Aibu to ask if you are living the life you hoped for?

[thelastjedi]

Hi all,

Just wanted to get some views to see if people are living he life they want to live basically being nosey.

On paper I have the life I've always aspire to have, two kids, my own home, a very good career that lets me work 4 days a week with pension, good holidays etc.

In reality I am so tired from keeping up this existence and I have a bad hip/pelvis which started to play up over a year ago and hasn't been right since. I'm still young-ish and I just feel I'm on the treadmill of life, commute, pick ups from after school club and childminders and rushing around like a maniac every evening before bedtime only to have very early starts the next day with a long commute to work.

If I could go back in time and tell my younger self that by the time I was 30 I would have a great career,two gorgeous kids and my own (mortgaged) place, younger self would have thought my life was set. Present self feels like it's not all it's cracked up to be.

So.... is it normal to feel this way or would you say your life is what you expected it to be and do you enjoy it?

I'm not trying to sound ungrateful but sometimes I wish life would let me have time to take stock of things instead of moving in a hurried blur.

Nope - and not sure what to do about it :(

No.

As a teenager I imagined lots of good things like travel, job

What I failed to imagine were all the bad\unexpected things that life throws at us !

So far I have managed to get through all the bad times

I have had a better life than I expected
I have good health, friends, family, job, hobbies and I have traveled and seen things that I could never have imagined, so I am happy

I know people who are not so fortunate or not as strong to get through the hard times. So I consider myself to be very lucky

I think that some of the decisions that I have made in life have helped me so far

What I hoped for has changed a lot over the years.

But an honest answer is yes. It's all I'd hoped for. The reality is harder at times, as it is for everyone, but what we have we value so we're incredibly lucky.

I love my life more than I would have imagined.

I was widowed at 25, I have been raped, beaten and abused. I have been homeless and been remanded in prison for months for a crime I did not commit. Released and charges dropped.

I don't take any second of my very average life for granted.
I love every moment of my life.

Yes, I think possibly better than I hoped for.
There have been some bumpy times but I love my DH and DC and we are all happy and healthy. I enjoy my new career, life is good.
I think my 18 yr old self would be pretty pleased.

No, but I'd have been miserable in the life I planned and this one, while not perfect, is better than the one I'd planned and certainly better than I deserve.

I have a husband, beautiful kids, my own (small) home that I love, a good job, degree, reasonable amount of money (not loads but we're young and it'll increase). I've got nice clothes and can plan nice holidays. Stuff I wanted on paper when I was younger. I haven't got any friends though. I've never really had close friends, don't know what's wrong with me. It's impossibly lonely. When I was younger I guess I thought things would change when I left school, but nope.

I don't know. Growing up I always wanted to be different. I am, in that I was sexually abused very badly for a long time and have OCD. I can be a control freak and every day feels like a battle. I've been in some really dark places. I truly believe the worst place anyone can be is trapped inside their own mind. I guess I got my 'I want to be different to everyone else' wish in some ways.

On paper I have it good. Married, earn well, nice house, cars owned outright etc. But I've had tremendous emotional turmoil the last two years on top of what I had growing up. I've never been convinced I'll make the to 30. I feel cursed.

AndmoneforGretchenweiners I am so sorry Xxx

As a child/teenager growing up in a Eastern European [former] Communist country, I always expected that I would finish high-school, go to University, meet my future husband there, get a job and then get married [or the other way around], have a flat of 3-4 rooms, furnish it gradually, have 1-2 children and work in the same place until I retire. Go to a seaside holiday every summer, maybe a trip to the mountains every year, maybe once every few years a trip abroad, send the children to school camps, spend Christmas and New Years' Eve with my extended family in my home town/the town where I live...and wait for the kids to grow older and give me grandchildren.

I ended up studying abroad, meeting my future husband there, moving and getting married in a totally different country, studying more, changing careers twice, doing some crazy and totally interesting jobs/work, travelling more than I would have dreamt of 20 years ago. And spending some holidays in places I didn't even know that existed - or barely read about in adventure books. My extended family is spread everywhere around the world. I do have two children, as planned though

My family and I are healthy, and without being well off, we have enough to be comfortable, I am quite happy with my life, even though it is really different from what I used to hope for

no in the sense I'm. a single mum with no money.
Yes in the sense I have a more beautiful dd than I could ever of wished for and I have my health and a roof over my head which is more than some and I'm grateful for that.

@Honeycombcrunch my mum suggested I should go for an MRI so that's something I will look into soon.
Unfortunately I don't tend to do a lot of sitting in my job, I am generally on my feet all day. My hip only started playing up when I went back to work after mat for dc2 in the latter part of 2016. So I make the connection it's my job that causes it though maybe the pregnancy didn't help if that makes sense?

