To feel sad I’ve never married or had children

[Weddingwishes]

I am moving house and emptying drawers that haven’t been emptied for years () and looking at photographs from friends weddings around ten years ago. Somehow in a flash you’re not young any more and it feels like I’ve lost an opportunity I didn’t know was there.
P

But to be fair, if you change exactly nothing things are unlikely to improve.

Yeah, becoming a foster carer, travel the world (on no money!) is bonkers advice, but there are small things that can make long term differences.
As can changing your expectations.
I don't know anyone who met Mr right at 50 and had 8 kids, but I do know people who have chosen routes that were different to what they had hoped or expected, often with fairly happy results.
Sometimes hanging on to an ideal is the thing that holds you back.

Then when I had fertility issues, I got sick of the advice to 'just relax and go on holiday and it will happen'. It wasn't true, I was infertile and no amount of sex was going to lead to me conceiving.

That is so shit isn’t it. It’s basically telling you you are responsible for the fact you’re not conceiving. It’s not just that your body is not working properly.

Posters can be overbearing and then useful messages get lost. Blunt shouldn't be an excuse for being careless about people's feelings.

So what if OP had posted before. There's a chance someone who is lonely and has no family might not have found a way to be ok with that straight off. Maybe posters of previous threads felt lectured, not heard.
Change takes time.

And I don't think loneliness, discontent, nor even depression need to be shifted to the MH board. They are sadly very common difficult feelings.

The other chestnut I got sick of hearing was, 'I have a friend who adopted a child and then miraculously got pregnant.' That was said so many times. Actually once I had adopted DD1 the last thing I would have wanted would have been to get pregnant.

Why don't some people think before they open their mouths??

There are some useful suggestions on here though in terms of support & counselling. The OP didn’t mention fertility issues (I don’t think) but could go to a fertility clinic to find out her options if that’s what she wanted to do. Or find out about adoption etc. If money is an issue, what about having a lodger for a while? It could also help with saving. These are small steps to potentially making a big change... Another poster mentioned that weekends are the worst & I think that’s true when you’re feeling lonely & fed up with life. I would try to speak to friends about how you’re feeling too - I’m sure they would be supportive

I understand how tedious unwanted advice can be. I've had my own situations that were out of my control.
But still dividing your Saturday into time slots to fill is hard. Once in a while is ok. But if every weekend is like that, no one else is going to grab your diary and pencil things in. Filling your Saturday with friends and activities won't solve loneliness but might give the op a little bit of drive to change whatever she wants to change.
And also I know I could lose 2 stone by eating less and running more but I'm not in the right place to find that motivation so I know how inertia can set in, even when the solution appears easy and is totally up to you.

yep, if people aren't going to sympathise or discuss experience, or having been in similar situations etc., what else would you expect on a thread like this?

Polly, I posted your comment again because I thought you had said something op found useful. I didn't mean to draw attention to the comments about you being unkind. Sorry, should have just posted the first bit.

OP I have posted before about loneliness and I could post every day..feel free to keep posting.

Sometimes I want to vent but often it’s bottled inside me. Like you I’m described as a Sunshine...always smiling....maybe I’m trying to fool myself but I guess I’m pleasing others in my outward appearance.

I’m sociable with friends anyway but I need to make more of an effort to engage with new people meetup etc. Online dating provided some heartache so I’ve not been on for a while but there are wonderful people out there it’s just finding them...it is a numbers game and luck game.
Also confidence plays a factor and unfortunately a recent comment about my appearance and something I can’t change hit me hard but I’m learning to deal with it. I guess people have thought it but been too polite to say anything while this man was straight to the point.

I have my highs and lows and totm is a particular low.

I hope you feel happier soon. It’s hard ...I went to bed early Friday and yesterday because of loneliness.

Learning to deal with loneliness is sometimes a daily struggle but making plans even little things like a good book, treats, music etc like another poster said helps me.

Your not alone

Op your situation is very unusual in the fact you don’t have a family around . I imagine that is exacerbating your lonely feelings even further - and as a PP said you might have been experiencing low level depression for a very long time . You know / life is shit and hard and not everyone is blessed . I feel a lot of empathy

If you were my friend I would be marching you to both get some low level anti depressants and then some counselling to help you further

I also hear that the voluntary experience isn’t working but well done for trying

From reading the whole thread I do read some depression which is why every sugesstion Is rejected .

I think if you feel brave enough some MH treatment will help give you a base to work off

Best of luck - you deserve more

Polly I think you have made some good suggestions actually

I think the problem is OP is so flat and plain out of hope she can’t even imagine anything working for her ? I have seen that a lot with depressed people they are scared to try in case it fails and don’t have the energy

And maybe I am an armchair psychologist who knows fuck all !

Loneliness is so hard. Most of my friends have drifted away as they've got married and had children and feels so unfair. I completely agree with the comment about relationships and meeting someone is often down to luck. I have often been on the receiving ends of platitudes and unhelpful comments usually from people that are in a happy long term relationship and have never been in this position. While I understand that people in the main are trying to help it just feels like unless you've been in that position you cannot really understand.

'This thread is pretty much bingo for annoying and insensitive platitudes for single and/or childless women
so you don't want advice, or empathy or ideas...what do you want to people to say? All they are left with if they don't post their own experiences or advice is " well thats your life OP, get on with it". And you'd jump all over that.
OP posts repeatedly, changing only minor details. The tone is always the same, and when people try and help, other people who don't have anything helpful jump all over them! What a monumental waste of time.

OP if you are still reading, no you are DNU to be upset at what might have been. If your future glitters, and I hope it does, your regrets will still be valid. And I agree with previous posters who likened the situation to grieving.

