To think that single people's love lives are hard too

[Mctastisch]

I'm in my 20s and haven't yet had a serious boyfriend. A lot of my friends have and I sometimes feel like when they break up with bfs or chat about their relationships, they feel like their experiences are more valid than mine. But to me sometimes smaller things take on more importance eg the very early stages of getting to know someone because I've not yet experienced the intensity of a relationship. Anyone know what I mean?!

YANBU. Your experiences are your own. In the same way that someone's broken leg doesn't make your broken toe less painful to you.

It's all subjective anyway. Some people can end a 10 year with a bit of sadness and not much more, as the relationship was dead on both sides. Others may be very upset over much shorter. Depends on the relationship, the people involved and what else is going on in your life.

You aren't BU!

It's bloody hard when you are in the dating pool! I hated dating. I hated the whole, people I liked weren't interested and the people I wasn't interested in were interested in me.

Wasn't easy, but I did have a few serious-ish relationships then I met my husband.

As a parting piece of advice, make the most of your single life, settling down isn't the be all and end all

Are you splitting with your husband then

Thanks all.

No way am I trying to compare my dating problems with splitting up with a husband or dp!

As I said I'm in my 20s and so the vast majority of my friends in relationships are semi-serious but not married. A few of them chose to break up with their boyfriends recently for one reason or another and i was there for them. They were sad for the end of their relationships but it was their choice.

injust feel a bit dismissed sometimes... Like oh Mctastisch can't possibly know what we're going through...

I dislike any kind of competitiveness. It's a way of denying someone's feelings, which isn't a very nice thing to do. And it's unbelievably silly. Would you compare a 10-year marriage ending complete with custody battle to someone who's ex-partner has killed himself and the DC? Of course, not unless you're a twat.

It's not a competition. If it matters to the person who's feeling it, that's enough. The expression everything is relative can be useful to keep a sense of perspective (the world isn't ending if you don't have the right kind of milk for your cornflakes, for example), but it's crass beyond belief to tell someone that something that is causing them genuine pain isn't as bad as... whatever.

Hope you feel better soon OP.

No, of course not!! But I do feel somewhat sad that I didn't live much of life before being settled down. I'm very happy with the way life is, I just wish I'd have had some time to find myself before finding someone else to spend my life with.

I was with my daughters dad from 13-18 engaged at 18 and stayed with the same guy from 18-19 split up with him and ended up with the man who is now my husband from the age of 20 onwards....

I just look back and think how nice it would have been if I wasn't so concerned with settling down and enjoyed life by myself for a bit.

OP- it's not fair of them to shrug you off because your relationships haven't been as serious. My shortest relationship caused me the most heartache.
I felt hardly a twinge of upset when me and DDs daughter split up. As a previous poster said its about the people,?-'d the connection you felt.
X

They were sad for the end of their relationships but it was their choice. Well, not really.

Yes mrsterry, they were the ones who chose to end them ie my friends were the parties who chose to broke up with their bfs because they thought things weren't working

That's my point, things weren't working. You don't choose to have a relationship not work out. You desperately want it too and it doesn't. I 'chose' to end my first marriage. There really was no choice. And, it was very sad.

Anyway, it's a bit like on here when people without children don't get what people with children are saying. They can't. They just haven't been there yet. It's not a judgement, it's a fact.

Your friends shouldn't be minimising your experiences but they are different.

I think that a lot of people tend to see only LTR and marriages as "real" relationships and forget that a lot of people may be having, through no choice of their own, shorter relationships or struggle to find someone.

One of the problems, when you've been married a long time, is that you forget how bloody difficult it was being out there in the dating world. Or maybe you are one of the lucky ones who meet "the one" early on and are still together years later.

It's not the length of time that you're with someone that counts, it is what you have emotionally invested in the relationship.