To all those who enjoy the time they have and how life has panned out, I say fair play to you . I am totally driven to getting my goals so I know that this phase of my life is temporary and not permanent, it won't always be this hard. At the same time no one knows what's around the corner but I totally believe i will get where I want to be eventually.

To those who have got themselves out of bad relationships and have come through the hard times fighting, I take my hat off to you. This life throws some fairly wacky things out at the best of times! I planned my life fairly 'linearly' from an early age and it's mostly followed that trajectory. The one thing I couldn't bank on was the failed relationships, lone parenting and MH issues. But I am strong and won't be defeated for long.

I'm going to try and stay positive, I just have to be patient and have hope that I will get to the really enjoyable bits eventually.

Mat leave*

I am typing this from the bathroom while my children fight outside. The younger me (who didn’t think she wanted children) would be a bit but also a bit at how lucky I have been.

I made some mistakes, took some risks and opportunities- some of which didn’t work out- and over the years life has panned our completely differently to anything I could have predicted. My hopes have also evolved too.

It’s different and the younger me might have been disappointed at how normal it all is, but one of my DC almost died some years back and so I genuinely feel lucky every day. Doesn’t mean I want to step out of this bathroom and actually deal with the DCs’ fight, though, but here I go anyway...

Sounds like you’ve done really well, OP, and there’s no harm in evaluating and changing things if you want more. It’s okay, honest

I was a very bright geeky kid and I have a disability. At school I was always part of the cool crowd but boys totally put me in the friends zone. I was about 18 before I even kissed anyone. I accepted that I would never have a husband or children and totally reconciled myself to a sort of spinster blue stocking type future.

At uni however, guys seemed to like me, which was confusing. But no one ever took me seriously as wife material.

When I was 25 and living a great life in London I met DP who is gorgeous and charming and kind android wonderful and immeadiately fell for him, like every other woman he has ever met. Because he was so far out of my league, and had a string of beautiful exciting girlfriends, I was just always myself with him, with no agenda at all. We became best friends and about two years after we first met he declared he was madly in love with me.

That was nearly 30 years ago. We have 4 lovely happy kids and are very comfortable financially. He's a fantastic Dad. I never had much of a career as such after being a SAHM, but we had our own business which did really well. The only thing I would change is that my disability has deteriorated and my mobility is pretty bad. DH is adamant that it won't hold us back from enjoying life though; he,'s always organising accessible holidays and stuff for us to do.

Interestingly I had this conversation with some of my uni friends recently and confessed I'd always been convinced I'd never find any sort of partner, let alone someone like DH, and they were totally incredulous. They reckoned I was fighting them off with a stick for years and just utterly oblivious of it.

That's wonderful to read @TinklyLittleLaugh.

No I'm definitely not. Except for having my children who make it all worthwhile. Life has pulled the rug out from under me so many times that I don't have the energy to alter it much. I'm grateful for what we do have but I'd like to live rather than just exist.

I don’t really know a person who is. But it’s important to make the best of it

I forgot to add that I think I have a better life and opportunities than the generations that lived in my family before me

I guess that is the best that we can hope for

I also have no regrets so far

When i was at school and Uni i thought i'd get a job job/career i loved and was good at and it would be fulfilling. I quickly realised i hated working and the kind of jobs i was going to have to do were not suited at all to my skills and temperament. So i spent years doing 1-2 years in admin monkey jobs while i got bullied and treated like shit because i was crap at them and should never had been there but had no real other options to pay my bills. I decided then that work in that way was not for me. There has been compromises but i'm now in a life where i currently don't 'work for money' and i'm not planning to.

My first husband also decided he didn't want kids after 11 years together and stringing me along. I now have 3 which i am grateful for as that was something i wanted. But i expected to have them in my 20s and early 30s not late 30s/early 40s,

I suppose i have 70% of what i expected. Just later in life.

Have had a very happy marriage, two wonderful children, now adults whom I am very proud of, but I wished when I was younger that I had entered the Church, initially as a lay preacher and then who knows perhaps a Minister. An unfulfilled wish.

@andnoneforGretchen I am so sorry💐

No but by and large that's ok. I thought I would have 3 DC but colicky DS put an end to that. I am happily married though with my gorgeous DS, two fab cats and own a lovely house although I would never have imagined living in the city I do live in.

The main thing is my job. I was a high achiever at school and was always told that I had a glittering future. Am in a managerial position but gosh I hate it and feel trapped due to mortgage, childcare etc. Am young though so time to change it when DS is in school 😀 my best friend and I are bitter at how school utterly failed to prepare us for reality though

I'm delighted with how my life has turned out, though most others may not think it's a successful one. Loss, heartbreak and life events have completely moved my priorities around and what seemed like disasters at the time have become enormous blessings that have sorted my head out. I'm over the moon with my healthy kids, modest home and average marriage. I feel so so lucky.