I know IABU but is everyone this "woe is me"

[AmericasTorturedBrow]

I know IABU, I am very lucky to have my health, a decent DH, 2DC, get to live in a fab place, have all sorts of amazing and inspirational friends, close to my parents and brother etc.

But I turned 30 last year, never expected to be married with a family at this age, DID expect to have got somewhere with a career, to be on my way to achieving....something?

I'm being very woe is me about it all and have had my head bitten off by friends in the opposite situation (great career, nobody friend let alone DH or DC). I feel like I wandered into this life without considering the consequences and an now a SAHM which I never wanted to be (can't work ATM due to visa restrictions). I suppose I felt like I had more potential than this and I don't know how to get myself out of this self indulgent rut. Honestly sometimes I just want to walk out the door with a backpack and start all over again.

AIBU in thinking this is self pitying and useless and stupid, or does everyone feel like this to some extent?!

TBH I would put the career on hold for a few years while you have no work visa, and try to enjoy being a mum and having a bit of free time too (hopefully). Maybe do a little studying if there is something you are interested in.

I remember my mum (who was a SAHM) saying she found it odd that people thought she wasn't intelligent or educated or well-informed just because she was at home with kids. She listened to Radio 4 all day, read the papers cover to cover, did the crossword and generally was interested in people and the world.

It isn't the end of your career and you will be able to restart it in a few years.

I did very little paid work when my kids were the age yours are, but I'm now well and truly back in the workplace and progressing.

Well, YABU only in that you are not recognising your own part and your own achievement in having a good marriage, picking a good man, raising two DC etc. These things take energy, especially when DC are young. And culturally we are taught to be dismissive of them. As though they are effortless, as though DC raise themselves and DPs need no attention. In reality - these things take time, energy etc and you've devoted yours with results. Which is imo a considerable achievement.

Very, very well said Woodrunner.

OP, I suspect part of the problem is you're isolated - small wonder with two small DCs. Can you start small, maybe with a gym membership, or joining a bookclub - something, anything to just get you out of the house child-free for a couple of hours a week.

And take it from there. Your logic and reasoning has been sound - take the career break, go abroad and make something of it - but as in any choice, the doing is sometimes a bit of a grind.

You mention you are writing - can you join a writing group or something similar? You need to get some headspace that is just for you.

Ah, I read "around DC" and I thought you were in Washington DC.

All the same, if you're fine financially and your kids are small, take advantage of being abroad to do something exciting. If not an MBA, then even just an evening course or two. Or see if you can't find a volunteer gig for the evenings, like being on a board or something.

It's easier to start this whilst the kids are small so the family can get into the pattern that both Mommy and Daddy have important work outside the home. If you wait to re-start your career I fear you'll find it harder, both in terms of the actual career and in terms of re-working the patterns in the home, if that makes sense.

Stardust that's interesting - I did it same way round as you and really highly value being a mum now, as the career, lovely as it was, didn't fulfil me half as much as DC do. Now they are older I have the career back too, so it is pretty perfect in lots of ways, except that the career I used to feel so passionately about simply doesn't hold the power it once did, whereas the DC are perpetually fascinating.

I am another one currently feeling the opposite - turning 30 in a few weeks & have a job that I enjoy, own a flat, have a good relationship with DP BUT keep having a wobble about why I'm not married and don't have DC yet. In the past 2-3 years quite a few friends have had their first DC & it is making me think about things a lot harder. When I was 20 I didn't think I'd be living in the same town or in the same relationship 10 years later. I am happy that this is the case, but still fret about the alternative ways things could have gone.

I think many people are not fully content with their big life choices, especially around birthdays.

Yeah I think I jut need to find my motivation again - basically stop being so self pitying and turn it into something positive. I DEFINATELY need headspace and time to myself which will be easier once DS starts school in August and DD goes to daycare more than one day a week.

I just can't help feeling sometimes I had all this potential to do something bigger and I'm turning out to be a bit of a disappointment

Americas - what's all this past tense stuff: you had the potential? Do you think life ends at 30? You've done a lot already and what's more, you have been sensible to have DC while you were quite young. So many women get sucked into a career they love and leave it too late. Of my closest friends from childhood, only two out of five of us have DC and everyone wishes they had, but three just never got round to it and now they are 50!

I went to a talk about adolescence the other day which said that results recently in suggest people don't finish maturing emotionally until they are about 27, so you are just two years into adulthood by that count with many many decades to go. You've barely started. Chin up!