To wonder when life got so... bleurgh?

[fatflaps]

Mid 30s, 2 DC under 5, married, work FT.

I'm not sure if it's apathy or depression or what but life feels a bit flat and like I scowl quite a lot.

I get frustrated easily and don't laugh very often. I guess I'm pretty uptight. I feel lazy and complacent and tired.

DH and I often rub each other up the wrong way. We haven't had sex for ages, like a year or something. I love him dearly but feel quite distant from him. I think he feels the same.

I have very little patience with the children to the point where today I've just put them in front of the telly so I can just switch off a bit. Then I feel guilty as I'm at work all week and, when I took this full time job, had intended to make the weekends all about the kids...

My parents are close by but I'm ashamed to say I'm not very tolerant of their set ways. I suspect DM is borderline narc so think I'm dealing with facing that too.

The house needs a lot of work and the work we have done is half finished.

I've just started a new hobby but I can feel the excuses to not bother going creeping in.

I find my friends hard work. Not particulate close geographically or emotionally to my siblings.

On the face of it, I've got noting to moan about (lovely family, good job paying well, nice house). Yet I am moany. There's not much joy in anything at the moment and I don't really know why. But it's not that I'm unhappy - just not specially happy either.

And i feel super brattish too as I'm fully aware that loads of people have proper/real/big/serious/devastating/tough shit going on and here's me moaning about, well, er, nothing really.

Is this normal? Does everyone else with small children feel a bit zombie-ish? I'd like to go and live a simple life on a desert island, or do something really adventurous that will really ignite some excitement. But alas, there's washing to be hung out and I need to magic something up for dinner................

I think a lot of people feel like this when their DC are small. It's so relentless and samey. I also think this is why so many mothers of young children tend to start drinking wine in the evenings - just to sort of mark the end of a drudgey day and do something an adult would do.

I'm only posting to say I was like this too but there is definitely hope as I found when the DC got older I felt more like me, like Miffle was an actual important person in her own right.

The biggest thing I found that helped when I felt like you describe in your OP was exercise, especially running outside, with music on headphones. Time on my absolute own, I was doing something good so not feeling guilty that I should be doing something else like washing up, targets to meet in that my next run would be slightly longer, something regular to look forward to, a sense of achievement after it was done and just generally feeling good - all of those things were missing in my life until then.

It does get easier I promise so please have hope, but of course if it's more depression than the normal ennui it's worth a trip to the GP.

I think part of it is just having something to look forward to, so if you can incorporate something in your life you enjoy (doesn't have to be exercise) and do it religiously it makes a difference.

By the way now, I am a very happy person (despite being disabled and missing my running!). I think perhaps I wasn't suited to the small people part of parenthood, it feels much easier to me now. Even though the stakes are higher with teens and they need lots of input and food and shoes, there isn't that need to be constantly supervised/entertained/factored into absolutely everything that I really really struggled with, with younger DC.

None of you are alone and it does get better. That's all I wanted to say!

I think Ybaby sums it up perfectly.

My DC are 17 (very nearly 18) and 10. The oldest is leaving school in June, working full time until next February and then off to Uni. DD2 is being assessed for ASD but at 10 I'm finding it an awful lot easier to deal with.

I remember the early days and how bloody draining it was. The endless days of work, nursery drop offs/pick ups, trying to get them to eat and bathed, potty training in the middle of it all, wet beds, endless washing and thinking -wtf have I done? where has MY life gone?'

But it does come back. Very gradually you find you have time for you again. Both you on your own and as a couple. DP and I have only been together four years so couple time has been extremely limited as we've always had my DC plus his DD around. The odd time mine weren't here, his were.

I think picking one 'day out as a family' a month is a good idea. You have a plan, something to look forward to and then something to look back and say 'yes I've taken my dc out and we've had a good time'. But it's ok for them to have to entertain themselves for a day at home. I certainly don't remember my parents endlessly playing with us as kids, we just cracked on and found something to do/play with and I think that's half the trouble now. Expectations have changed, parents are expected to be entertaining their kids all day, providing 'activities' to do, fucking 'craft time' .... just throw it all on a table and let them get on with it. You get an hour in peace to do whatever, then you all tidy up afterwards.

