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AIBU?

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Original poster

To not understand suburban/domestic bliss

316 replies

saltnpepa · 08/04/2015 19:32

I am beginning to wonder if I am the only person that doesn't aspire to the suburban/domestic dream of a detached modern house with a double garage, manicured lawn and 2 weeks a year in Tenerife. It seems adverts on TV and pretty much everywhere sell this dream, this image of modern family life, but it leaves me cold at best and fills me with dread at worst. Surely there's more to life than that?

OP posts:
fourteen · 08/04/2015 20:51

I used to be the "shoot me if I ever go to the canaries on a package holiday" type snob person.

Now I'm a single parent to two we bloody love our week in the sun Grin

Different priorities...

daisychain01 · 08/04/2015 20:51

The freedom of being openly and willingly uncool is immensely liberating I like your uncool style, there Charles. I have been potting up pansies today in the sunshine, in my slippers Grin

nunkspugget · 08/04/2015 20:52

I also keep my front yard tidy out of neighbourly duty. I'm thinking about getting a 'BURB LIFE' tattoo on my knuckles.

Original poster
saltnpepa · 08/04/2015 20:54

I have said how I feel about that life for me, not sneered at anyone who has it, in a way I envy the capacity to be contented with what most people seem to aim for. Interestingly lots of people have alluded to taking more risks when being younger and that 'growing up' seems to equal the suburban 'dream' Perhaps I live that life and would like to get out of it? I certainly don't live on a sodding narrow boat or knit my own cabbages.

OP posts:
Idontseeanydragons · 08/04/2015 20:58

Problem is you seem to be look at it as either one or the other. You can be contented living in a nice area with a mortgage and 2.4 children if you like but still take risks, go off the beaten track and not grow up too much - if you have that choice then take it, many people do. Smile

HagOtheNorth · 08/04/2015 20:59

So what more do you want? Confused
Do you want to live wild with or without your children and other members of your family holding you back?
Do you want to be a rock star in a hotel suite?
What?
Or is it just that you are rejecting the domestic dream and haven't got a clue what you want instead?

DisgraceToTheYChromosome · 08/04/2015 20:59

Look at the Disgraces: a middle aged couple, somewhat overweight, living in an ex-council house. Two cars, one child.

Look further back: he's slept in ditches, she got her first indoor toilet when she was 9. Their knees creak from motorcycle crashes. They've done rude things in public. They've seen lots of dead people, some of them still in one piece. Sunrise on the Eiger, big air traverses, driving round Spa-Francorchamps. She came out of Rush grinning (she marshalled at Silverstone when James Hunt was testing the Hesketh).

Dull is good.

expatinscotland · 08/04/2015 20:59

'in a way I envy the capacity to be contented with what most people seem to aim for.'

Oh, please.

HagOtheNorth · 08/04/2015 21:01

I've got friends who live on the Oxford canal in a delightful narrowboat, what objections do you have to that? Very unsuburban.

duplodon · 08/04/2015 21:02

I aspire to be as emotionally free as I can be: open, present and doing what I truly believe, deep in my heart, to be my life's purpose.

I think many, many people want these things.

What makes you think where these things happen makes the blindest bit of difference to the overall quality and purpose of your life? Yurt or semi-d, dos it matter?

CharlesRyder · 08/04/2015 21:03

Oh yes daisychain.

Love watching springwatch too. Grin

I think to some extent the secret of being happy is just wanting what you've got, OP. Hankering after something 'else' that perhaps you can't even fully define sounds like a recipe for unrest to me.

Gralick · 08/04/2015 21:04

Ahbollocks, make sure to PM when your memoirs are published!

HormonalHeap · 08/04/2015 21:06

Each to their own. If you're able to do what makes you happy whatever that is, then surely you are lucky? What else is life about?

I think what one wants is influenced by one's life so far and even more what was lacking in it. I've never had money or stability- now about to move to stunning new house with stable, loving dh and my dcs- yes of course im happy as pie. If I'd always had that I'm sure I'd have wanted something very different.

MirandaGoshawk · 08/04/2015 21:07

I'm not so sure it's about things exactly, as in "I need a woodburner/chickens/holidays in Mauritious in order to be happy" - most of us could carve out happiness in the 3-bed detached or a narrowboat or a Scottish croft, etc if we chose to and put our minds to it. It's more about what's going on in your head, what type of person you are. Some people would be miserable wherever they are.

HagOtheNorth · 08/04/2015 21:08

What sort of a childhood did you have?
Do you equate suburbia with negativity and the doldrums? Stagnation?
Are you terrified of becoming your mother?

Maliceaforethought · 08/04/2015 21:08

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

MirandaGoshawk · 08/04/2015 21:09
RumAppleGinger · 08/04/2015 21:10

Ha! I'll see your manicured lawn and raise you a fucking sewing circle!

fourteen · 08/04/2015 21:10

Why do you presume that those living in suburbia are contented?

Looking at many of the threads on here, I suspect suburbia is a seething mass of jealousy, affairs, abusive relationships, parking disputes and benefits cheating Smile

daisychain01 · 08/04/2015 21:10

'in a way I envy the capacity to be contented with what most people seem to aim for.'

Yup, I'd definitely aim a lot higher if I were you.

fourteen · 08/04/2015 21:13

Are you stuck in a boring suburban life OP?

If so, what do you want to change?

MirandaGoshawk · 08/04/2015 21:13

OP. if you think that most people seem to be strive for the 3-bed/Tenerife model you describe, are you thinking that this lacks imagination? That they are becoming part of the machine Matrix and lack imagination? You are afraid that you will turn into a robot like them?

Please tell us what you think - need more info as to why this life "fills you with dread".

nunkspugget · 08/04/2015 21:15

Being differrent and unique is such hard work though! I was exhausted with being cool by the end of college Smile and am probably at my peak of happiness now as suburbanite.

CharlesRyder · 08/04/2015 21:17

I would like to know what you would like your life to be like too OP. Genuinely nosey interested, no bashing planned.

WilburIsSomePig · 08/04/2015 21:19

It depends on your experiences doesn't it? I moved around so much when I was young and had moved 17 in the space of 3 years. Clothes in a bin bag and move on for a couple of months etc. Didn't bother me at the time and is now my idea of hell on earth. I live in an old house in a small village, two DCs, I'm a TA, have a dog and a nice social life. You'd have to drag me out of here kicking and screaming as I realised about 10 years ago that I like feeling settled. I feel pretty fucking lucky now and how others live their life doesn't interest me at all.