a place to meet people.

OP posts:

zookeeper · 16/01/2012 22:26

aww justme I've just read your last post - it's not surprising you feel lonely and depressed with all the huge life changes you have just gone through. I remember being inexplicably terrified of going back to work too. No other advice except to send you huge sympathy - just take a day at a time for now

serin · 16/01/2012 22:30

Justme, Could you start your own group? A friend of mine did this in a hired hall with baby massage. What about nature walks or summat? Get everyone out in the lovely Scottish fresh air too?

Or you could join a gym and pop baby in the creche.

What hobbies to you have?

Original poster

JustMeAndMyBaby · 16/01/2012 22:36

Unfortunately when they built the lovely new gym here they forgot to bring the creche that was in the old one!!

Hobbies hmmmm I don't really have any these days I don't suppose I do a bit of scrapbooking used to do a lot of sport but pretty much given them all up since getting pregnant.

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QueenofMacaroniCheese · 16/01/2012 22:48

I really really understand. I was a single mum with my DS (from when he was 4 months) and I moved from a city I loved living in, with a wide circle of friends to back where I grew up - so I could get help from my DParents. It was a disaster for me to be honest - I was so lonely.

Single mums were treated v. suspiciously in this small town. TBH I don't think I'd have fitted in even if I had a DH. Weekends dragged on forever and the loneliness was soul destroying. In the end I made a couple of friends through my DS nursery but as I worked full time / had long commute I hardly ever saw them (families don't really want to hang out with SMs at weekends). But as time went on I got used to the new routine - you just have to say "yes" to every play date. One friend I just did not think was going to be my type of person but we are now very close, 6 years on. Have you thought about internet dating - not necessarily to meet someone but to have an on line friendship - it can help in the evenings? Gingerbread seem to be getting better and have meet ups now I think? For me some of the loneliness came from grieving for my old life, a bit of PND, coping with being a mum for the first time. I used to book weekends away, get old friends to come and stay, invite myself to stay at their's. Having things in the diary to look forward to helped me and made me feel like I was still part of the world.

Sorry bit long........

Original poster

JustMeAndMyBaby · 16/01/2012 23:01

Queen are you me you've just summed my life up!! I can't believe how let down I feel by my old friends and all there promises to visit and like you say at weekends there all busy doing family stuff while I tag along with dps which makes me feel about 12 or 60!!

OP posts:

Original poster

JustMeAndMyBaby · 16/01/2012 23:03

Oh and I looked into gingerbread but I'm in Scotland we have opfs and they don't do meet ups

OP posts:

serin · 16/01/2012 23:05

Sports good if you join a team you might make loads of friends, now someone to mind baby!

TBH I am struggling to understand the mentalilty of small town Scotland, it sounds like the 1950's!

Original poster

JustMeAndMyBaby · 16/01/2012 23:18

Yeah I could join a sports team ive been asked too but think that would take up too much time as teams have a habit of taking over your whole life. If I went to the team I've been asked to join it would take up most of my Sunday's. I really would just like a friend to go for coffee with/have a glass of wine at the weekend with am I asking to much? Maybe I was just too lucky with my old friends.

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QueenofMacaroniCheese · 16/01/2012 23:27

JustMe - I've got to head off to bed but I can't bugger off without saying something positive. FWIW whilst it was the hardest time of my life - I was heartbroken, lonely and depressed and full of regrets and a touch bitter (and I wonder why I didn't get invited out much!) - it changed me and I hope for the better. I think I learnt more about myself in that time and now years have passed I see it as a phase which was a pile of crap while it lasted, though was defining and strangely empowering.

Try not to let depression take hold, find someone to talk to or see your GP. You will have a social life again and a love life - your life is not over and you will feel like you again. Even the bad things pass or you find better ways to deal with them.....it took me a couple of years but I really wallowed and dragged it out (oh crap I have to mention the shameful self help books I read by the bucket load all with titles like "find the way to the new you" and I even started keeping a diary again for the first time since being a teenager....had forgotten that bit!).

So sorry you feel like this - but maybe try and see it as time to take stock and figure out what would make you happy... decisions can be made and reversed if you need to. Anyway, hope you sleep well.

MrsHuxtable · 16/01/2012 23:40

I'm in Central Scotland too, JustMeAndMyBaby and don't know a soul either. My town starts with a D and ends with an e. I know it's unlikely but any chance your here as well (as your description of the place fits)?

Original poster

JustMeAndMyBaby · 16/01/2012 23:42

How funny I think we are here too what age are your kids?

OP posts:

MrsHuxtable · 16/01/2012 23:46

None yet, only expecting DD1 in 3 weeks and already scared about going to baby groups as I'm foreign and worried about not fitting in...I've also only moved here last month, so really don't know anyone.

isitmidnightalready · 16/01/2012 23:49

You should try the gay mums group 45 minutes away. It may turn out that there are others who go and live on your side of the group (20 minutes away?) If you get on with some, you could meet up half way - just 20 mins and very do-able. Give it a go. At least you can be happpy for the few times you go there, and remind yourself that you are perfectly lovely and likeable, as you already know.

Original poster

JustMeAndMyBaby · 16/01/2012 23:55

Midnight ive been to the group it was lovely but there all from nearer there but im happy to go through to it when its on again its just monthly.

mrs pm me if you fancy meeting up sometime. I found the wednesday baby group nice.

OP posts:

spiderslegs · 16/01/2012 23:56

JustMe seek & ye shall find, really, there will be some people there who you will be friends with, groups are often bad - you have to seek & destroy, take them as individual & get to know them.

I moved to DH's area before DS was born and it was cliques a-plenty. I threw myself into all of them & whilst I do not get on the with the 'groups' in general I have many individual friends, meet people & cherry-pick.

I live in a very middle class area, mainly couples but if you can penetrate as an individual you'll find people, interesting people, it can be very cliquey but my friends around here are dipsomaniacs, world recognised artists, writers, librarians, shop owners, journalists, child-minders, gardeners, farmers, film makers, Olympians, furniture makers, publicans, livery yard owners, teachers, florists, builders, electricians, equestrians, photographers, SAHMs, vets, furniture makers, illustrators, musicians...

They range in age from 20 to 85.

Just get in there & KEEP getting in there - you'll meet them eventually.

staylucky · 17/01/2012 00:59

Playgroups can be terrifying! But the more I go to (forcing myself for DS and for me) the more I realise that everyone kind of feels the same pressures. The small talk, the convos that just stop, the frantically worrying if someone was being rude or is it paranoia We're all much the same really no matter what and most people respond well to a smile and genuine interest in them.
Fwiw I tried in the early weeks to tell myself that it was a learning curve, a bit of a test for myself and that I could only pick up new coping strategies every time I had a horrible session, thankfully the more I went along the easier it got. Once you feel more comfortable with the routine of the group it becomes easier to come out of your shell a bit more.

spiderslegs · 17/01/2012 01:16

Staylucky exactly - but you said it more kindly than I did.

ArtVandelay · 17/01/2012 08:27

MrsHuxtable don't know where you've moved to but just wanted to say that in some ways I find being foreign easier in social situations. When noones being out and out horrid anyway!!

I think people have different expectations of me at my German group than if I was German, I think the other ladies ask each other very personal and competitive questions whereas I don't have to get into things too deep with them. I just smile a lot and say how sweet and lovely everyone/everything is :) I find English group exhausting because I really have to engage. Some weeks I want to, some weeks I just want to wear a glazed expression and murmur. I feel pressure to fit in at English group but not at German group.

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