I really feel for you all and felt just the same until about 2 years ago - then the DC's grow wings and you suddenly forget the sleepless nights, endless running around and piles of washing .
A dear friend of mine told me it would be like this when I was in the middle of cross eyed exhaustion but like you musicposy I couldn't see it - too tired and poor at the time think! She was right though - and this thread has reminded me that I must tell her that she was!!
You do all still exist as do your relationships with DHs, partners, friends - and you will have time faster than you expect to take walks, have sex and even have a laugh together.
I have a horrible feeling that I'm sounding like a bad greetings card - but it really is true

I could have written this. Everything just feels so mundane and I'm fed up which really isn't like me.

I have a relatively senior job, it's really taking off which I'm thrilled about because I love it but as a previous poster said, doesn't help with the feeling that everyone just wants a piece of me.

Weekends are child activities, shopping, cleaning and everyone just sitting around on various devices. Suggestions to do anything more interesting are usually met with total apathy.

It feels like all my waking hours are taken up with drudgery.

Coffee that's a good idea about doing something all together once a month.

Now that I have the sort of reverse problem where I don't see so much of the DC, we try to find something we all like watching (currently masterchef) and sit down together regularly to watch. Sometimes the DC even offer to make me a cup of tea it's cosy

Oh dear that last post sounded a bit insensitive and smug in the context of the thread. Sorry. It wasn't meant to be.

Modern life is shit.
I just thank god I wasnt born 100 years ago as it would be this drudgery only worse.
We all get in a rut and thats why we need a holiday once a year, but if you cant afford that or cant get the time off then you don't even have that.

I had been feeling a bit like this and took some steps to improve things. Last week it all got on top of me a bit (also 2 under 5, and a very illness heavy year so far, them and me)

The things that help - reading. Whenever I can snatch the time, to disappear into a different world for a bit. I find it really helps me, gives me something to look forward to that doesn't take a lot of effort to arrange.

Fresh air, exercise even if only walking.

Engaging with/being silly with the kids. I find when I'm feeling down it's all too easy to focus on getting time to yourself, when actually pushing yourself to do it when you don't feel like it can be the best thing.

Today we were umming and ahhing about what to do and it looked like it was going to descend into TV, we ended up at local park and I did whatever they asked, ended up with lots of chasing and giggles and I felt so much better just for being outside and having a laugh with them. Sometimes it can be really simple as just saying yes when you want to say no. Sometimes sitting down and colouring with them, or rolling trucks around can be really meditative!

Watching a film with dh once a week, and reading the same books sometimes so we have conversations not about kids, other people, or work.

Conscious effort to be kinder and less snappy, it gets paid back and breaks the cycle.

It's funny you mention holidays.

I was adamant last year that after 3 years camping on the trot we would not be doing it again.

We got our passports sorted but have ended up spending a lot of money doing necessary (and lovely) work on the house and can't stretch to a holiday as well.

I have been fantasising a lot about going camping in the last week or so, just to be somewhere different, even though I know it's even more of a drudge fest than being at home

This is my life too.

Day after day after day of blurgh.

Two dc (8 and 5). The 5 yo is blooming hard work at the moment. The 8 yo is mostly lovely but both of them have a propensity to moan all the time.

Dh works ft; I work 30 over 4 days. I do all the housework. Dh says his contribution is the gardening but that's a joke. My workload at work is ridiculous. Attempts to address this in a meaningful way prompted my line manager to suggest counselling. And then giving me more to do. And then even more.

I organise holidays, extra curricular activities, food shopping, school stuff, get homework done. The lot.

There's no break in sight. We have no babysitters. It's our 10th wedding anniversary this year and we're resigned to the usual drudgery of the weekend in celebration.