As it happens, I have no living close blood relatives at all and had an “interesting” upbringing, so I understand how it is, to feel apart from pretty nearly everyone else on the planet, even when it’s not strictly true.

In my case my DH has a large family and so my DC have not lost out, but there are only photos of my relatives and no stories to flesh out that hinterland, and at times I feel alone, as if I have borrowed a family, that I don’t deserve.

I’m telling you this because I finally went for counselling around 18 months ago, and one of the themes the therapist picked up was how I set myself rules. Ridiculous made up rules. Rules about how I couldn’t do this or mustn’t do that, at least not before doing something else. The therapist made me realise that the restrictions I put upon myself were artificial, and that I didn’t have to do anything I didn’t want to.

I can “hear” similar rules as you write. You say you can’t give up a miserable volunteer role because it’s needed? Give yourself permission to stop. You are bubbly? Give yourself permission to be miserable. Next time someone says how are you? be honest, or at the very least don’t lie. You don’t like lonely Sundays? Give yourself permission to do something you would enjoy that would make you less lonely. And lovely, get yourself to a counsellor. Work through your head with a professional and see where it leads you. I hope it’s a brighter future

Lovely post buttered

I really understand what you are feeling. I came out of a bad relationship, which left me living on my own, absolutely brassic, incredibly lonely and then I lost my dad. I could go whole weekends without talking to anyone. At work, people saw me as smiley, but looking back I think the negativity was pouring off me. My mum tried to help, but I was too bogged down in grief to help myself. It hit me hardest when I came home from work. During this time I met some unsuitable men, I guess I didn't think I was worth anything else. There are no magic bullets to happiness so I won't try to advise any, but I will say how I turned a corner. Someone gave me a compliment, a complete stranger. They said the right thing when I needed it most and it gave me such a lift. Then things started to snowball, I counted all of the little good things and triumphs that occurred during each day, it slowly built my confidence up. In the end I was confident enough to change my job and I met my husband. I think my change in outlook attracted people and opportunities...but if somebody would of told me this before I turned a corner, I wouldn't have taken it on board. The only thing I would say is think about a trip to your GP, if you don't think you can do that then at least check you are getting enough vitamins (esp B), it can make a world of difference to general mood.

I think OP is getting a hard time from some (well-meaning) posters.

She didn’t post asking for ideas on how to change her life; fostering, travel, social groups...it just doesn’t suit everyone, certainly would not suit me and is quite different to the idea we all envisage of meeting someone naturally and having a family. She asked if she WBU for feeling sad.

OP YANBU. Sometimes life is sad and disappointing and sometimes we realise that very suddenly. It’s ok to feel sad and acknowledge your feelings and I hope in doing so you will come to accept them.

You know something similar happened to me giddy Gardner. A stranger recognised what was going on with me, walked up and said he went through the same thing and it was the worst thing that he had ever gone through. And then he walked away.
No one had ever acknowledged what I was dealing with, let alone empathised before. It meant and still means the world to me. I'm always kind to strangers where I can.

Hi Wedding I totally get where you're coming from. Not got any solutions but of course you're not bu for feeling sad.
Ask for the thread to be moved to relationships if you haven't already hidden it.

I haven't RTFT yet because after reading the first few replies I feel posters are missing the point, and I wanted to say your feelings are definitely valid and you aren't being unreasonable at all. It isn't a case of the grass being greener, or the whole 'well you couldve travelled' etc. Part of being a woman, for most women - not all, is that expectation or desire to become a mother before it's too late. I don't know how that actually feels but I really feel for you.

Although though I have children, and lots of them, I can really sense that feeling of loss of what could have been from you. It can be hard to realise that, and many have described it as grieving for the family you haven't had.

I hope you can come to terms with this realisation and find something worthwhile in you life that may fill that void.

Op your situation is very unusual in the fact you don’t have a family around

Sadly, it is very common to feel isolated through not having family around, it is the modern disease. 'Community' has fallen away nowadays, as people work increasingly long hours, or have shifted their home base away from family to a different area to find work.

I wish the OP could be open to new ideas, along the lines of "friends are the family we choose for ourselves". She seems to have given up trying, creating a negative thought pattern about "loss of what I cannot have", instead of being hopeful at creating her own possibilities for the future, to meet her own needs. Maybe there is some depression creeping in, we will never know.

The OP is definitely is not old, but age can sometimes become a way of thinking....

@Slanetylor me too. I always give meaningful compliments, that person didn't change my life but they certainly made me turn a corner and I will be forever grateful. The right words can (sometimes seemingly small ones) can really make a difference.

'Op your situation is very unusual in the fact you don’t have a family around'

That's not unusual. Plenty of people don't have family around, they've had to move for work, family has died, moved away, were toxic, etc.

I don't think she said she didn't have any family around in the sense of being geographically close.

I think (without going back several pages to check) she said she didn't have any.

No parents, no siblings, no aunts, uncles, cousins etc.

I questioned why because to lose both parents by the time you are 40 is pretty tough for sure. or if it's a case of being estranged, that's surely worth telling people so we can see the whole picture?

I've mentioned counselling several times Buttered and also something like CBT which would challenge her thinking. Or even a coach (often qualified in counselling too) to challenge her thought patterns and behaviour.

All seems to have fallen on deaf ears.

I don't know what else the OP wants. Handholding is all very well, but if she keeps coming back to MN time after time saying the same thing, but not wanting solutions or strategies, it's really hard to keep empathising alone. Because only she can bring about change.

here- she says she has no living relatives.

I have no one alive who is a relative, that is correct, some of the relatives you listed there I have never had so it is not that they passed away, they just do not exist.