We both have hobbies at least which is then saving grace and our dc are happy and healthy.

I think weekends with little ones can be tough, especially if you work FT, not least because you're puting yourself under pressure to achieve that elusive "quality family time". We've tended to have kids' activities on Saturday mornings. They get a bit of exercise & fun without much effort on our part, and come 11am you're all set up for the day, kids not climbing the walls and able to settle somewhat. Little routines or regular treats help - it doesn't have to be every week but stuff like getting bakery cakes on Saturday, or a magazine from the newsagent, or pancakes for breakfast, or breakfast or main meal out at some point in the weekend. Ideally perhaps we should be going on family hikes, or playing endless Educational Board Games to foster turn taking or something, but in reality if the kids' AM cinema or a Nando's recharges YOU better, then go with it.

It does get better as they get older, I promise.

Would it be worth you and DH taking a day's annual leave together, just because?

i could have written your post myself, i was lying in the bath earlier contemplating whether im depressed or if im just down because my life is so crap at the moment, i cant see a change in the near future and that in itself depresses me

Yep
And I don't work full Time!
My kids are older now but Dh works away and is about to go off in a long trip and I'm getting quite sad/angry/upset about it 🙄
I also have primary responsibility for my frail elderly mother - out of my siblings I work the fewest hours so in her eyes I'm always available 😡
Added to that I'm getting older and peri menopause and life isn't much fun ATM really.
No advice, just know you aren't alone!

We were like this but sil had the kids overnight for us a couple of months back so we could get away for a night. It was a massive help, esp as her and bil also cleaned the house. Try and get a night away if you can.

Generally we get on with jobs over the weekend (also renovating) while the kids just mooch about/help us. We have regular treats as well so we go to mil for a cake both days, just started picnic lunches in the garden, bbqs for their dinner type stuff to make the days a bit more fun for them.

We both work ft, kids are 15months and 2.7yrs.

I'm a SAHM and I feel this way! No family support at all. DH and I have had one night out together since DD was born 4.5years ago. We barely have time to even talk to each other without a small person demanding attention. Drives me crazy.

I wake in the morning and my day is defined by dull boring drudgery until I go to bed. I HATE laundry but it is endless.

When I have something I'd like to do for 'me' I find I either never have the time to do it, or it goes wrong and never happens. Queue a perpetual sense of frustration and despair and a sense of total failure.

I am lonely too.

And torn apart by guilt. I'll never have my DCs at this age again. Why am I incapable of revelling in it like others do?

I know I am going to look back with real distress one day, and even so find it impossible to change things. Life has become quite hard.

I need to shut 'me' in a box and just knuckle down and accept that for the next few years I am simple Wife, Mother, Daughter & Employee.

I think former generations were satisfied with these identities and could take pride in them. The striving for personal identity and fulfilment is a reasonably recent (? late C 20th) preoccupation. That's not meant as a criticism of you, btw, but rather a suggestion that we have a lot to learn from our forebears.

Oh my god, I have found my people!

A pp said about so many different people 'wanting a piece' of her - that's it. Being pulled in all directions.

I have one 4yo, there is no way in hell I could handle two dc. My solution is to give up work. I work 4pm-9pm or 5pm-10pm plus 10-1 Saturday mornings. I get up at 7.30 every day to feed dress and spend a bit of time with small person before school as I go to work as school finishes.

I'm out of the house until 11pm two nights per week, I have no energy to exercise, cook, clean, tidy the garden, tidy a cupboard etc. DH works from home but between 4pm-9.30 he is with dc, then he goes back to work until 1am or whenever he has finished.

We are like housemates who have a child

I'm at the end of my tether.

So I have quit! DH woll be able to work decent hours, I'll be able to try out new recipes and batch cook (I have fuck all interest or time now) the house will be clean, birthday cards will be sent on time, I'll have time to ride my bike, sew, organise our monstrously huge collection of photos, read a book, get some sleep!

Oh and we have no help with dc, not a single minute a year. It has been very very hard.

After writing this I now feel quite sad that there are more people feeling the same

I think we need a misery club section on mumsnet to home us all!

I can't remember the last time I sent a non-immediate family birthday card, it's FB at best these days and I bought my poor dad's a day late in the supermarket end route to visit him today.

I think the personal identity thing is a recent invention but I'm a late 20th century woman and my gran was a suffragette so I guess I have a modern outlook and rebellious genes!

I could have written your post op. Two dc's here as well. Both under 5. I'm a SAHM. Lately I've felt like running away from it all. I love them so much but some days are too much. Argh!

Yes yes yes I really feel this. 2 kids under 5, no family help and therefore no time away from kids with DH. Lack of sex periodically becomes a problem, I get very frustrated and that makes me cranky with everyone. I have been on anti-depressants & have definitely been drinking too much but have recently realised that I am simply very bored. I'm a SAHM & find having no identity (or life) outside of Mom & Wife very hard.

I think largely because of social media, there is so much pressure to be having an amazing time, all of the time. It's like every day should be an adventure, particularly over the school holidays. Rather than surfing on my iPad while the kids just hang out at home, I feel like we should be baking, all of us looking like something out of Cath Kidtson advert & producing something that Mary Berry would be proud of. Or fucking crafting, as another poster has said 😬 It's like I'm expected to be the perfect Mom (providing constant play, educational yet fun experiences out of school, keeping on top of all the crap that comes with school -clubs and homework and parties). And the perfect wife (thin, groomed, never too knackered for sex!) And the worst part is, these expectations are largely coming from me - I've totally bought into the perfect woman myth.

But since coming off the meds I have tried to keep it simple & just ensure I make the effort to do small things that make me feel better. Things that work for me are blocking time off to be alone (I often go to the cinema on a Sunday morning by myself, I get a huge cup of tea & switch off for a few hours, it's lovely), trying to make time for quality sex (IYSWIM!), reading a good book rather than getting caught up in surfing the net, having something lovely & luxurious to put in the bath mid-week to make me feel a bit pampered. I think it's the little things that can help to stop life feeling so repetitive and mundane, and as a previous poster has said, re-setting expectations.

God...I'm so glad I opened this thread. I've also been trying to work out if I'm actually clinically depressed or whether it is just the sheer drudgery of life which is getting me down a bit. I work FT and am out of the house from 6.45-5.45 every day. DH is a SAHD with our almost-2.10 and almost-1.9 year olds.

Life is relentless. And quite samey / dull. I've been ill on and off since December and have very little enthusiasm for anything. My job is pissing me off a bit but that's the way of the world, I suppose.

We keep saying to each other that in a year it'll be better, and keep returning to that thought every few months! I think that once the kids are more capable of being independent life will feel slightly less rubbish! I adore my kids, but by god I'm knackered!

I often feel like this too. I have so many little things I need to do but am so good at procrastinating it's unreal.

I need to chase the builder to get the electrician and plumber round to finish the jobs they started a year ago. I need to change dentist and I need to phone up to get a vaccination I have needed for over a year.

My two are 13 and 5 and on the whole it is a great age gap but I have one that is less needing of me in physical ways and one that still very much needs a lot of my undivided attention.

I'm just fed up of the relentless housework even though dh probably does more than I do. But most of all I'm sick of being tired all.the.time.

It's nice to feel that I'm not alone in feeling knackered and too stretched. Early night planned in preparation for the week ahead!

This is a very useful post. I have a lOVELY life, 2 dc's I adore, house in the country I love.... but I'm so consumed with servicing elderly dogs that have issues and keeping the housework show on the road, that I forget who I am and what I like. I need to focus more on myself. I'm certainly not depressed. Very happy really. But I never have long to sit still and appreciate it. The poster who said focus on one thing at a time - that is excellent advice which I intend to follow.... Dare I say, is that mindfulness?